Right-Wing Sock Puppets Pretending to Be Liberals Assault

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Right-Wing Sock Puppets Pretending to Be Liberals Assault

Postby admin » Mon Mar 31, 2014 2:00 am

Right-Wing Sock Puppets Pretending to Be Liberals Assault Progressive Websites
by RS Janes
Sunday, 08 May 2011

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Ignorant, peevish, narrow-minded, misinformed, livid, intolerant, they are an army of everything that's wrong with America, denizens of a weird trickster God who speaks to them with words they don't completely understand, or tints their natural interior wrath with righteous anger conferred by snake-oil preachers or haughty cable charlatans either crass or crazed, or just slyly in it for the money, or all of the above.

This minority wouldn't matter much except they are whipped into a frenzy and 'played' by cynical manipulators like Frank Luntz, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck who, in turn, wouldn't have much impact without the billions of dollars spent to spread their fetid message from such right-wing corporatists as Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers.

But beneath the second-tier video fictions of James O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart, and the hollow-headed bleating of the various ozone-inhabiting creatures who will never be president like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, and even in the shadow of the disingenuous theocratic mushpile that is David Barton’s twisted view of our history, exists a well-funded Republican netherworld of PR propagandists and marketing hucksters busy dreaming up unethical new ways to undercut Obama and the Democrats.

One of these is Doug Goetzloe, an anti-tax right-wing talk show host and former Young Republican who heads up Advantage Consultants. Here is the copy from one of his ads advising his conservative clients to ‘flood the zone’ on progressive sites:

“Are you ready for a blog attack?

“Get ahead of your opponent with Professional Blog Warriors.

“Be prepared to ‘flood the zone’ with comments from professionals who are ready to put your talking points on the blogosphere 24/7.

“Whether it's defense or offense, Advantage Consultants has a dedicated team of experienced blog warriors ready to advance your candidate or campaign.

“Why wait for the attack? Launch your attack with a battery of blog and forum comments aimed at all media and blog sites in your district.

“Contact us today and let us show you the Advantage in professional blog warfare.”
-- See the Advantage Consultants ad at:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 89x6266805

Then there’s Chip Griffin, head of the now defunct NetVocates that planted comments as Advantage Consultants does back in 2005, and still a Republican activist and PR man who was once associated with the far-right TownHall.com. Griffin is no doubt back on the scene as a sock-puppet master for the 2012 elections -- it’s what he does for a living.

A poster named TomCADem recently made these points at Democratic Underground:

“However, what is often ignored are right wing/corporate funded political operatives generating attacks on Democrats from the ‘left’ while giving Republicans a free pass. Of course, these operatives do not announce their intentions, but instead simply launch attacks on Democrats from the left while largely ignoring the far more extreme positions of Republicans or suggesting that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. However, occasionally, such operatives are caught engaging in these fraudulent acts.

“The question in 2012 with Republicans and corporate American intent on taking back the White House, killing unions, and privatizing Medicare, [is] how far will Republicans and corporate propaganda groups go in their efforts to organize sock puppet attacks on Democrats from the left in order to undermine support for Democrats among liberals?”

-- Posted in “‘Liberal’ Sock Puppets – Right Wing/Corporate Operatives Attacking Democrats From The ‘Left’,” April 26, 2011.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 439x967422

How far? The GOP is desperate to enact their anti-democratic corporate agenda as quickly as possible as they know the general public is catching onto them -- they will go as far as mountains of corporate money and a total lack of conscience or ethics will take them.

Some on the progressive side are already well aware that the GOP is, and has been at least since 2005, mounting a large and well-funded campaign to plant phony 'progressives sick of the Dems' comments on various liberal sites to split the vote. Their masters know the psychology well: a percentage of the population, no matter what their politics, is 'suggestible,' meaning if they read a string of comments excoriating ALL Democrats as frauds and liars, that will become their opinion, if nothing to the contrary is offered. These 'suggestibles' are not necessarily stupid, but they do readily conform to whatever opinion is dominant. That's why the GOP, through their paid operatives, flood progressive sites with so-called 'former Democrats' and 'angry progressives' who do nothing but harp on how horrible the Democrats and Obama are. It's insidious and underhanded, but look at who's doing it -- the party of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. All of them were elected on a promise of jobs and better times, only to use their office to reward the wealthy with tax cuts and lucrative contracts privatizing public services at the expense of middle-class families who work for a living.

At one time, some of the 'tells' of the right-wing ‘sock puppet’ troll was their use of terms such as 'DemoRATS' or ‘Demonrats’ for Democrats, and their repeatedly calling Obama 'Obummer,' 'Obomber' or 'Obomba.' But they've mostly changed that language as actual progressives began to notice those repeated constructions and the fetid and simpleminded opinions attached to them. Some current 'tells' are when they don't mention the GOP at all, or claim both parties are just as 'evil,' or try to shut down the conversation with insults, or push readers to vote for any third party, or say that they'd rather vote for a Republican than a Democrat, or make statements with no factual basis, or refer you to a right-wing website to ‘confirm’ their assertions.

Incidentally, there is no comparable effort by the left: if you try to post comments opposing the GOP or corporatists at right-wing sites, in most cases you will quickly be banned from posting there and your comments removed. They aren't about to let the other side play their game on them, even if we had the money to fund such slimy baloney and the inclination to do so.

Our only protection against such ersatz assaults is to use our heads and common sense: if someone is a little ‘too’ enraged at Obama and the Democrats, be suspicious, especially if they never talk about Republicans. Ask them a couple of polite intelligent questions on the comment thread’s topic; if they respond by condemning or insulting you for questioning them rather than engaging you, they’re likely a sock-puppet troll; it’s in their nature to consider any question or disagreement as tantamount to treason. Also, if they keep reposting basically the same idea in one comment thread, they’re probably a sock-puppet troll; they’ve been instructed by their masters that repetition works. And don’t be swayed if they accuse you of being a ‘shill’ or ‘troll’ for questioning them -- they are trained to do that.

Finally, always remember: you can pretend to be a progressive, but you can’t pretend to be smart, and these paid ‘blog warriors’ decidedly aren’t.

"The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals - ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern."
-- Paul Krugman, "The Politics of Spite," NY Times, Oct. 5, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/opini ... ugman.html

© 2011 RS Janes.
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Re: Right-Wing Sock Puppets Pretending to Be Liberals Assaul

Postby admin » Mon Mar 31, 2014 2:29 am

The right-wing liberal: Where it hasn't been 1971 for a long time
http://rightwingliberal.wordpress.com/about/

About: Yours truly is the recently elected Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia. I’ve been blogging since January 2005 (it was just the China e-Lobby back then). The right-wing liberal has been going since Decmber 2006.

With luck, the RLC-VA will soon be manning the trenches against tax increases and profligate spending in Richmond and Washington.
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Re: Right-Wing Sock Puppets Pretending to Be Liberals Assaul

Postby admin » Mon Mar 31, 2014 2:39 am

Talk Radio Moves Debunk 'Liberal Media' Myth
Thomas B. Elias, Columnist
SANTA MONICA MIRROR ARCHIVES
AN. 19, 2014

Listening to radio host Rush Limbaugh and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, you’d think all newspapers, radio and television stations are owned by the pinkest of leftists.

But a series of moves by the nation’s largest owner of radio stations, Clear Channel (controlled by the Bain Capital firm once headed by 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney), means the most-heard medium in California will now carry almost exclusively conservative material.

That medium is talk radio, where until this month at least a couple of high-wattage liberal or “progressive” oriented stations in this state’s biggest metropolitan areas offered a semblance of competition to the far-right voices whose ratings are tops here even as California voters mostly register and vote Democratic.

Here’s what Clear Channel, which owns all stations involved, is doing: It has taken liberal talkers including Stephanie Miller (daughter of Barry Goldwater running mate Bill Miller), Randi Rhodes and Bill Press off its KTLK 1150 AM station in Los Angeles and removed the liberal hosts who worked at KNEW 960 AM Oakland-San Francisco.

Into their places go Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and other ultra-conservative hosts. All are syndicated by Clear Channel-owned Premiere Networks. KTLK has even been renamed The Patriot, KEIB AM 1150, taking its letters from the satiric, fake “Excellence in Broadcasting” network that originates in Limbaugh’s fertile imagination.

Clear Channel made these moves for reasons of profit. The three conservatives bring far higher ratings than any liberals. All were already on the air in the same markets, while their most left-leaning colleagues will probably disappear from California’s publicly-owned airwaves.

The sheer number of cars stuck in traffic in the two big metro areas at times when Clear Channel’s favored hosts appear guarantees higher advertising rates for the stations they’re now on.

Liberal talk won’t quite completely disappear from California’s airwaves. The Pacifica Foundation’s stations KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angles and KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley will continue operating as before, as will the 39 National Public Radio stations, which carry a decent share of liberal-leaning programs mostly underwritten by large corporations.

But virtually all those stations broadcast on the FM band, where signals are much less powerful and far-reaching than many AM stations. Where FM radio signals often don’t make it even over low hills, the nighttime signal of Clear Channel’s KFI-AM Los Angeles can be heard throughout most of the West.

Limbaugh says he's happy with the shift. He should be; he’ll have many thousands more listeners than before to his constant commentary. “(Limbaugh) has built the ratings and revenue of hundreds of America’s most successful radio stations and is looking forward to doing the same at these new Clear Channel homes,” said his spokesman, Brian Glicklich.

The other view is that the move leaves a major medium in extremely one-sided condition. “This leaves radio listeners completely unserved by anything but corporatist, right-wing radio over our publicly-owned airwaves,” griped liberal blogger Brad Friedman.

Because Clear Channel controls so many stations, both in California and across the country, there’s not much listeners can do. A liberal boycott of stations like KEIB and KNEW would likely have low numbers and little impact, because Clear Channel already expected those listeners to leave those stations the moment it moved in the conservative hosts.

The bottom line is that the old shibboleth of liberal media has just been debunked again: Two of the nation’s largest and most liberal metropolitan areas will have nothing but rightist rhetoric on their AM airwaves, which far outdraw whatever liberal talk might be available via FM. That’s conservative domination, not the other way around.
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Re: Right-Wing Sock Puppets Pretending to Be Liberals Assaul

Postby admin » Mon Mar 31, 2014 3:03 am

"Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican."
-- Charlotte Bergmann on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012 in a campaign billboard along I-240.

Another Republican claims that Martin Luther King Jr. was part of the GOP

Image
We rate False the claim made by 9th Congressional District candidate Charlotte Bergmann on this billboard along Memphis's Interstate 240 beltway.

Anyone driving the Interstate 240 beltway around Memphis will now see the new billboard at Getwell Road that proclaims "Martin Luther King Jr. Was A Republican. So Is Charlotte Bergmann. Charlotte Bergmann for Congress."

Bergmann is a Republican candidate in the Democrat-rich 9th Congressional District now represented by Steve Cohen. She got a quarter of the vote in 2010 in the general election and, by all accounts, is doing more campaigning this year than two years ago.

We’re going to take her at her word that she is a Republican.

But Martin Luther King Jr., who marched with Memphis sanitation workers, who was planning a Poor People’s March on Washington at the time of his death, who advocated a guaranteed annual income to end poverty -- a Republican?

We decided to put that assertion to the test. We knew, because he said so, that King never endorsed politicians and "took this position in order to maintain a bipartisan posture, which I have followed all along in order to be able to look objectively at both parties at all times." We also know from his autobiography that he wrote to a supporter in 1956 that "in the past, I always voted the Democratic ticket."

We know that his father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., a longtime Republican when most Southern Democrats were segregationists, endorsed John F. Kennedy publicly in the 1960 presidential race over Republican Richard M. Nixon.

Asked for her sources for the claim, Bergmann directed us to her website, which displays a 20-page newsletter of the National Black Republican Association that charts Republican Party efforts to advance Civil Rights from 1854 through the Eisenhower Administration and the 1957 Civil Rights Act and documents the segregated positions of prominent Democrats in the Jim Crow South. It concludes by saying, if King were alive today, he’d be a Republican.

She also pointed to a statement made by King’s niece, Alveda C. King, a founder of the group King for America: "My uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during his lifetime, was a Republican." Bergmann also said King "subscribed to Republican values" and that most black voters before 1960 associated themselves with the Grand Old Party -- the Party of Lincoln -- that passed the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution ending slavery and guaranteeing equal rights in the 19th century.

However, in a 2008 Associated Press story, King’s son and namesake Martin Luther King III said:"It is disingenuous to imply that my father was a Republican. He never endorsed any presidential candidate, and there is certainly no evidence that he ever even voted for a Republican. It is even more outrageous to suggest he would support the Republican Party of today, which has spent so much time and effort trying to suppress African American votes in Florida and many other states."

Dr. Kenneth W. Goings, professor and past chairman of the Department of African American and African Studies at Ohio State University, said in an email message that King may have had to register as a Republican to vote in Alabama in the 1950s. Goings said: "Daddy King was a Republican as were most African Americans in the South until the early 1940s. But the combination of Dem. Party outreach and Republican Southern strategy meant that by the 1950s the South was well on the way to the split that is evident now. I’ve not seen any evidence that MLK Jr. was a Republican but if he registered to vote it would have been as a Republican in Alabama simply because the Dems. would not allow black voters. Throughout the (Civil Rights) movement he worked with the northern Dem. Party...I wonder if somehow people have just confused Sr. and Jr. (maybe even on purpose)."

Another academic authority on King was not as generous in his assessment of the motivation for suggesting King was a Republican. Michael K. Honey, a professor at the University of Washington-Tacoma and author of "Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign" (2007), said in an email: "Do they now make things up out of whole cloth or do they fabricate based on assumptions with no actual knowledge. In either case, not very good qualifications for office."

Honey, who edited a collection of King’s speeches released last year as "All Labor Has Dignity," said the idea that King was a Republican is "laughable...His interest was in getting both parties to do the right thing on issues. The Democrats certainly disappointed him on the (Vietnam) war, and the Republicans had an orthodox conservatism opposed to most of the changes he wanted to see."

PolitiFact Texas looked into a similar claim in 2011 and interviewed David J. Garrow, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning King biography "Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference" (1986). He said in told them: "It is simply incorrect to call Dr. King a Republican."

Our Ruling:

Weighing the niece’s claim against King’s son’s, Honey’s and Garrow’s, and Goings’ speculation that he might have had to register as a Republican even though he always voted the Democratic ticket, it seems to us that the preponderance of the evidence shows that a claim that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican is simply False.
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