[h3]Google's new lobbyists: lying, astroturfing, push-polling scumbags [/h3]Google's new DC lobbyists have a reputation for slime, astroturfing and push-polling. Joshua Micah Marshall, of Talking Points Memo, points out that Google has hired a DC lobbyist firm with a reputation for being good at courting Republicans, which makes sense, given that the GOP is the party in power. [/p] But DCI, the lobbyists on Google's payroll, have a long history of using deceptive and slimy tactics to achieve the ends commissioned by their clients, who've used DCI's dirty tricks to fight Social Security, and DCI even hired the guy behind the notorious lying scumbag group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. [/p]I think that I probably share more than 80 percent of Google's legislative goals -- goals like a neutral Internet, a lawful book-search service, limitation of liability for search-engines, cachers, etc -- but my biggest and most important legislative goal is an America where open democracy, and not lies, push-polls, and sleaze dominate the political process. [/p] It may seem like fighting the bad guys without resorting to scumbag tactics is fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. But we have an advantage that the other side lacks: we want what's good for America, the Internet and the world. The other side wants to line its pockets and give power to its cronies. They need astroturf to make that look like a populist agenda. [/p] We don't need to lie to make our agenda seem populist and unselfish. [/p][blockquote]DCI, if you're not familiar with them, is an interlocking group of companies which is the phony seed bed for most noxious astroturf organizing and general bamboozlement in contemporary politics. [/blockquote] [a href="vny!://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/009776.php"]Link[/a]
