Sunday, October 18, 2009

Pitcher Plants

I propose a new sub-classification of astroturf groups; those that are actively deceptive about their nature and goals when pulling in new...subjects.

I propose such groups be called Pitcher Plants
Whatever their evolutionary origins, foraging, flying or crawling insects such as flies are attracted to the cavity formed by the cupped leaf, often by visual lures such as anthocyanin pigments, and nectar bribes. The sides of the pitcher are slippery and may be grooved in such a way so as to ensure that the insects cannot climb out. The small bodies of liquid contained within the pitcher traps are called phytotelmata. They drown the insect, and the body of it is gradually dissolved.
Examples: Tea bag and anti-Healthcare movements created and funded by powerful rightwing political and corporate forces, created to suck in people in an economic strata most likely to benefit from the Democratic Party policies they are tricked into opposing.

Another example is the network of Crisis Pregnancy Centers. A name that makes them seem like a health resource vulnerable women can turn to for access to all their legal options. Instead the CPCs are in fact an evangelical front group that carefully hides, until vulnerable women have fallen into the pitcher plant, that they will never help a woman get an abortion. That they oppose birth control and pressure women who've undergone abortions to undergo guilt based counseling to make them regret that they had a right to a legal medical procedure. They've also been credibly linked to harassment, extremism and stringing women along until its too late to end their pregnancies.

One of these things has opened a few blocks from my home. I'm a little ticked about that.

Another pitcher plant example are fake unions. CLAC, the The Christian Labour Association of Canada, not to put too fine a point on it, is a fake union. They're an association with no standing in the Canadian Labour Congress.

CLAC, is the bosses favorite union. Employers bring them in to keep real unions out.

Pitcher Plants that draw in the unwary with a benign appearance only to devour them slowly once they're inside.

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