This is astroturfing.
And hilarious. And more signs of their desperation.
But they won’t be well dressed, so I guess they have that going for them.
[Evening update]
More thoughts on astroturfing, and hypocrisy, from Jesse Walker. This part seems a little unfair, though:
It’s entertaining to watch the same people who spent the Bush years smearing the antiwar movement as “on the other side” suddenly rediscovering the virtues of noisy protest.
I can’t speak for others, but I never called antiwar people, per se, on the other side. I reserved that term for people who wore kaffiyehs, marched with Palestinian flags, said that they supported the troops when they shot their officers, and called people in Iraq killing US troops their version of the Minutemen.
Just sayin’.
[Update a few minutes later]
Megan McArdle has some thoughts, from experience:
Have I mentioned recently that I hate PIRG? Well, I hate PIRG with the kind of blackhearted distilled rage that normally characterizes the breakup of a thirty year marriage. They, and their whole canvassing operation, are a vile beast that subsists on dishonor, greed, and the rapidly disintegrating idealism of impressionable young people.
But the LA Times piece makes it sound like the Obama administration, or some other wing of the Democratic party, is hiring these volunteers. It is, I suppose, possible, but it’s not the most likely supposition. PIRGs love national health care. So do most of the other groups they work with. Given that their canvassing operation is the fundraising arm of half the left-wing groups in this country, they’re the obvious people to hire if you want to take your message to the streets. I’m sure there are loads of perfectly legitimate groups out there with money to spare and a heartfelt desire to push national health care reform for its own sake.
Whether or not the administration is involved, it’s true, unadulterated astroturf. And really, it’s all part of the collectivist hive. The administration doesn’t have to orchestrate it, because it can count on its fellow travelers.
And yes, I know exactly the connotations with which the phrase “fellow travelers” is fraught. They are intended.
Now the Dems are busing in ACORN “volunteers” to townhalls. I wonder how long until the morning TV shows start reading Dem talking points….oh, wait.
I was going to say, “That won’t happen until almost 30 years ago.”
I can’t help but wonder if those paid “volunteers” get health care coverage. Just asking…
And for years, Democrats and leftists were quick to challenge any perceived slight with a haughty “Don’t question my patriotism!”. However, when faced with people who disagree with them, they use labels like Nazis and “evil mongers.” Funny, those people protesting the health care takeover look like voters and taxpayers to me. It’s telling that the political class seems to look upon voters and taxpayers with such distain. Maybe the political class needs a new line of work outside of government. Keep dissing and pissing off the voters and that may well happen just like it did in 1994.
On the “other side” issue, I find it distressing that it isn’t obvious that there is a great difference between effectively supporting the enemy in a shooting war and supporting a different domestic policy that is currently being debated.
Found another “fishy” website…
http://www.healthreform.gov/support.html
The pain on the Left must be great, given all the squealing it’s producing.
Here’s Rand yesterday:
I can’t speak for others, but I never called antiwar people, per se, on the other side.
And here’s Rand in February, commenting on anti-Vietnam war protesters ( in John Updike’s words, “the peace marchers, the upper-middle-class housewives pushing baby carriages along in candlelit processions”):
They weren’t anti-war — they were just on the other side.
Click my name for the whole post.
Many of them were on the other side. They wanted the north to win.
…and when you read the rest of the quote from John Updike, you can readily see that Rand is referring to more than peace marchers and housewives, but to people that actively promoted and engaged in destruction in the U.S.
So for all the time you spent digging up that post and linking to it, one would think you’d bother picking something that would unequivocally reinforce your point, rather than exposing you as a fraud. meh.
Jim seems to take a perverse pleasure in exposing himself as a fraud at my web site. Anything in the name of trolling, I guess.
…and when you read the rest of the quote from John Updike, you can readily see that Rand is referring to more than peace marchers and housewives, but to people that actively promoted and engaged in destruction in the U.S.
Read again, this time more carefully. Rand is referring to anti-war protesters. The anti-war protesters in the quote are referred to as:
* “Cambridge professors and Manhattan lawyers and their guitar-strumming children”
* “privileged members of a privileged nation”
* “peace marchers”
* “upper-middle-class housewives pushing baby carriages along in candlelit processions”
Updike also states that “The protesters were spitting on the cops”.
Updike also mentions “slum-dwellers throwing rocks and bottles at the firemen come to put out fires”, but these aren’t anti-war protesters; Updike is comparing them to the peace marchers in the candlelit processions, and saying that to his mind the two groups are “behaving identically”. That obviously isn’t true in a literal sense.
So Rand proudly states that he “never” refers to anti-war protesters per se as “on the other side”, and that he reserves that term for “people who wore kaffiyehs, marched with Palestinian flags, said that they supported the troops when they shot their officers, and called people in Iraq killing US troops their version of the Minutemen.” The people in the Updike quote don’t fall into any of those categories (or the analogous ones from the Vietnam era). In fact, Updike specifically labels them as hopelessly naive patriots: “These privileged members of a privileged nation believed that their pleasant position could be maintained without anything visibly ugly happening in the world.” Hardly a description of people trying to undermine their “privileged nation.”
Rand is free to believe and say that anyone marching against a war and spitting at cops is “on the other side.” But he shouldn’t then claim that he never says such things.
I’ll have to agree with Jim on this one. A principle way Obama engages in deception about his health care plan is through the use of glittering generalities and broad promises which are contradicted by actual specifics. You made a broad statement, “I never called antiwar people, per se, on the other side.” There’s an awful lot of time in “never”. Obama is “never” going to do anything to force my health plan to change, either.
Yours,
Tom
I have to agree with Jim too. I find it dishonest when people say things like “Democrats are not pushing for single payer”, when I can find an example in 2003, when Obama said he wanted to do exactly that, but it would take incremental steps. Or I can read Milton Roemer, who also said it would take incremental steps to develop a nationalized healthcare system in the US.