Right, wrong, or just missing the mark? (part 2)

The problems with the anti-reform movement, if you like, are encapsulated in the man who stood up at a town hall meeting and told Rep. Robert Inglis (Republican, S.C.) to "keep your government hands off my Medicare".

But let me first say this: I think it's great that so many people have been showing up at town hall meetings, and the Tea Party protests. That's democracy in action. I disagree with the agenda to kill public health insurance, but I love the method: people getting informed and getting active; bringing their kids, too. I love the method just as much when it happens to be a massive anti-war protest involving hundreds of thousands of people and no corporate sponsors or primetime cable network to cheerlead for it. (Like this one, this one, this one, and this one.)

The problem with the Tea Party / town hall activities is that the bulk of the people involved--average people with genuine concerns--were whipped into fearful hysteria by public relations firms hired by corporations, who spread lies and propaganda and deliberately sabotaged meaningful discussion.

Two of the main groups behind the Tea Parties are corporate front-groups FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity (AFP). Their astro-turfing shenanigans have been well documented. The Wall Street Journal detailed FreedomWorks' phony "grassroots" website AngryRenter.com over a year ago.

A political action committee called Right Prinicples, whose founder Bob MacGuffie is involved with many tea party groups (AFP, teapartypatriots.com ("collaborator" of FreedomWorks), the Media Research Center's NewsBusters) released a memo recommending the tactics of shouting, disrupting, and inflating their numbers at town halls:

“The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

Read it yourself here. Listen to him defend the memo on the Alan Colmes show here. As you can see in all the videos and reports of the town halls, the advice was put to good use.

Glenn Beck's influence can't be overlooked. (You know, that guy who hates socialism and loves Thomas Paine, but apparently never read Paine's essays. The guy who admitted on The View he makes stuff up, that he is not an investigative reporter, doesn't check facts, just "commentates on life". The guy who said Obama is a racist who hates white people.) This nutty dude spearheaded the 9/12 project and spent a lot of time cheerleading for the Tea Parties on primetime cable. So did the rest of Fox News, whose boss, tabloid dispenser Rupert Murdoch, stated at the World Economic Forum that he uses his media empire to try to shape the public agenda. Fox News' promotion of the Tea Parties was, as always, good for a laugh, but it's even funnier when contrasted with their past coverage of anti-war protests.

While I expect anchors on Fox News to clown around buffoonishly for my amusement, it is surprising to witness Beck-level inanity spewing from more respectable conservative sources. Investors Business Daily (IBD), for example, dishonestly smeared the British National Health Service (NHS), saying:

"The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror movie script...people such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

Stephen Hawking, who has lived in the UK all his life and unlike many Americans enjoys free healthcare, responded that he "wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS". The writers at IBD might consider whether a person with Mr. Hawking's disability and a modest salary would "have a chance" dealing with Aetna or Blue Cross Blue Shield instead of the NHS. Maybe we should ask the families of the 18,000 Americans who die each year due to lack of coverage. (By the way, I was treated at one of Britain's public hospitals once. Ask me if I survived.)

IBD might also consider the "horror movie script" character of the deluded fantasies of people who have been scared out of their wits by hysterical accusations Obama is a Nazi. Or Stalinist. Or anti-Christ. And he wants to euthanize grandma or send Glenn Beck's disabled daughter to a concentration camp.

So, to answer the question posed in my previous post: How do you shift longstanding popular opinion nearly 20 percentage points, in a matter of weeks? Step 1: spend millions of dollars on advertizing. Step 2: lie to people.