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September 2, 2009

Media propaganda enablers

Randall Hoven
My local paper calls a vigil at a local church a "grassroots" effort.  You be the judge.

The Alton, Illinois, Telegraph opens its Sunday, front-page, above-the-fold story with this paragraph. 

"A candlelight vigil Wednesday evening in Alton will be part of a national, grass-roots effort to convince national leaders to keep the public health insurance option in health care reform legislation."

Buried inside on page seven is this follow-up paragraph.

"The event is one of at least 300 vigils planned Wednesday across the country, organized online by MoveOn.org, a political action group."

Wikipedia defines "grassroots" this way:

"A grassroots movement ... is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it is natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures."

I know Wikipedia is not the final authority, but its definition of grassroots matches pretty well what I thought the term meant.

Three hundred vigils held nationally, all organized by the hard left political action group MoveOn, are not driven by the community, are not natural and are not spontaneous.  Such a vigil is not, in virtually any sense of the word, "grassroots."

MoveOn is funded by foreign billionaire George Soros.  It is the group that put the "General Betray Us" ad in the New York Times.  It endorsed Barack Obama, and continues to support his policies by fund raising, organizing and political action.  These "spontaneous" church vigils are part of that organizing and political action.

This is all rather ironic given the accusations of "astroturfing" against tea-party goers and town hall meeting attendees.

The Alton Telegraph usually plays things fairly straight.  I'm not sure I'd even say it has a liberal bias.  It is certainly no St. Louis Post Dispatch.  My guess is that its reporter simply took the word of local organizers.  Being MoveOn types, they would, of course, lie about that.

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