Atroturfing is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source’s financial connection. The term astroturfing is derived from AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to resemble natural grass, as a play on the word “grassroots.” The implication behind the use of the term is that instead …
Tag: astroturfing
Oct 06 2010
BP Oil & No on Prop 19- The Smoking Gun
In my past diaries on Yes on Proposition 19, Control and Tax Cannabis, aka marijuana decriminalization in California, I’ve shown that right wing conservatives funded by their usual business interests, are behind the continued attempt to let the Federal government waste money on continued harassment of pot users. I agree with the former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, who says that:
most bad things about marijuana – especially the violence made inevitable by an obscenely profitable black market – are caused by the prohibition, not by the plant.
An “obscenely profitable” black market cannot exist with out high level cynicism and corruption in our Federal, state, and even sometimes, county governments. The state of CA has been severely cutting back maintenance, employees, hours, access to public parks and recreational areas and facilities for outdoor sports and recreational users under their self inflicted “budget austerity,” and the Federal government has been socking us with increased, draconian “user fees,” for groups, yet they continue to have plenty of loot to fight against personal growing of a weedy herb, which would deflate the market for it. Priorities are misplaced. The war on pot has been an expensive failure.
Sep 25 2009
Hannity Tries Triggering Water Wars, Obama Blamed for Water Crisis
Last week, Sean Hannity broadcast live from San Joaquin Valley an astroturf rally designed to trigger water wars based on lies & transfer the health care memes to eco issues. The new CT is a whopper: President Obama, extremist environmentalists in his administration, and liberal radicals have planned for decades to turn California into a dust bowl so that the solar industry can use farmland, forcing us to buy our food from China!
The means to implement this CT is compliance with a federal law to provide instream flows to endangered or threatened fisheries. It was this temporary reduction in water availability that was characterized as an “act of domestic terror” by one of Hannity’s guests, Alan Autry (actor/former mayor):
If you would have told me that that water would have stopped, I would have believed maybe al Qaeda struck, not the federal government.
Apr 20 2008
Obama Message Coopted by Pollution Front Group
The Astroturf Organization Formerly Known As ABEC has come out with a doozy of a first ad.
In the battle to protect our future, the alphabet list of astroturf organizations working to undercut a habitable tomorrow is an ever-growing soup. Tracking the $35 million+ associated with “Americans for Balanced Energy Choices provided easily full-time employment for some dedicated people.
Perhaps, these astroturfers felt some pressure. Recently formed, just in time for Earth Day, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.
When you hear/see that term, think Clear Skies and other Bushisms … “Clean Coal” is a euphemism for Sort-of Less Dirty Coal, Somewhat Less Polluting Coal, Supposedly Less Deadly Coal.