The talking heads at Fox love to say Obama is Hitler, which shows they know nothing about Hitler. I lived in WW2 Europe, Hitler's policies were racist, pure and simple, he wanted a white master race, killing jews, gypsies and people in general with brown skin. From this, I draw the conclusion that the Fox people, especially Limbaugh are Nazis.

What do you mean "effectiveness"? We haven't seen the true effects of any of their howling yet.

Kindly explain, just once, what is wrong with persuading and organizing people to be against (or for that matter, FOR) some particular policy or legislation? Isn't that how our republic is supposed to work?

I keep tellin' ya -- and it is remarkable how unchallenged it is, like you can get slapped in the fact and not notice -- how telling and self-defeating it is that pretty much every thread (and most posts) revolve around 'how stupid the American public is'.

Ya really want to beat these guys? Then work harder and smarter than they do.

Preaching to yourselves about how much smarter you are than most Americans ain't it.

Corporate operatives stir up the white trash so that the former can go on ass-raping the latter and blaming it on the libruls.

This is not news.
.

Kindly explain, just once, what is wrong with persuading and organizing people to be against (or for that matter, FOR) some particular policy or legislation?

Why do you want to kill my grandparents and force me to pay for abortions? Why are you so evil?
.

And what makes Astroweeding possible is on the side of the 'masses,' comprising a toxic mixture of those for whom purposeful misinformation is swallowed whole and without any attempt at due diligence regarding truth, and those for whom thinly-veiled appeals to fears of 'the Other' resonate. Or worse, it's both.

A Republic's existence rests on an informed populace, of which Astroturf masses are not members.

Thog needs blood...

Given the effectiveness of the right-wing opposition to reform, I can only assume we're going to see quite a bit more astroweeding in the future.

I am not so sure.

Without some genuine violence this protest theater grows increasingly tiresome. American attention spans can only endure so much "Nazi Commie Death Panel" stuff. Its amperage guarantees it is asymptotic to fingernails on chalkboards...

Which is all to say:

If someone doesn't get their brains blow out right quick...
this whole thing will fall off radar screens as just so much ugly political noise...

Astro weed... where can I get some?

Ya really want a little respect for a change, the Americanist? Then say something unmasturbatory once in a while.

Preaching to yourself about how much smarter you are than everyone here ain't it.

"Astroweed" is a new term, but the phenomenon is as old as the hills. Shakespeare depicts an example in "Coriolanus."

Er, no. As much as Tom Schaller may love his new term, we are not witnessing anything new here. History provides up with ample examples of moneyed and powerful interests deliberately stoking vague populist fear and fury for their own ends. It doesn't usually end well.

Kindly explain, just once, what is wrong with persuading and organizing people to be against (or for that matter, FOR) some particular policy or legislation? Isn't that how our republic is supposed to work? -theAmericanist

When you are explicitly instructed on how to disrupt the meeting and you have no express goal other than to prevent the free exchange of ideas and prevent other citizens from addressing their representation, then that is wrong and not how our republic is supposed to work.

Then work harder and smarter than they do. -theAmericanist

Thanks for the well thought out advice. Do you charge for such profundities by the nugget or by the hour? Did you manage to scrape any other helpful counsel together for us? Look both ways before crossing the street, don't cross the steams, etc.?

Regarding the article, I think 'astroweeds' is a little to out-there. I call 'em like I see 'em: these people are trolls, a concept we're all quite familiar with.

Just as we suspected, it's the good guys vs a Dick Army.

LOL -- I couldn't care less about "respect", Tom K.

But it might be useful to actually answer my point, e.g., GMF's "Why do you want to kill my grandparents and force me to pay for abortions? Why are you so evil? "

You guys would generally respond truthfully: "Um, three points: I don't actually want to kill your grandparents, although of course we all recognize that eventually everyone dies and there are costs involved in healthcare which are disproportionately concentrated on the elderly, so of course there is nothing to the idea that I want to kill your grandparents, that's an obvious corporate lie. But I DO want you to pay for abortions, because even poor women have a right to choose and therefore as a taxpayer you have to help pay for their rights. Finally, I don't believe I am evil, but of course people can disagree..."

Me, I'd take a more direct approach: I'd call him out. Grand Moff Texan is full of shit, and what's more, he KNOWS he is full of shit -- and ya know what? Not that I care, but I'd bet even he'd agree that it's more effective in gaining his respect, to TELL him so.

That's essentially what's going on here -- the wingnut spin machine works, precisely because folks very rarely call it out. Instead, you guys like to brag on how stooopid the American public is -- and hell, when I note that THAT is stoopid, your response is how this makes me, er, self-referential.

Just how far up your ass IS that head of yours, Tom K? Yank it out, and look it around.

Nice metaphor. Now we need some metaphorical Roun*up spray. In a damaging to plastic weeds' illusions sort of way.

Actually, I have given a few pretty direct pieces of advice, doubtful:

One: "Health care reform is about cutting INSURANCE costs, not care",

Two: "Senator/Representative, do you believe that Medicare should NOT pay for end of life counseling when requested? and

Three: Ya might reconsider your tactics when your trained response in a political fight is to announce that you think the referee and scorekeepers are stooopid, rather than to deck the asshole who just stuck his thumb in yer eye.

Which ones do you object to?

Preaching to yourselves about how much smarter you are than most Americans ain't it.

I would not conflate "smart" with "informed."

In this context, "informed" would lead to a "smart" choice to not hold positions and/or make proclamations that are not true.

Those who willfully choose to not be "informed" may be labeled by some as "dumb", but not by me.

I would just refer to such people as "lazy."

Coriolanus, Act II, scene 2
Brutus & Sicinius plot to foment the Romans against elevating Coriolanus to consul by reminding them that he is an elitist and an asshole.

"We must suggest the people in what hatred
He still hath held them; that to's power he would
Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders and
Dispropertied their freedoms, holding them,
In human action and capacity,
Of no more soul nor fitness for the world
Than camels in the war..."

"...that's as easy
As to set dogs on sheep--will be his fire
To kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze
Shall darken him for ever."

They blow their chance in Act II, but by Act III, they trick Coriolanus into publicly losing his cool.

LOL -- I couldn't care less about "respect", Tom K.

That's weird then. You seem to spend most of your time here complaining that you're not getting it.

I'll assume that the rest of your post is the usual traveling goalposts, hysterical reiteration of banalities, and impotent chest thumping. Somehow I don't think reading it is necessary.

Ooh, a better money quote at the end of Act II, scene 3.

"We will be there before the stream o' the people;
And this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own,
Which we have goaded onward."

LOL -- methinks you don't regard "reading" as necessary, TK.

Terraformer --again! -- proves my point: "I would just refer to such people as "lazy."

Oddly, TF doesn't mean Tom K -- but the folks who are protesting the health care debate.

Look -- this really isn't that complex. As wicked as the bad guys are here (ya gotta admit, accusing a President of advocating the "absolute evil" of "death panels" is pretty far up the scale, makes ya wonder what COULD be past 'em), there really is an issue there, as noted by S. Valenti's post in another thread: her mother was quite clear she wanted her life extended by any means available. Then she was rendered unable to speak for herself -- and the hospice nurses pressed S. Valenti and her family to let the mother die. They resisted, she spoke for her mother, who got extra care and survived several more years -- quite possibly at considerable expense and no little pain.

Like I keep sayin', the best defense is a good OFFENSE.

The response "there is no 'death panel' provision in the bill, is essentially an evasion of the issue itself, which isn't the GOP talking point, but whether or not the government should be paying for end of life counseling.

LOL -- going too fast for you, Tom K?

If the GOP answer is "no", fry 'em in their own grease: because 'government pays for senior health benefits' is an ENORMOUSLY popular position.

So of course, the answer will be 'yes', framed in some other way -- and with that, you engage the real issues, which -- and here's the beauty of it: YOU DON'T HAVE TO RESOLVE, because they're all individual cases.

Hell, if I was Obama, I'd say something like -- ya know what? Maybe we should mandate a pro-life advocate in every government-reimbursed end of life consultation, like the devil's advocate who always takes the other side.

LOL -- again, the point is that if you want to make news, to change the way the story is going, you actually have to MAKE news that changes the narrative.

Why bother inventing new names? This is the right-wing base. They're the same crowd that shows up at other events with pictures of fetuses and signs that say 'God-hates-f***'.

The notion that they represent anything other than an extremist minority view is something that only someone in the media would believe.

Don't those fucking people have anything else to do? Sheeeesh

This town hall sabotage is a crop harvest that has been years in the making. They've been cultivating this kind of hatred and ignorance, waiting for the right time to unleash it.

That time has come and we need to respond, not in kind, but with greater intensity.

While there is nothing wrong with having a debate over a topic, it is exceedingly immoral to encourage shouting and violent demonstrations at these town hall meetings. When there is a large, frustrated, populace trying to make ends meet, it does not take much to stir them up. The large corporate media is doing just that and it is reprehensible. The shouters are not there to have a debate or possibly learn what the issues are. They are there to destroy communication and prevent both sides from being heard. It also speaks very poorly of our country that the shouters are resorting to racial slurs and demagoguery.

Here is exactly what it is only corporate lobbyists are inciting it: From "Fascism in America:Are We There Yet"

“…That description sounds eerily like the dire straits our Congressional Republicans find themselves in right now. Though the GOP has been humiliated, rejected, and reduced to rump status by a series of epic national catastrophes mostly of its own making, its leadership can't even imagine governing cooperatively with the newly mobilized and ascendant Democrats. Lacking legitimate routes back to power, their last hope is to invest the hardcore remainder of their base with an undeserved legitimacy, recruit them as shock troops, and overthrow American democracy by force. If they can't win elections or policy fights, they're more than willing to take it to the streets, and seize power by bullying Americans into silence and complicity.
When that unholy alliance is made, the third stage -- the transition to full-fledged government fascism -- begins.

Snip

“…the guessing game is over. We know beyond doubt that the Teabag movement was created out of whole cloth by astroturf groups like Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and Tim Phillips' Americans for Prosperity, with massive media help from FOX News. We see the Birther fracas -- the kind of urban myth-making that should have never made it out of the pages of the National Enquirer -- being openly ratified by Congressional Republicans. We've seen Armey's own professionally-produced field manual that carefully instructs conservative goon squads in the fine art of disrupting the democratic governing process -- and the film of public officials being terrorized and threatened to the point where some of them required armed escorts to leave the building. We've seen Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to "a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress."
This is the sign we were waiting for -- the one that tells us that yes, kids: we are there now. America's conservative elites have openly thrown in with the country's legions of discontented far right thugs. They have explicitly deputized them and empowered them to act as their enforcement arm on America's streets, sanctioning the physical harassment and intimidation of workers, liberals, and public officials who won't do their political or economic bidding.
This is the catalyzing moment at which honest-to-Hitler fascism begins. It's also our very last chance to stop it..."

This is what is happening now...I know it's been posted here before but it is so precise that calling it astroturfing etc is misleading...it is corporate fascism disguised as populism. These thugs (the ripping up of the Rosa Parks photos at that TH) think they have the right attack those who disagree politically with them as if they are being patriotic. Why would that man even thing he had the right or that it would be tolerated...Freedom Works and Fox's Glenn Beck.

I like the term astroweeding, but it does not quite encapsulate what the rightwing borg is doing.

What the Borg is doing is more akin to throwing gasoline on a spark. However, to keep the agricultural motif, it is more like an algae bloom caused by dumping fertilizer into a body of stagnant water.

I would call it Chemlawning, but that would impugn the name of an actual lawn service that kills weeds.

Any ideas? Astroblooming? Mutant Astroturfing. Astropoluting? Pyroturfing? I like the last one. Yeah, it changes the motif from fake lawns to fires, but that is what they are doing, playing with fire. They aren't just creating the appearance of outrage when there is none, they are actively catalyzing the necessary ingredients for a conflagration.

Pyroturfing.

sense, we're dealing with a third animal here. It's not genuine grassroots, because it's top-down, with activists being fed talking points by corporations. But it's also not quite contrived astroturfing, either. So what is it?

"Indomitable ignorance." Nice phrase from a John D. MacDonald novel.

i heard a new astrotruf talking point on my local npr station this morning covering a sharrod brown town hall : "i'm not astroturfing."

i was struck by the fact that every sound bite from someone in opposition had zero substance [ie: "if you don't know the history of nazi germany, sit down.]

my fave was someone's reaction that since the meeting was mostly civil that "it was a staged event."

sheesh

Golly, what suckers y'all are: "While there is nothing wrong with having a debate over a topic, it is exceedingly immoral to encourage shouting..."

Lord, the LAST place we should be in this mess is on the side of "Thou Shalt Not Shout at your Congressman...." The Republicans in Congress would be ecstatic if that's how all this was framed going into Labor Day.

Whatsamattawichoo?

Repeat after me:

1) Health care reform is about cutting the cost of INSURANCE, not about cutting care, and

2) Who thinks that Medicare should REFUSE to pay for end of life counseling when the patient asks for it?

LOL -- hell, didn't any of you guys ever teach a class of rowdy kids? One of the better techniques is to LOWER your voice, to speak clearly and quietly and intensely, with a message that even the loudest wants to hear... but can't, so long as they are making too much noise. (F'r instance, the old 'you can do what you want when you've done...')

Don't know if I agree with you here. IF these people were being fed correct information, and protesting, then wouldn't it just be democracy in action? (Although name-calling is distasteful, I've certainly seen it at times from both sides.) Well, as an atheist, I would say those of you who aren't have been fed a lot of misinformation, leading you to believe in a god. But your being pro-active in defending that god I would consider your democratic right... Do you think people didn't argue that it was "bad" people like Martin Luther King, Jr. who turned people into civil rights activists? So the argument that this is top-down...I don't know.

Should be called "astro-seeding".

All Freedom's Watch did was pass around advice. No, it wasn't advice that's helpful to a good discussion, but these people chose to follow it of their own free will. Plenty of left wing protests have legislative and corporate support. We have to acknowledge that this is a grassroots effort, and take their concerns seriously, no matter how insane we think they are.

There is also astro turf blog commenting. I sent about this to Steve and Drum, maybe it will appear:

A company doing astroturfmenting (eh, sorry):

http://www.politicsandtechnology.com/2007/07/make-no-mistake.html

There's a company called Advantage Consultants that's offering up "professional blog warriors" to "flood the zone" with comments. In short, astro-turf trolls for the blogosphere.
...
Incidentally, who are these people? Who is Advantage Consultants? Their president is Doug Guetzloe, a right-wing radio host and anti-tax activist in Florida.

Is this not actually fascism,

the corporate interest supporting itself through instigation of faux populist mob violence?

Since when is mail fraud not a crime?

I agree with the whole "this isn't new" meme, but how this mess came about (from overseas it looks more like summer doldrums theatre and not real opposition) lies in Obama's natural strategy. His natural method is to give the opposition enough rope to hang themselves, and all too often they oblige. However, this doesn't work for the entire Democratic caucus since they don't have Obama's poker face calm.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that the whole talk of meeting deadlines and getting health care out the door so quickly had the explicit purpose of forcing the Obama haters to expose their hand prematurely, that they were goaded into attacking before they could set up more effective opposition. However, each time Democrats try to play rope-a-dope they overestimate their ability to absorb damage, and I hope that isn't the case this time as well.