- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Astroturf outrage

Posted by: bill on September 30, 1999 at 17:49:51:

In Reply to: Websters going downhill! posted by Gee on September 30, 1999 at 11:29:46:

Coercion seeks to stymie our rational processes in order to make us act against - or, at the very least, without - our better judgement. Once immersed in a coercive system, we act without conscious control. We act automatically, from a place that has little to do with reason." (p. 303)

: : It is This place that seems to be the subject of the book, and the deliberate deception of a population for that greatest of purposes - profit - is one of the engines driving us there.

: Except the descriptions dont fit with what is happening.

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That's the thing about it - you don't even realize it's happening!;)

Your link to Drudge type 'outrage' will certainly please the large, beleaguered fortune 500. It looks like the corporate agenda for tort reform. Maybe they get funding from APCO:

"[APCO's] grassroots lobbying - which it calls "political support services" - is APCO's specialty. "[We employ] campaign tactics to create an environment in support of our client's legislative and regulatory goals" says an APCO brochure. "Our staff has written the direct mail, managed the telephones [and] crafted the television commercials.

"APCO's clients are mostly Fortune 500 firms, including a variety of tobacco makers, drug companies and insurance firms. They pay APCO to set up bogus "independent" coalitions without apparent links to industry. "You won't read about APCO on the front pages of a newspapertalking about our work, but that doesn't mean that our work isn't making the front page" reads the promotional brochure. "We're proud of our record and we're even prouder that [the media writes] about our campaigns and their results - not us."

"One of APCO's creations is The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC)..."

"TASSC's stated aim is to combat the "consequences of inappropriate science through focussing attention on current examples of unsound government research used to guide policy decisions." The real agenda of the corporations that fund TASSC is to oppose any safety or health regulations that might impinge on their bottom line. One coalition publication stated that American agriculture is being undermined by the "eggagerated public fears over pesticides" that environmentalists have stirred up...."

"APCO also helped create the Washington, D.C.-based American Tort Reform Association, which is leading the nationwide canpaign for "tort reform" This soothing term masks a business-backed campaign that would sheild corporations from product liability lawsuits arising from their sale of dangerous and defective products, such as tobacco, asbestos and the Dalkon Shield birth control device."...

"The chief target of ATRA are trial lawyers, who are portrayed in Association literature as mercenaries who will file even the most frivolous lawsuit in the hopes of collecting a big contingency fee..."

(from - Washington on $10 Million a Day - Ken Silverstein - pp102-104)

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Sounds like your kind of org. - eh Gee?


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