Astro-Turf Wars - lecture notes for online sut jhally class PDF

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lecture notes for online sut jhally class...

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Astro-Turf Wars 

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11/16/15

Barak Obama’s election speech o Gave hope o Themes of the brand: change and hope o An ideal of a multi-racial America o An ‘fdr moment’ o Obama in reality is a moderate democrat  Not a radical Astroturfing – fake grass roots organization o Really the fine hand of corporate propaganda at work Technology makes it possible to make a movie, take footage on cell phones etc o Limitation is distribution Healthcare in 2009 o People against government in health care programs  “not America” o Obama wanted a new health care plan  Wanted a ‘public option’ – wasn’t mandated  An extension of medicare  Healthcare available as an affordable rate o Would force insurance companies to compete  Purpose would be to try and control prices within the insurance agency o If you could control prices with the government, it would force insurance companies to bring their prices down  Would bring profits down as well  People have to resort to free care in barns, Wendl Potter saw  Problems with health insurance companies that he had been representing o Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights  Trick people into thinking their fellow citizens, unlike the health care industry, are against reform  Carry messages for the health insurance industry  3rd party stories tell the stories they want told, masquerading as the interest of the public  Make it seem like the government wants to control everything  Slippery slope to socialism  Hands off my Healthcare o An initiative of a real social group, Americans for Prosperity  Also connected to a group called Freedom Works  Both Pro-Business libertarian groups  Use fear mongering  Argue that private enterprise should control most aspects of the economy, not the government  A grassroots approach to capitalism? Suspicious

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Leader was no amateur – from Washington as a professional grassroots organization

Important that Obama is black o Movements against him are predominantly white o Rhetoric is speaking to a certain group of people to which race is vital Astro-Turfing o Artificial citizen movements created and led by corporations and right wing groups  Artificial grassroots movements - but looks real o Who organized these people? o The “Tea Party” movement – grassroots or astroturf?  Named after the boston tea party  Sprung up shortly after obama’s election  Became very popular – primarily due to the reporting by Fox news – which tea party members love and feel is unbiased and not media controlled  Americans for Prosperity show up again  Helped host and organize tea parties  Helped organize parties talking points against taxes etc  Tea Party Express  Organized by professionals  Pro-war movements, stop obama movements  Patriotism features strongly in movement  “Value heritage in America”  Rational argument replaced with emotional appeals, pro-business agenda  Propaganda to manipulate people by appealing to their sense of nationalism o Fears of communism in the white house o Worries of a master race, putting whites in death camps  Draws on deep well of American history  Appeal to the past  Racial and gender aspect  Appeals to people who are threatened by Obama, by not having the utmost power, by being challenged “Freedom” o Meaningless in discourse o Central linguistic term of the Tea Party Movement  Who’s freedoms are being defended? No one can answer – not defined  America is the freest country in the world – well, really? o Student loans tether you to the system – makes you not free for example o PR campaigns not about the details of policy  Broad general emotional themes that you try to get people to connect to  Get people to say yes to policies they don’t really support because they support a general idea o Understanding this moment is crucial

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Tea party movement based on extremist right wind ideology and corporate interests o Strokes on propaganda o Have to make enemies – socialism for example o Serves the interests of huge capitalist industries  They encourage this movement o ‘an intellectual battle for the heart and soul of america’ “less government” o Freedom = less government o Rachel maddow – huge (only) opposition to fox  Want smaller government even if it meant smaller domestic programs  Don’t want medicare or social security cut – biggest domestic programs o The idea that people want more government doesn’t fit in with the narrative that people hate the government in the us  Not reported on  Doesn’t become part of how we think  Over coverage of the tea party – a minority movement  Not rational o They love medicare, but they want smaller government o Doesn’t make sense Citizens for a sound economy o AFP and Freedom works are offshoots of this  Runs tea party movement o CSE received 9 million from corporate funding in just one year  Corporate donations from insurance, pharma, electrical auto, oil and gas, tobacco o Secretly received millions from big tobacco  CSE paid for a grassroots initiative that was against government run healthcare  1994 Health Bill killed by CSE campaign funded by tobacco industry o Koch industries – Charles and David Koch - in 8th and 9th richest in US  Inherited oil company  Father was a founding member of the extreme right-wing John Birch Society  Deep ideological ties in libertarian movement  FOUNDED CSE and Americans for prosperity  Funded groups instrumental in free market ideology o Act like a huge propaganda machine  Acting on their interests o Use propaganda to convince americans that an attack on tobacco is really an attack on freedom o Blueprint for the current campaign  Been done by the same people as before with the same techniques as before  A moment we’ve been in before o Even at a convention where Koch himself says he founded the movement, people keep up the delusion that it’s a grassroots movement not backed by wealth How/Why does it work?

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People who are not rich, who are on medicare, who are elderly argue for ideas that are against their own self interest Race is central to the ability to recruit mostly white people to this campaign The “southern strategy” – appeal to white voters by playing up fears of blacks  Key moment in 1964 – democratic candidate Linden Johnson defeats conservative republican Barry Goldwater  Won the deep south  Goldwater was against the civil rights movement – portrayed a movement of black people o Got majority white vote in the south  Republicans look at this and wonder if they could use this on a grand scale  Next election – Nixon is the inauguration of the Southern Strategy in 1968  Democrat George Wallace used it to win the governorship of Alabama 4 times  Republicans learned from this  Has become central to republican strategy since  Now used nationally by way of a national tv network whos major aim is to spread this strategy – FOX news  About making white people feel like theyre victims to black people  If they get anything, you lose something Obama is the symbol  The major fact they can use on him is that hes no white Prey upon peoples racial and economic anxieties...