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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Astroturf is astroturf, regardless of who is doing it.

MPR reporting:

Minnesota's unions have formed We Are Minnesota, a fund meant to raise money to oppose a proposed constitutional amendment that would make union membership and the payment of union dues voluntary for all workers.

A Senate panel approved the "right-to-work" bill last week.

We are Minnesota is backed by "public and private sector workers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, teachers, construction workers, clergy, small business owners, local elected officials, students and your neighbors," according to the group's web site.

The committee was registered March 9 with the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board by the Minnesota arm of the AFL-CIO, an organization that represents labor unions.

Minnesota AFL-CIO spokesman Chris Shields would not detail We Are Minnesota's members, but said that the group will have announcements about support soon.

[links in original] Here's a hum-dinger link, ya betcha. Nice couple, nice kid, nice dog. How can you be against that? They'll serve you apple pie.

It would be honest to call the thing, "Unions Under Attack," but "We Are Minnesota," that is pure offensive astroturfing and they should feel ashamed for doing it.

To understand what is offensive, consider "Minnesota Family Council." That operation does not stand for the betterment of family economics, nor for diversity in family structure and arrangements. It should, in honesty, name itself, "Evangicals Opposing Abortion Choice." That's what it is and using a less direct name is offensive astroturfing at its very worse.

And now they've got the unions doing it.

I respect and much prefer the directness of, "Garment Workers," for example. "Pipe Fitters" is nice. "Carpenters," is terse but informative, indeed, definitive.

Here's a favorite, "Liberty Lobby." A bunch of malcontents not seemingly helpful at all toward my liberty, but they assume taking the name is okay with me. It's not.

"Occupy Wall Street," at least the people name themselves honestly, and you have to respect that whether agreeing or disagreeing with the agenda.

"Tea Party" gets a little too amorphous. Too indirect. Against something, and it's something governmental, given the Crown and the Tea and the masquerade [as savages] and the dumping of cargo, but it leaves too many questions begging. Is there some cargo embargo they dislike? There is a savage dimension I see in "Tea Party," but as a name choice it seems more emotive and deliberately so, than helpful in defining (and in a slogan stating the gist of an agenda).

ALEC
Now, worse offender status, where else do you give that top-astroturf-is-you prize, but, "American Legislative Exchange Council." This link, and here.

Rick Berman? He's earned astroturf chops. Last point:


PATRIOTISM, on parade. From this link.

Yup, everyone loves patriots. Without them, what nation would survive the ravages of others.