Submitted by Anne Landman on
The documentary film "(astro)Turf Wars: How Corporate America is Faking a Grassroots Revolution," explains the bizarre situation we face as America drowns in fake, corporate-funded "grassroots" movements. The 2009 "Tea Party Movement", for example, came out of nowhere, and through a string of well-funded activities, became a huge roadblock to reforming health care, financial services and more. Leaders portray the tea party "movement" as made up of hard-working, mom-and-pop patriots who love their country, but well-heeled players representing some of the biggest and most lucrative businesses in the country are really funding and organizing it. The Tea Party labels of "government takeover," "socialism" and "communism" stir up fear while disguising hidden corporate agendas. Real grassroots movements rarely make multimillion-dollar ad buys, tour the nation in custom-painted buses, or put on media events from coast to coast. The film calls on propaganda experts like CMD's own Wendell Potter, media critic Professor Mark Crispin Miller and PR expert James Hoggan to expose corporate fllim-flamming in other areas, too, like health care, climate change, and the 2010 elections. Don't miss this important movie!
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Mike Salzberg replied on Permalink
Astroturf Wars
This is an excellent doco - informative, thoughtful and timely.
Anonymous replied on Permalink
Timely and painting with a mighty broad brush
While no doubt there are some tea party groups that are nothing more than mouth pieces for the corporate establishment. The bulk of the movement is based on individuals. Let's get real, where does anyone think the left receive their funding. It from big money internationalists. Both the left and the right which are the fringes want total control. Given the tactics of both, they vie for the groups that fall for their rhetoric. Right now there are groups scrambling to unite the tea party under a single banner. Should that be accomplished, all popular support, influence, and power are gone. The left was sold out long ago and is nothing more than a tool for the internationalists. Wake up people. Huffpo is nothing more than a manipulator for the masters. If Huff herself had an independent thought I'd be shocked. Why does the left resent people speaking out when they profess to be all about individual rights. Maybe it's because they are controlled?
Anonymous replied on Permalink
Huhn??
Internationalists? Don't you mean corpratists and sychophants. That's what the entire republican party consists of, and sadly maybe 20% of the democrats too. But it's not really about party right now. Just like the "left" and "right" are meaningless terms right now?
Right now it's about the corpratists and the scions of 4 generations of billionaires wanting to replace our democracy with puppets that they can control. Your notion of individual rights is rather quaint, but means nothing when the whole system rots underneath the weight of fools who are more worried about the color of their ties than the long-term health of the nation. Spending a lot of money to stir the fears and wave the national symbols works for a significant portion of the population. As the Jim Jones episode proves, a lot of fools can be mobilized to do stupid, self-defeating acts. So yes, you are right about "individuals" but ... uh, what exactly is your point really?
Huffington post is more reliable and trustworthy than the real mouth pieces of the corporate establishment.