{"id":5232,"date":"2009-08-11T05:10:55","date_gmt":"2009-08-11T10:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5232"},"modified":"2009-08-11T09:39:59","modified_gmt":"2009-08-11T14:39:59","slug":"since-you-lefties-are-so-concerned-about-astroturfing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5232","title":{"rendered":"Two Questions For Democrats…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…especially any of you that have ever used the term “teabagger” to refer to a conservative exercising his\/her free speech, and\/or written any conservative grass-roots action off to “astroturfing”:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. So I take it you’ll be ignoring all of the “research” and “data” coming from Citizens for a Supine<\/strike> “Safer” Minnesota from now on.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 Because y’all seem to take them pretty seriously<\/a> today, even though\u00a0the “group” is essentially one woman, Dr. Rebecca Thoman (who is an OBGYN, not an emergency room trauma surgeon, by the way), and her majordomo, Heather Martens.\u00a0 If they go to a demonstration, and they call on their “friends” at “Million Mom March”, they may draw\u00a0half\u00a0a dozen people, mostly out-of-work professional activists.\u00a0 Indeed, various second-amendment activist friends relate stories of going to C”S”M meetings where shooter “ringers” outnumbered the anti-gun activists by several to one – where “one” is an absolute number, not a ratio.<\/li>\n
  2. Let’s accept, for the moment, that all <\/em>of the conservative response at Town Hall meetings, and all <\/em>of the Tea Parties, are in fact being coordinated by some cabal of right-leaning “astroturf” groups.\u00a0 OK – so what?\u00a0 Do you think that just because someone sets a meeting and says “let’s protest”, that it’ll draw a crowd?\u00a0 Especially a crowd of conseratives – people who never <\/em>come out to picket, wave signs or chant slogans?\u00a0 With Democrats, of course, it’s ture – to paraphrase Fred THompson in The Hunt for Red October<\/em>, Democrats don’t take a restroom break without some gropu gtelling them where to go or what to do.\u00a0 But conservatives?\u00a0 Election day is the biggest “demonstration” most conservatives ever <\/em>make it to, ever, their lives.\u00a0 So even if\u00a0 <\/em>there were some shadowy cabal out there, what makes you think people would come to <\/em>the town halls and tea parties if the anger wasn’t very , very genuine?\u00a0 You can start an astroturf group – but that doesn’t mean people will come, and bring the passion that the anti-Obamacare dissidents bring.\u00a0 Just watch a “Million Mom” or “Code Pink” or ACORN demonstration for proof.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Of course, you do know that’s the truth – which is why the campaigns to mock, dismiss and intimidate these outbursts are being coordinated from the White House itself.
    \nBut since “astroturf” is newly “un-american”, I figured I’d give all you stalwarts in the lefty alt-media a chance to show your consistency.<\/p>\n

    Go to it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    …especially any of you that have ever used the term “teabagger” to refer to a conservative exercising his\/her free speech, and\/or written any conservative grass-roots action off to “astroturfing”: So I take it you’ll be ignoring all of the “research” and “data” coming from Citizens for a Supine “Safer” Minnesota from now on.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 Because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,51,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lefty-alt-media","category-liberal-tyranny","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}