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A Craigslist ad post by the New York’s extreme liberal Working Families Party is apparently looking to hire people for $350 to $650 a week to “fight to hold Wall Street accountable.” The “immediate hires” must be “outgoing, articulate, dedicated, determined,” and “energetic communicators,” the ad says. But “this is not a policy job! Through direct action you will be shaping NY state politics for the next 20 years.” This appears to be another example Astroturfing – liberals paying people to attend the Occupy Wall Street protests. Within the past few days TENAC (Tenants Advocacy Coalition) admitted that the protesters they brought to join the Occupy Wall Street movement were paid for their “work,” while another protester admitted to making $22 an our for full time protesting.
“This sure looks like Astroturfing to me: The ad doesn’t specify what you’re supposed to do for $350 a week,” says Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, but “the headline strongly suggests that the position entails getting paid to protest,” and “‘direct action’ usually means protesting.” The most obvious explanation, then, is that “WFP wants Astroturfers, presumably to join other Astroturfers,” on Wall Street. It would be interesting to know how many of the occupiers are already on WFP’s payroll.
Hot damn! I missed out, that could have paid for my plane ticket. HAHA.
The best “ideologues” money can buy. And I thought they were railing against capitalism and not contributing to it.
Oh, THIS is what you’re talking about. That insidious Working Families Party of New York – really on a par with the Koch Brothers and Americans For Prosperity pouring millions into the Teabag movement – that is, assuming this little Craigslist thing isn’t a rightwing prank itself, which I wouldn’t be surprised with all the provocateuring going on.
In any case, it sure has nothing to do with “99%” of the thousands and thousands of enthusiastic protesters, so I’m not tripping.
Right, and Soros, Moore, Code Pink,etc. – they’re not funding this either. It’s a true grass roots movement.
Yes, but–well–what do you think of the Koch brothers? Do you like what they do? Their money makes the rest of your imaginary enemies pikers, you know.
Rather than take the easy way out and pointing to the lunacy of the inferences made here, I’m going to crib from the Book of Esther:
So, Geoff: if it turned out that some group was engaged in “astroturfing,” and paying otherwise uninterested people to engage in political activities for money, what should we think of them, their credibility, and their cause, and what should be done to them in response?
Let’s figure out the stakes before we delve into the evidence — or the “evidence.”
Oh, could you also dig up the original copy of that ad for our edification? Thanks!
I will add lunatic to the pantheon of unpleasant things slung at me here at the Juice. Greg, your thinly veiled trap is simply silly. Paid political operatives are generally the status quo in all political activities. Creating “reality TV” where folks claiming to be students and the disenfranchised demanding “their fair share” and yet are only actors would undermine the very heart of this “grass roots” protest.
Here is the link to the original ad:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/gov/2618821815.html
But … but… I thought the TEA PARTY pretended to be a spontaneous grass-roots movement; now their astroturfing is just an accepted part of the “status quo?” I thought the Tea Party was supposed to be AGAINST the status quo?
This is all so stupid and silly. It falls under the category of Karl Rove’s “attack your enemy’s strength and accuse him of your own faults,” of PeeWee’s “I know you are but what am I?”, or Freud’s “projection.” Something built into the rightwing DNA these days for some reason.
I looked Vern, can you show me any evidence (not claim) that Tea Party protestors were actually paid?
By the way Vern, I looked into your spurious allegation about the tea party and the payment of protestors and the only “evidence” that I could find was when a PR rep for the Koch Brothers was presented with the allegation she responded “I wish we had thought of that.” That does NOT equate to proof that they actually paid anyone.
Are all my liberal friends as busy as I am? You all know what I’m talking about – FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity funding the Tea Party, creating their signs, paying for their buses, FOX News practically creating them …. Lay some documentation on Geoff. I’m not saying David Koch wasted money paying actual yokels to stand there, though.
“Something built into the rightwing DNA these days for some reason.”
Yes. Because everything needs to be understood in the mostly simplistic terms, or else their world gets upended. You’re either good or evil. It’s either black or white. Words like “everything” and “all” are preferred over “some” or “many” because that’s the way the world needs to be understood.
Anon, do you ever read your own responses that treat the right as a single uniform mass.
Do you know what it is to speak in general terms? I’m speaking of the OVERALL conservative mindset these days. Nowhere did I say that these things are true of every conservative.
You’ve read enough of what I’ve written on this blog to know that I don’t think in absolute terms like you do.
If I knew every single conservative in this world, I’m sure I could find exceptions to my GENERAL observation.
And I notice that you didn’t dispute that observation.
I said that the inferences you presented — which, so far as I can tell, originated elsewhere — were “lunacy.” That’s not calling you yourself a “lunatic.” If and when the times comes when I call you a lunatic, I won’t be coy about it. For now, you’re just working on the side of evil; immoral more than crazy. (Faila and Mitey have the “spouting craziness” franchise here.
As Gabriel points out, your conclusions (being full of Hot Air) simply don’t follow. This us not the sort of paid activist work for which activists are paid. Going door to door soliciting donations is what you get paid for — a sucky job, by the way, but “direct action.”
Back to you: so do I undrrstand you to be saying that the Left can lose face if it uses such a tactic — but the Right can’t? Awfully convenient for the likes of you, would’n’cha say?
It says right in the ad, “we don’t hire people to Occupy Wall Street.”
From the link itself.
“We’re organizing in communities around New York State — but we don’t hire people to Occupy Wall Street. Then again, if you believe the laughable conspiracy theories from Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, this is probably the wrong job for you anyway.”
There’s paid activists on the ground for sure. But are they paid in the way this post insinuates? Nah. If #Occupy is a ‘directionless force’ in the terms that you put it, then why waste energy doing repeated posts on it?
The blogger doth protest too much, methinks!
The link was updated to inlcude the Occupy Wall Street language after claims of the hiring to protest emerged – look at the ad as posted on Hot Air and you can see the difference.
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/10/political-party-paying-occupy-wall-street-protesters/
They’re trying every way they can to discredit the movement; contradictions don’t bother them, self-evident absurdities don’t bother them, they are throwing the kitchen sink at the wall, that’s how terrified they are.
And Geoff likes being part of that project. Well, I’m glad he’s here, so we can deal with each new piece of nonsense locally.
Remember, they are cornered animals. Something we’re doing is working.
Gabriel, don’t you know that going back to the original source material is cheating?
More good Occupy _____ capitalists:
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/44229‘
Oh wait, they don’t believe in capitalism …
Hey, wait a second … (haven’t even clicked on your link) … but who ever said “we” “don’t believe in capitalism?” I’m sure most of us do. What simplistic nonsense!
And no, I am not defending or celebrating protest-for-pay. I AM sure that it’s very rare if it exists at all, and that you lot will pretend it discredits the other 99% of us.
Vern, are you even watching any of the videos of the actual occupiers? Find me a few that say they support capitalism and we can talk.
You know, this might make a good post in itself, and an important one, maybe one Diamond could write better than I: ARE THE OCCUPY WALL STREET PROTESTS ANTI-CAPITALIST?
First of all, I’m sure you can find “spokespeople” for the movement – even sincere ones that aren’t rightwing plants – who will say they are. If I were a Communist I would jump right on this bandwagon and try to get the most mileage out of it I could. How many Communists are in the US after all? Not many. In a town like NY? Certainly a few.
To pretend that a movement that is obviously in opposition to unregulated capitalism’s excesses, to pretend that is “against capitalism,” is utterly disingenuous – unless you want to claim that Wall Street’s criminality and impunity of the recent decades, and the savage income and wealth inequalities not seen since the 1920’s, are a proud feature of a capitalism you’d like to fight for.
Anyone who says they want to destroy capitalism because of the injustice they see, is #1 a starry-eyed idealist dreamer, and #2 wrong. I will channel one of our dear MSNBC blowhards now, Lawrence O’Donnell, and remind you that all of us are part capitalist and part socialist, and every – or nearly every nation, definitely including ours – is a mixture of capitalism and socialism. (I’d say North Korea falls on the extreme side of socialism, and Somalia shows us what unfettered capitalism looks like.)
Finally, to judge whether this movement, overall, is against capitalism, I think it would be fair to go to the closest thing we have to a manifesto, “The General Assembly’s Statement” from NY’s original Occupy Wall Street people, I have it here:
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2011/10/make-way-for-the-real-tea-party/
Go through that, and see if there’s anything that’s actually AGAINST CAPITALISM.
It wouldn’t hurt to start this conversation by reading the actual Working Families Party (WFP) Crag’s List ad behind this debate. http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/gov/2618821815.html
It is obviously the same ad liberal groups like WFP have run for years–always under some “hot topic” banner–trying to find kids willing to take lousy, low-paying canvassing jobs. In fact, the fine print says “we don’t hire people to Occupy Wall Street.”
It is deceptive on the part of WFP to sucker people sympathetic to Occupy Wall Street into answering their ad, but it should NOT be used against the coalition of conservative, independent, yes, some liberal protesters in the Occupy movement.
To claim that this ad proves that “the real reason behind the Occupy movement is that protesters are being paid” is every bit as deceptive as the liberal group who took out the ad to begin with.
We are BETTER than this as a nation. We need an honest debate on the economic issues facing our country, not propaganda.
Oh you mean they are doing the same astroturfing thing that the extreme right has been doing for years now?
Glad they’re catching up!
Mr. Lee, please provide a citation supporting your contention that the “extreme right” has EVER astroturfed – this is a typical left response – get caught red handed and respond – Oh Yeah!
Really! Really, I’m busy, anyone else wanna hit this slow ball out of the park?
Meanwhile, a fun fact some of you might not know – Who first came up with that great term, “Astroturf” for fake grass roots?
Answer – Lloyd Bentsen, longtime Democrat Texas Senator and Treasury Secretary for Clinton, whose most famous moment was the “Senator, you’re no JFK” gutpunch to Dan Quayle.
Senate was voting on a bill that the health insurance “industry” opposed, and they were suddenly flooded with letters, all looking exactly the same, from what turned out to be all customers of the same insurance company that had been misled with some scare story. “This isn’t grass roots,” snapped Lloyd, “this is more like astroturf!”
From Politico (hardly a “liberal” source);
By Ben Smith
FreedomWorks not free: $10K to participate in D.C. tea party march
FreedomWorks, the conservative group organizing much of the “tea party” movement, has riled allies by charging hefty fees to participate in a Sept. 12 March on Washington aimed at bringing the movement’s broad anti-government agenda — notably, opposition to health care changes — to Capitol Hill.
FreedomWorks, which is chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, is charging other groups a minimum of $10,000 for the right to distribute material to the activists gathered for the march, and to attach their own names to the event. The group has raised its rates from an initial fee schedule, which would put a group’s name on the website for free, and would allow it to distribute materials for $2,500.
Groups can also pay to have a speaker address a rally and workshops, with $10,000 securing a prime Saturday afternoon speaking slot, according to the fee schedule, obtained by POLITICO and printed after the jump.
The organization is citing the event’s increasing cost in justifying the increased price to conservative allies, one of whom disclosed the details to POLITICO.
“Their ‘organizing’ is tending to dominate and overformalize what would’ve otherwise been a more ‘freelance’ protest,” wrote the conservative, who also complained of FreedomWorks’ move to “own” the entire event by controlling access both to workshops and to the march itself.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0809/FreedomWorks_not_free_10k_to_participate_in_DC_Tea_Party_march.html
The organizers mentioned in the ad replied today that this was their standard running ad that was going weeks before the OWS protest started. They use community organizers to go knock on doors, make phone calls, etc. to spread the word on any of their campaigns to fight against opression by the 1 percent. They were into this long before the OWS was developed. They are paid by donations and work like any campaign committee does. Political Action Committees do the same thing and the Koch Brothers hired busloads of people to protest for the Tea Party that was organized by Roger Ailes of Fox News.
Yeah, but the righties who spread this story have already moved on to new petty slanders, having filed this one away as fact (like they did with the ACORN slanders last year.)
I guess that just means we’re doomed to repeat paragraphs like the above year after year.