Astroturf Guerillas

Ever wanted a glimpse inside the right wing machine? Take a look. This is what's called the dittohead effect. These people know how to listen and do as they're told. You have to hand it to the right wing. They've got obedient servants.

Who is paying for this guy to go around teaching "guerilla tactics"? The Koch Brothers among others. Big Oil. Big Tobacco. Big health insurers. Big Polluters. Wall Street. Guerilla, my foot. The original minutemen weren't funded by multinational fat cats or bused to Lexington and Concord by Koch Industries.

Whether they know it or not (and they probably have no idea) the people in this "training session" are learning how to be obedient storm troopers for the very very rich. They are ordinary folks being trained to help degrade the interests of ordinary folks like themselves. Being taught underhand tactics to distort information and cover up for their masters. A strange mixture of flim-flam and Maoist revolutionary cell. It's a con game.

Who are the American Majority? They appear to be a majority of two, sons of a Kansas Republican with ties to Jack Abramoff. Often as not it seems the Republican Party and corporate lobbying groups are one and the same. They certainly have the same HR department.

It's the names of these groups that make me suspicious. When it says "Majority", assume a handful of people working for a very few very rich people. When a group is named "Women United for Liberty" assume that it's funded by men and dedicated to limiting women's rights. When "Tax Reform" is in the name, you can pretty well guess the goal is to shift taxes off its rich clients and onto everybody else. If its name contains the word "Prosperity" it will be the narrow prosperity of a few very rich corporations and individuals funding the organization.