Scene from a protest today in Cincinnati.

Today we will supposedly be seeing national protests against taxation nationwide, “tea parties” organized by the “usual suspects” as Paul Krugman calls them. These events haven’t sprung up from a genuine groundswell of public sentiment, instead they’ve been promoted heavily by a group called Freedom Works, led by former House majority leader Dick Armey, a bunch of billionaires, and the usual idiots from Fox News.

This kind of thing certainly isn’t without precedent, it’s called AstroTurfing, and the right wing and big business are no stranger to the practice. Here are ten pretty egregious examples.

The National Smoker’s Alliance

The National Smoker’s Alliance was a group formed in 1993 by Philip Morris Tobacco Company to make it seem as if there was a grassroots movement against smoking bans and other laws to limit smoking. Philip Morris contracted with the fifth largest PR company in the world, Burson-Marsteller, to create and run the group. The NSA paid younger people (usually college aged) to recruit individuals in clubs, bowling alleys, and bars to join the group. They also used new members as recruiters, handing out t-shirts and other recruitment prizes. The front group ran full page newspaper ads, sent letters to newspaper editors, published newsletters, did telemarketing and polling, and paid canvassers to promote a pro-smoking agenda.

The 50 Cent Party

The 50 Cent Party is the name given to the Chinese group paid to post blog posts and internet comments favorable to Chinese government policy. The name is derived from the payment for the work, 5 mao, or 50 Chinese cents. The group is run by the Ministry of Culture, who administers training for the job and provides certification. Job applicants must first past an exam before getting the job.

Center For Consumer Freedom

The Center for Consumer Freedom is a front group run by a huge consortium largely made up of tobacco companies, fast food restaurants, and other food producing corporations like Cargill and Tyson Foods. The group was originally started by Philip Morris. The CCF actually often gets some love on the internet for repeatedly going after PETA, but they also go after organizations like the Humane Society, calling it “violent” and “extreme”. They have also claimed that dieting and meal tracking do not lead to weight loss, which is not terribly surprising when you realize they are basically lobbying for fast food.

Al Gore’s Penguin Army

On May 24, 2006 a video appeared on YouTube spoofing Al Gore and his documentary An Inconvenient Truth. This was the same day the documentary was released. The video was made to look like an amateur production, but bloggers discovered that the computer used to make the animation was registered to DCI Group, a lobbying corporation run by Republican activists. One of their biggest clients is ExxonMobil. It’s not that hard to connect the dots here.

Microsoft Loves Dead People

When Microsoft was having it’s anti-trust issues it organized a letter writing campaign to state Attorney Generals across the country. Specifically, groups called Americans for Technology Leadership and Citizens Against Government Waste, funded by Microsfot, organized the letter drive. Dead people were apparently pretty riled up about Microsoft getting sued for anti-trust practices, because some of the letters were signed by people no longer with us. There’s sleazy and then there’s sticking some dead guy’s name on an AstroTurf campaign to help a huge corporation not get sued for being a monopoly.

Save Our Species Alliance

Many of these false flag operation have vaguely Orwellian names, but perhaps none are so bad as the Save Our Species Alliance. The group describes itself as “a nationwide grassroots organization comprised of property owners, farmers, ranchers, miners, foresters, builders/developers, sportsmen, recreationists, business owners and ordinary citizens sharing the common goal of making the Endangered Species Act friendlier to local conservation efforts, property owners, and local governments while at the same time, doing a better job of actually saving species at risk.” Naturally it actually opposes most of the Endangered Species Act, especially all the parts that inconvenience the logging/timber and cattle industries. Who naturally bankroll most of the group’s operations.

Working Families For Wal-Mart

Working Families for Wal-Mart was a group created by Wal-Mart and PR firm Edelman to give the appearance that a grassroots organization was rising up to support Wal-Mart against unions and labor. The effort mainly consisted of fake blogs including one called “Wal-Marting Across America”, an topic that might sound kind of disgusting, but actually consisted of fake stories of a couple traveling across the country in an RV and sleeping in Wal-Mart parking lots.

Comcast And The Big Ten Network

The Big Ten Network was slow to be adopted by cable companies. Arguments over channel placement and fees were contentious, and Comcast decided to help itself in the cause by signing up to a bunch of message boards pretending to be fans of different Big Ten teams who were glad that Comcast wasn’t giving in to the Big Ten network. Which makes absolutely no sense, since of course these are the people who probably wouldn’t mind a fee increase so they could see their favorite teams.

Sandvine Hearings

Comcast makes the list again, this time by hiring people to sit in on FCC hearings on network neutrality. Supposedly they were there to hold seats for Comcast employees, but they largely filled the room hours before the meetings were to take place, blocking Comcast opponents from entering the room. The hired supporters pretended (or actually, who knows with this kind of thing) to sleep during the meeting and applauded wildly at just about everything Comcast executive vice president David L. Cohen said.

The 2000 Election Recount “Riots”

While these are in no particular order, we still had to put this one last to highlight just how bad it was since it helped give us eight years of George W. Bush. With the Florida recount underway, Republicans knew that the battle for public opinion was of the utmost importance. To help things go their way Republican operatives flew in hundreds of GOP staffers, who descended on Dade County, Florida to stage what was meant to look like a grassroots protest against a hand recount of 10,750 ballots that was already underway. The media barely made mention that the “riots” were backed by GOP operatives, leaving most to think there was actual protesting against the recounts going on. And in no small way this helped usher in one of the worst presidents in American history.