Activism

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement is providing a real-time case study of the difference between a true grassroots movement and a corporate-backed astroturf movement.

Americans in recent years have been besieged by industry-funded astroturf efforts masquerading as real grassroots movements. One example is the "Hands off my Healthcare" national roadshow, which was backed by the Koch-funded group, Americans for Prosperity. Another is the Tea Party, which got a corporate-sponsored media boost from the Fox News Channel and benefitted from the the efforts of a Sacramento, California-based Republican PR firm, Russo Marsh & Rogers. Astroturf uses manufactured spin and messaging that requires real money for things like media buys, front groups, mass-broadcast faxes, telemarketing-generated petitions, glossy postcards, form letters and talk radio-inspired phone calls.

As many as 30,000 people marched on the Wisconsin capitol Saturday for a rally commemorating the first weekend of the effort to recall the state's embattled Governor Scott Walker.

Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce lost his seat in a recall election November 8th. The vote was widely seen as a referendum on Senate Bill 1070, the volatile anti-immigration legislation introduced by Pearce, a longtime member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).