By Ned Barnett (c) 2009
"Astroturf" is, in politics, a derisive term for "manufactured grass roots" movements - efforts that seem to be the spontaneous vox populi but which are, in fact, carefully organized and financed by parties behind the scenes. A seemingly-spontaneous ACORN event is a classic example of "Astroturf" - carefully organized, fully financed, and artificial. Oft-maligned "tea parties" and the spontaneous outbursts at Congressional "listening tour" events or "town-hall meetings" are NOT "Astroturf."
There is nothing wrong with an "Astroturf" event. Every Presidential-campaign rally is "Astroturf" - organized, financed, orchestrated and often rehearsed - but still a legitimate form of political campaigning. In this, they are no different from photo ops which seem to the viewers to be spontaneous events, but which are actually stage-managed "opportunities" for candidates (or others) to "buy" press coverage. As a 35-year public relations professional who's often worked on political campaigns and "issues" campaigns, I know how to create Astroturf events (I've done it often enough) - but I've also participated in truly grass-roots events as well. I know the difference.
Something that's often overlooked - "Astroturf" events often reflect real views. Those who attend are free citizens and choose to be there, even if the events are staged. "Astroturf" isn't bad - not automatically bad - from the Left or the Right. However, spontaneous events are always vox populi - the real voice of the people.
Go back to the Vietnam War protests and the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, where most of the current public experience of both Astroturf and truly spontaneous demonstrations of personal views originated. Many of the most effective anti-war and civil rights protests were clearly Astroturf - Martin Luther King's world-changing "I Have A Dream" speech was the culmination of a skillfully organized and well-financed movement. Clearly it was Astroturf - but just as clearly it was honest, and it was effective, and it helped change America for the better, bringing to an end a century of Jim Crow legislated hatred. Ditto for the Vietnam protests - some were spontaneous, but many were well-organized - however, all reflected growing distrust of government and growing dissatisfaction with a war we refused to win.
Fast forward to today. The Tea Parties are spontaneous. The confrontations between anti-tax/anti-healthcare "reform" advocates and Congressmen and Senators on "Listening Tours" are mostly spontaneous. However, even if some of those are professional organized or underwritten (as the Left and the President now claim) represent - as did King's march on Washington - the true voice of the people. Millions of Americans are outraged over the sudden gush of spending and the sudden "land-grab" of supposedly-protected Constitutional Rights. Regardless of who engineers the events, these solid citizens are outraged, fearful and motivated to take back their country. These are NOT the kinds of people who easily protest - many look embarrassed to be speaking out - embarrassed at the vocal excessives of those who are unaware of the impact their enthusiasm has when seen in tight 30-second quick-cut soundbites. Yet they've taken time off from work, they've overcome their embarrassment, and they're giving voice to their passionate feelings.
All they want is to be heard by a government that seems tone-deaf. All they want is to be taken seriously by a government that is running roughshod over their rights and their cherished institutions - liberty, freedom, the Constitution.
The worst thing the government can do is dismiss them as cranks or as pawns of shadowy evil forces of greedy capitalism - they KNOW they're not Astroturfers - they are real Americans standing up for real American values. Yet that is exactly what the government - from President Obama on down - is doing. They are mocking those who are speaking out. They are dismissing the events that represent a spontaneous outpouring of real rage, real fear, real demands that they be heard. Worse, they are accusing free citizens of being mind-numbed robots dancing to the tune of evil, hidden capitalists.
People who are putting their embarrassment on hold, people who are taking time off of work (and giving up their day's pay - or a valuable family vacation day off - are not going to welcome being dismissed. They have put their emotions - their very faith in their country - on the line, and they damned well expect their leaders to pay attention. To listen. To acknowledge that their concerns are valid and real.
It was not the Stamp Act that triggered the American Revolution. It was not the quartering of troops in private homes that triggered the American Revolution. Instead, it was the refusal of King George and his Parliament to listen to the valid concerns of loyal subjects. They mocked and minimized the legitimate complaints of the colonists. And they lost the biggest diadem in the Imperial Crown.
There is a lesson here for Obama - not a threat in the "Revolutionary" sense, but a lesson about what happens to Presidents and Congresses who become tone deaf. Just ask the Democratic Congressional Majority of 1994 what happened in November. Just ask the Democratic President in 1980 what happened in November. Just ask the Republican Congressional Majority of 2006 what happened - and ask all the Republicans what happened in 2008. When the government in a democratic Republic such as the USA stops listening, they stop governing and are replaced with others who - at least for the moment - are making a better show of listening.
Obama - and especially the Congressmen and Senators up for election in 2010 - would do well to listen closely to those Americans who are breaking out of their comfort zones to express their profound frustration with the current direction of America. Not the state of today's economy, but their pump-and-dump stimulous "solution." Not the state of our healthcare delivery system, but their healthcare reform "solution." Not the state of the environment, but their cap-and-trade "solution."
And if they're smart as well as intelligent, they'll show these people some respect - even if they don't feel that respect, even if they actively dislike those who are dumping 21st Century Tea into Washington's Reflecting Pool.
A final note - Obama, who's been the most media-savvy President since Clinton at his best (or Reagan all the time) - completely blew it with the first Tea Bag protests, and that amazes me. Instead of ignoring and belittling them, he should have addressed them in Washington (and via Washington to all the protests). He should have said something like:
"As Americans, our most cherished freedoms include the right to freely assemble, freely speak, and freely petition the government for redress of grievances. You, my fellow Americans, are hear to exercise those freedoms, and to tell me and Congress and members of my Administration what you think of our efforts to date. We may not always agree, but we will always share your devotion to our core American rights.
"I want you to know that I am listening, that I am hearing you, and that my Administration and I will be carefully considering your every word, your every position. We may not, at the end of the day, agree on everything, but you have been heard, and your concerns will inform my future decisions.
"Finally, I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to come here today to ask me and my Administration, to ask your Congress members and Senators, to listen to you, to hear you, and to fairly consider all that you're saying. You are exercising your God-given fundamental rights as Americans, and by doing that, you are making our country stronger and more free. I wish that all Americans shared your vision and commitment. As your President and as a fellow citizen of our great country, I promise to consider your words and your beliefs, to weigh your requests and recommendations against the needs I see for our country, and to do my best to govern while always holding onto the lessons and messages of this day."
If he'd said that - no matter how sincere or insincere - he would have diffused the Tea Party movement and won over many of those who desperately want to go on believing in America. But the arrogance of power - or inexperience - or an inability to bridge the gap between his beliefs and his opponents demands - kept him from reaching out. I believe that Reagan would have seized the moment - I know Franklin Roosevelt would have found a way of capitalizing on this - and I suspect that Bill Clinton would have found a way to co-opt this movement through skilled triangulation.
Obama has none of those leaders' gifts, or insights, or experience. He may grow into it - but he has less time than he might think before it will become all but impossible for the Administration to reach out successfully to diffuse the anger of tens of millions of Americans. And in doing so, he runs the risk of becoming another one-term-wonder such as Jimmy Carter - hardly the President anyone would want to emulate.
Or so it seems to me.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Clunkers for Charity - Another Unexpected Consequence of Government Meddling
By Ned Barnett
(c) 2009
Over the past decade, donated well-used but still functional automobiles have become a major source of funds for charities. However, the kinds of cars usually donated to those charities have now become the target of a mechanical pogrom - a brutal "Final Solution" for older automobiles. The government's "Cash for Clunkers" program has led to the sale of a lot of allegedly greener autos (though few bother to do the math - if they did, they'd realize that C4C has a bigger carbon footprint than the cars they crush) and the wanton destruction of tens of thousands of workable automobiles. Car dealers are thrilled - new-car owners feel great (and will until they have to start paying car notes again) - unions are doing fist-bumps as they log in more overtime and more benefits, and the ever-meddlign Greenies feel triumphant for being able to take other people's money to put greener cars on the market, distorting the market enough to make otherwise unwanted new cars economically desirable.
What we still laughingly call the "free market" has established that there is not a big US market for ultra-efficient sardine-cans-on-wheels. If the "green" cars were actually popular, the government wouldn't have to offer billions of dollars in tax-funded bribes to lure those who'd been happily driving completely functional but marginally less fuel-efficient cars and pack them into tin-foil death cars. We know the basic cost - a billion dollars last week and probably two to four billion dollars in the next two weeks - but there are other costs nobody is talking about.
First, destroying car engines and shredding perfectly good autos isn't cheap. The equipment to turn working SUVs into slag and scrap burns LOTS of carbon, even as it creates waste - shredded rubber, melted plastic, residual heavy metals from catalytic converters - not to mention the petroleum needed to ship this slag to China were it will be turned into more stuff America used to manufacture for itself - then yet more fossil fuel to ship those products back to us. So much for the marginal savings in carbon emissions.
But there are other, more human costs - and I'm not talking about the taxes you and I are paying so others can get new cars they don't really want at our expense. The human terms costs are paid by charities that have - for the past decade or so - raised increasingly significant percentages of their charitable funding from donated "clunkers" - tax write-offs for the donees and vital revenue sources for cash-strapped charities. Clearly, the government cared more about the supposed - but illusory - environmental benefits of the C4C program than it did for the increasingly essential charitable services.
A more subtle cost of this program. Among all the people who have depended on low-cost, working autos, none have had a greater need than battered women fleeing from abusive relationships who find themselves thrust back into the job market and desperate for a way to get to and from work. Without going into too-personal details, I'm painfully aware of women who have been trying to rebuild their lives, women who depended on reliable low-cost personal transportation. Not everyone lives in communities with functional public transportation - women in those areas have been dependent for decades on low-cost cars that are now being pulled off the market and shredded. With a quarter-million fewer reliable used cars suddenly pulled out of the marketplace, those women will find obtaining cars more costly and harder to do.
Though less in need, young families just starting out have that same need for affordable, low-cost and reliable transportation - and they'll have to make sacrifices or do without, all because liberal environmental elites and auto-union advocates who want more overtime and bigger benefits together pushed through a program that might have looked positive on the surface, but which had hidden - human - costs far in excess of any hypothetical benefits.
Washington - that master of the unintended consequences - has outdone itself in creating a program that is bad for all taxpayers (who are footing the bill) and especially less well-off Americans who are dependent - often critically dependent - on affordable transportation. However, they can rejoice in the knowledge that the Chinese will finally be getting enough low-cost scrap metal.
(c) 2009
Over the past decade, donated well-used but still functional automobiles have become a major source of funds for charities. However, the kinds of cars usually donated to those charities have now become the target of a mechanical pogrom - a brutal "Final Solution" for older automobiles. The government's "Cash for Clunkers" program has led to the sale of a lot of allegedly greener autos (though few bother to do the math - if they did, they'd realize that C4C has a bigger carbon footprint than the cars they crush) and the wanton destruction of tens of thousands of workable automobiles. Car dealers are thrilled - new-car owners feel great (and will until they have to start paying car notes again) - unions are doing fist-bumps as they log in more overtime and more benefits, and the ever-meddlign Greenies feel triumphant for being able to take other people's money to put greener cars on the market, distorting the market enough to make otherwise unwanted new cars economically desirable.
What we still laughingly call the "free market" has established that there is not a big US market for ultra-efficient sardine-cans-on-wheels. If the "green" cars were actually popular, the government wouldn't have to offer billions of dollars in tax-funded bribes to lure those who'd been happily driving completely functional but marginally less fuel-efficient cars and pack them into tin-foil death cars. We know the basic cost - a billion dollars last week and probably two to four billion dollars in the next two weeks - but there are other costs nobody is talking about.
First, destroying car engines and shredding perfectly good autos isn't cheap. The equipment to turn working SUVs into slag and scrap burns LOTS of carbon, even as it creates waste - shredded rubber, melted plastic, residual heavy metals from catalytic converters - not to mention the petroleum needed to ship this slag to China were it will be turned into more stuff America used to manufacture for itself - then yet more fossil fuel to ship those products back to us. So much for the marginal savings in carbon emissions.
But there are other, more human costs - and I'm not talking about the taxes you and I are paying so others can get new cars they don't really want at our expense. The human terms costs are paid by charities that have - for the past decade or so - raised increasingly significant percentages of their charitable funding from donated "clunkers" - tax write-offs for the donees and vital revenue sources for cash-strapped charities. Clearly, the government cared more about the supposed - but illusory - environmental benefits of the C4C program than it did for the increasingly essential charitable services.
A more subtle cost of this program. Among all the people who have depended on low-cost, working autos, none have had a greater need than battered women fleeing from abusive relationships who find themselves thrust back into the job market and desperate for a way to get to and from work. Without going into too-personal details, I'm painfully aware of women who have been trying to rebuild their lives, women who depended on reliable low-cost personal transportation. Not everyone lives in communities with functional public transportation - women in those areas have been dependent for decades on low-cost cars that are now being pulled off the market and shredded. With a quarter-million fewer reliable used cars suddenly pulled out of the marketplace, those women will find obtaining cars more costly and harder to do.
Though less in need, young families just starting out have that same need for affordable, low-cost and reliable transportation - and they'll have to make sacrifices or do without, all because liberal environmental elites and auto-union advocates who want more overtime and bigger benefits together pushed through a program that might have looked positive on the surface, but which had hidden - human - costs far in excess of any hypothetical benefits.
Washington - that master of the unintended consequences - has outdone itself in creating a program that is bad for all taxpayers (who are footing the bill) and especially less well-off Americans who are dependent - often critically dependent - on affordable transportation. However, they can rejoice in the knowledge that the Chinese will finally be getting enough low-cost scrap metal.
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