Why the Right's 'Astroturfing' Propaganda Is Textbook Psychopathic

By Byard Duncan, AlterNet
Posted on August 15, 2009, Printed on August 16, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/141969/

Here's a quick test, a sort of free-association game: What do egocentrism, deceitfulness and aggressive criminality have in common?

If you guessed that they are characteristics of disturbed behavior, you're half right. They are in fact features of the Psychopathy Checklist Revised, a template for diagnosing psychopaths, designed by Canadian psychologist Robert D. Hare.

But what's more interesting about this triumvirate is the fact that it's being employed in the recent slew of corporate-backed, faux grassroots outbursts (also known as "astroturfing" campaigns) across the country.

Organizations behind these events, like Bonner & Associates and FreedomWorks, are promoting a mind-set that's textbook psychopathy. And like many psychopaths, they've been getting away with it for years.

It's easiest to understand this (admittedly nonexpert) diagnosis by breaking the behavior into individual categories. Let's kick it off with egocentrism.

In 2002, dozens of Maryland's community leaders received a faxed petition urging them to protect 600,000 lower-income families from escalating medical costs. The petition condemned a piece of legislation before the General Assembly that would purportedly devastate poor communities across the state.

But although the fax bore all the markings of a grassroots organization (it was riddled with typos and included a handwritten cover letter), it was actually a fabrication -- assembled by Bonner & Associates, a Washington "strategic grassroots" firm hired by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

The goal was not to save low-income families; it was to use grassroots-mobilization tactics to rustle up support for a bill that threatened PhRMA's bloated economic interests.

When snagged in this lie, Bonner & Associates did not acknowledge dishonesty or wrongdoing. Instead, the company attempted to position itself as a champion of American ideals.

"It's a great exercise in the First Amendment," said Founder Jack Bonner. "The more people and organizations that come forward on your behalf, the better off you are in politics. It's democracy. That is what this is about."

So rather than recognizing its petition for what it was -- at best, a manipulation; at worst, a full-blown guerrilla attack on democratic processes -- Bonner & Associates chose to spin deception as a heroic exercise in patriotism.

This demonstrated a delusional egocentrism -- something not far from what Hare, in his book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, calls "a narcissistic and grossly inflated sense of self-worth and importance."

Put a big, fat check mark next to Psychopathic Tendency No. 1.

Next up is a passion for "deceitful and manipulative behavior." To satisfy this requirement, we need not yet depart from the sinister shenanigans of Bonner & Associates.

Remember when Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., received Big Coal-sponsored Bonner forgeries from a nonprofit Hispanic group called Creciendo Juntos and from the NAACP a few weeks ago? Each invoked the concerns of phantom 'constituencies.'

Each urged Perriello to oppose the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act, a controversial climate-change bill. The statement from Creciendo Juntos carried the signature of a made-up person (Marisse K. Acevedo) with a made-up title at the organization (assistant member coordinator), and lamented the "tight budgets" of its members. The NAACP's faux letter was equally reckless, directly contradicting the organization's official stance on ACES.

"They stole our name. They stole our logo. … They forged a letter and sent it to our congressman without our authorization," Tim Freilich, a member of Creciendo Juntos' executive committee, told Daily Progress. "It's this type of activity that undermines Americans' faith in democracy."

"I am very appalled, as the president, that our organization has been misrepresented in this way by this bogus … letter," said M. Rick Turner, head of the NAACP's Charlottesville branch. "I hope that whoever's behind this will be brought to justice."

So there's your fluency in lying and manipulation. But saying that Bonner & Associates has a knack for dishonesty would be a ridiculous understatement.

It's more appropriate to argue that deceit is central to the company's existence. Lies, being good at lying and not owning up to exposed lies are absolutely fundamental to astroturfing -- the technique's Miracle Gro, if you will.

Predictably (and like psychopaths, who display a bewildering ability to breeze through their own contradictions and falsities), Bonner made absurd attempts to brush aside the event, arguing that the faxes were a "mistake," and that the person who was responsible had been fired.

This was despite the organization's anaconda-length track record of employing nearly identical tactics for nearly identical ends.

Checkmark No. 2 on the ol' psychopathy list.

But the most volatile -- and perhaps most important -- qualifier for psychopathic behavior promoted recently by lobbying organizations is what Hare would call "criminal versatility."

On June 22, Rep. Tim Bishop, D-N.Y., had to be escorted by police to his car after being shouted down by health care "protesters" at a town hall in Setauket, NY. Then, in early August, the office of North Carolina Rep. Brad Miller received a threatening phone call because of the politician's health-policy stance.

"The call to the D.C. office was, 'Miller could lose his life over this,' " Miller Communications Director LuAnn Canipe told Talking Points Memo. "Our staffer took it so seriously, he confirmed what the guy was saying. He said, 'Sir is that a threat?' "

Although it has stopped short of taking responsibility for such actions, FreedomWorks, a lobbying firm with its own rich history of astroturfing, has not shied away from provoking criminal behavior.

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http://www.alternet.org/politics/141969/why_the_right%27s_%27astroturfing%27_propaganda_is_textbook_psychopathic/

they are so impossible to get through to, in terms of any kind of ethical dimension.

Their own site seems to be inaccessible, but here's wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation

from a legal entity that originated as a government-chartered institution meant to effect specific public functions, to the rise of the modern commercial institution entitled to most of the legal rights of a person. One theme is its assessment as a "personality", as a result of an 1886 case in the United States Supreme Court in which a statement by Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite led to corporations as "persons" having the same rights as human beings, based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution."

It seems to me that few aspects of the West today, if any, proclaim as clamorously that the bottom of the pit, the deepest possible level of the legislative abyss, was, in essence, plumbed long ago, than that little piece of US legislation: truly the promissory note of the final stages of mankind's enslavement to the apex predators of mankind, the super-rich, that we suffer under today.

(amended)

I hesitate to call it a flaw. But it's certainly not a beneficial trait. Not unless there is only one person on the planet.

You bring up an interesting train of thinking. I actually wonder if it's something very simple. Just a small switch in the brain physiology that keeps the brain from considering options, imagining, empathizing.

including bullying. This use of psychopathy tools to control a population is a virus of the mind and deminishes so much of America.