Spam-It-Yourself Bush
David, Gary Stock, and others have been making a lot of noise in the past few days over the Bush administration’s evident “astroturfing”.
(Astroturfing, btw, is a wonderfully apt description for faked grassroots campaigns, wherein supporters of a party or company are paid to shill for the cause, posing as soi-disant ‘concerned citizens’ in message-controlled letters to newspapers, radio phone-ins, etc.)
The fire in David & Gary’s ire comes from the fact that certain cookie-cutter copies of “letters to the editor” have been showing up in the letters pages of local newspapers all across the US. The signatories are all different (and all real people), but the text of the letters is identical.
The latest example of these letters starts with the words:
“When it comes to the economy, President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership. The economic growth package he recently proposed takes us in the right direction by accelerating the successful tax cuts of 2001...”
This letter has apparently shown up in 52 different newspapers across America – each purporting to be from a different author.
Clearly, this is an organized spam lobbying campaign (splobbing? spampaign?) being driven from some central source in the Republican heartland.
Certainly, the GOP’s behaviour here is low and deceitful. Exactly how deceitful is not immediately apparent until you follow the cookie crumbs, as the excellent Gary “Unblinking” Stock has done, all the way back to the GOP’s “Team Leader” web site.
This fascinating site (clearly flagged as a service paid for by the Republican National Committee) encourages Bush supporters to complete “Action Items” in return for GOPoints which can be exchanged, like AirMiles, for a range of cheesy wampum “ranging from boat bags to mouse pads”.
No, I am not making this up.
One of the standard “Action Items” on the site allows you to auto-generate a standard letter to be sent above your signature to your choice of up to five media outlets in your state. The site includes a comprehensive state-by-state database with contact info for thousands of national and regional print and broadcast media outlets
The current boilerplate available is, you guessed it, the snot-smooth epistle with that ‘genuine leadership’ hook quoted above. I think you get something like 10 “GOPoints” for each letter you send – enough to get yourself one-twentieth of a stylish and handsome “Team Leader” ballcap (w00t!)
Gary quotes Johnathan Rouse on this, saying: “This is centralized power disguised as decentralized popular mandate...” Damn right. It’s manipulative, dishonest and cynical.
American residents, however, have it within their power to counter this nefarious operation, by turning the GOP’s own spam machinery on itself. Here’s how:
David points to the DredWorkz blog, which provides a user ID and password that will grant you full access to the Team Leader site.
Go here and log in using the username: gop@dredwerkz.com and the password gopgop.
Alternatively (assuming the very idea doesn't shiver your conscience and indelibly stain your soul), you can just as easily sign up as a “Team Leader”, creating your own username and password (you get a nice email from Marc Racicot, RNC chairman, by return).
Once you’ve logged in, go to the Action Center and then click the link to "Contact Print and TV outlets". This will take you into the extensive media database behind the system, from which you can select a group of newspapers or broadcast outlets to do your own bit of astroturfing.
Once you’ve selected your spam targets, click "compose message" and you're presented with a couple of different choices. You can choose the current standard Astroturf-du-jour, or (joy, oh joy!) create your own message.
The right thing to do (as pioneered by Gary) is to compose your own letter to send to target media, alerting them to the vile stinking miasma of spam being pumped out by the GOP agitprop mills.
Course, I can’t tell for certain whether this counterspin approach will actually work. I’d be surprised if they don’t have some loyal GOP drones monitoring the outbound spam to ensure each send conforms to party propaganda guidelines.
But what the hell – even if it only gums up the internal machinery of this shameful plot, it’s still worth doing.
Let's see how quickly we can propagate this sneaky little countermeme. A bottle of posh wine to the first right-thinking American to successfully get their counter-spam attempt published in a legitimate print outlet in the States.
David, Gary Stock, and others have been making a lot of noise in the past few days over the Bush administration’s evident “astroturfing”.
(Astroturfing, btw, is a wonderfully apt description for faked grassroots campaigns, wherein supporters of a party or company are paid to shill for the cause, posing as soi-disant ‘concerned citizens’ in message-controlled letters to newspapers, radio phone-ins, etc.)
The fire in David & Gary’s ire comes from the fact that certain cookie-cutter copies of “letters to the editor” have been showing up in the letters pages of local newspapers all across the US. The signatories are all different (and all real people), but the text of the letters is identical.
The latest example of these letters starts with the words:
“When it comes to the economy, President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership. The economic growth package he recently proposed takes us in the right direction by accelerating the successful tax cuts of 2001...”
This letter has apparently shown up in 52 different newspapers across America – each purporting to be from a different author.
Clearly, this is an organized spam lobbying campaign (splobbing? spampaign?) being driven from some central source in the Republican heartland.
Certainly, the GOP’s behaviour here is low and deceitful. Exactly how deceitful is not immediately apparent until you follow the cookie crumbs, as the excellent Gary “Unblinking” Stock has done, all the way back to the GOP’s “Team Leader” web site.
This fascinating site (clearly flagged as a service paid for by the Republican National Committee) encourages Bush supporters to complete “Action Items” in return for GOPoints which can be exchanged, like AirMiles, for a range of cheesy wampum “ranging from boat bags to mouse pads”.
No, I am not making this up.
One of the standard “Action Items” on the site allows you to auto-generate a standard letter to be sent above your signature to your choice of up to five media outlets in your state. The site includes a comprehensive state-by-state database with contact info for thousands of national and regional print and broadcast media outlets
The current boilerplate available is, you guessed it, the snot-smooth epistle with that ‘genuine leadership’ hook quoted above. I think you get something like 10 “GOPoints” for each letter you send – enough to get yourself one-twentieth of a stylish and handsome “Team Leader” ballcap (w00t!)
Gary quotes Johnathan Rouse on this, saying: “This is centralized power disguised as decentralized popular mandate...” Damn right. It’s manipulative, dishonest and cynical.
American residents, however, have it within their power to counter this nefarious operation, by turning the GOP’s own spam machinery on itself. Here’s how:
David points to the DredWorkz blog, which provides a user ID and password that will grant you full access to the Team Leader site.
Go here and log in using the username: gop@dredwerkz.com and the password gopgop.
Alternatively (assuming the very idea doesn't shiver your conscience and indelibly stain your soul), you can just as easily sign up as a “Team Leader”, creating your own username and password (you get a nice email from Marc Racicot, RNC chairman, by return).
Once you’ve logged in, go to the Action Center and then click the link to "Contact Print and TV outlets". This will take you into the extensive media database behind the system, from which you can select a group of newspapers or broadcast outlets to do your own bit of astroturfing.
Once you’ve selected your spam targets, click "compose message" and you're presented with a couple of different choices. You can choose the current standard Astroturf-du-jour, or (joy, oh joy!) create your own message.
The right thing to do (as pioneered by Gary) is to compose your own letter to send to target media, alerting them to the vile stinking miasma of spam being pumped out by the GOP agitprop mills.
Course, I can’t tell for certain whether this counterspin approach will actually work. I’d be surprised if they don’t have some loyal GOP drones monitoring the outbound spam to ensure each send conforms to party propaganda guidelines.
But what the hell – even if it only gums up the internal machinery of this shameful plot, it’s still worth doing.
Let's see how quickly we can propagate this sneaky little countermeme. A bottle of posh wine to the first right-thinking American to successfully get their counter-spam attempt published in a legitimate print outlet in the States.
