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Tuesday, August 04, 2009
This Grass Has Plastic Roots
This is the bus supplied by Americans for Prosperity for the rally against health care yesterday in Winston-Salem. (Hat-tip: this and other pics gratefully found here.)Grassroots, right? Yeah. Uncle Ted and Aunt Esther and some of their friends found themselves an old touring bus, and with some gallons of flat paint and a few camel-hair brushes, they painted that sucker to exercise their American right to disagree.
Well, no. This is "astroturf," so-called because it's fake grass(roots).
Americans for Prosperity started the tea-bagging movement. It's funded by corporations and other rich guys who've figgered out how to con the modestly salaried into screaming about taxes. Other than the outside agitators they bussed into Winston yesterday, they attracted local Republican activists, Paularoid remnants, birthers, the "Obama is the devil" crowd, and racists (but I repeat myself).
Madam Doctor Virginia Foxx was there and didn't say a word about the government putting old people to death. Instead, she harped on abortion, claiming that proposed health-reform was really a sneaky way to force teenaged girls to abort their babies.
Many in the crowd were clearly over 65 and therefore already on Medicare, that terrible, socialistic, government-run insurance program that they claim they're dead-set against. They are either willfully ignorant, or duped, or simply hateful, but all of them are serving the interests of big corporations who've labored all these years to take over our government and who have no intention of relinquishing their grip now.
Labels: astroturf, health care, medicare, Republican "brand", Virginia Foxx
Monday, April 27, 2009
Astroturfing at UNC-Chapel Hill
Scharrison does some welcome digging into the puppet-strings controlling the "Youth for Western Civilization," the student group that invited Tom Tancredo to the UNC campus, which sparked the protest, which led to a bubbling cauldron and embarrassment all around.
And incidentally (from Wikipedia): "Astroturfing is a word in American English describing formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous 'grassroots' behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf."
And incidentally (from Wikipedia): "Astroturfing is a word in American English describing formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous 'grassroots' behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf."
Friday, August 08, 2008
Prostituting Yourself for a Bus Ride
The gaff-a-minute nuthouse crew otherwise known as the John McCain campaign has devised a point-rewards system for the denizens of Right Blogistan for posting positive comments about John McCain on recommended websites, because -- hey! -- nothing wins votes like canned and insincere political talking points posted in hostile environments.No mention of extra points for trashing Obama as an America-hating Muslim at the same time.
The goodies being doled out to willing whores is impressive indeed...
a book autographed by John McCain (not necessarily one written by him?)
preferred seating at campaign events
a ride on the Straight-Talk Express
As utterly attractive a prize as unreadable books may be, or gymnasium folding chairs or diesel fumes at dawn, we're a little underwhelmed by the rewards offered for selling our integrity, let alone our self-respect. What, no T-shirt? No tacky coffee mug? No weekend in the Paris Hilton, with continental breakfast?
FOOTNOTE
For the lexicographically minded, this practice is called "AstroTurf": "Like the fake grass for which the practice is named, such AstroTurf messages look as though they come from the grass roots but are ersatz."
Labels: astroturf, John McCain
