Astroturf

Via the magnificent Rachel Maddow, I learn of the Hawthorn Group.

The Hawthorn Group is an international public affairs company of senior political communications specialists. Hawthorn helps solve business and policy problems—crisis, legislative, media, customer, financial and employee—for corporations, governments, associations and non-profit organizations.
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Specializing in complex policy issues and heavily regulated industries—beverage, banking, energy, gaming, healthcare, insurance, natural resources, security, trade and utilities—Hawthorn currently represents a diverse group of industry-leading clients.

Got that? They're PR guys for corporations. To translate some of those terms, we're talking about corporations that do stuff like drill for oil, operate casinos, deny people's health insurance claims, blow up mountains to get the minerals, and send guys with guns to solve clients' problems. In short: evil corporations.

Their newsletter page reads today:

We thought the most fixated of the political and communications “junkies” might find interesting some highlights of a recent grassroots campaign Hawthorn created and managed for the American Coalition of Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).

“Grassroots campaign.” I do not think that word means what they think it means.

Deceiving us has become an industrial process.