On Astroturfing

The most damaging addiction of those on the Left is not taxing and spending - it is condescension.

I must admit, the Tea Parties set for this week have not been of much interest to me until Krugman weirdly joined up with the condescension class bent of looking down their snouts at them. He also misreads the impulse behind the movement. It saddens me to see him participate in what Kunstler calls media "auditing" . The meme in the "liberal" media is that the Tea Parties are either meaningless or sponsored by the DARK SIDE - read: Fox News and ultra Right wingers who live in gated enclaves watching CSPAN while steam comes out of their ears, all the while writing checks to hatchet men. These criticisms from the Maddows of the Media are leveled without the slightest question as to where Chicago Slim's millions came from. A mystery, indeed.

Creating a "movement" with Astroturfing ( public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous "grassroots" behavior,) works if the movement wants to be created. That is - it has a ready audience. At the end of the day people need to show up to the "astroturfed movement". If enough do, it is a success. At that point, there is no contradiction between "astroturfing" and "grass roots" eruptions. If 20,000 show up to the Tea Party on Wednesday in NY it is because they chose to, not because Fox News made them.

My sense is that there is a large audience very willing to hear that American tax dollars are being flushed away and/or spent on saving the fraud class. This is hardly revelatory. Condemning taxes is one of our driving narratives in the United States. The financial fiasco has given this storyline a new life.

I see no difference between what Rogers Ailes and his allies are allegedly doing with the tea parties and what Huffington, MSNBC and David Axelrod did last year with Obama. Creating, then tapping into an audience is what movements are. Leaders tell people what they ought to think - all the time. People then- for the most part - either incorporate or reject the information fed to them. This is not devious in and of itself. Those doing the astroturfing may have devious ends in mind to be sure. The astroturfing rules of the Obama Pods were devious by nature.

- This man is the answer to your frustrations.
- You may not question anything about this man. If you do you are the enemy.
- Anyone opposed to this man is stupid and probably evil.

By those rules the tea party "astroturfing" is positively ethical. Regardless, the proof will be in the pudding. If they are successful it is because they hit a nerve not because they created one to hit.

The alternative to this - dismissing and silencing all such top down organizing - is far worse. I would rather have people acting as if they still believe we live in a republic than sinking and seething into a realization that they may not. Then pitchforks, and later rocket launchers, come into play.

The fact is real grassroots movements rarely erupt in this country. When they do the distance between the eruption and violence is short. I lived through a spontaneous "grassroots" movement in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict. No one astroturfed those 4 days. And let's be clear - it started as a race riot - but within 12 hours it was a class riot. In most major cities we are closer to this happening now than anytime in the last 70 years.

If people believe we are being trashed, lied to, ripped off and conned by those taxing us I say: protest. Do it. Imaginatively and peacefully.

What Maddow and the rest really can't abide it not the impulse - it is that conservatives are behind it. I'm quite sure I would not agree with most of the "tea partiers" politics- but I support the fundamental right to protest.