Ugly stuff

Rachel Maddow reported last night on the involvement of professional lobbysists in drumming up "grassroots" opposition to health care reform, including a how-to-disrupt-meetings guide written by a lobbyist.

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This just pisses me off. It's one thing for citizens to organize themselves to support or protest against government policy - in fact, that ability is one of the things that makes our country great. But for people within the health care industry to once again undermine efforts at reform - this time by outright making sh*t up and concealing the source of the made-up sh*t - turns our right to question our elected officials on its head.

It reminds me of the companies who hired Pinkerton Agency detectives to bust up strikes and infiltrate labor unions a hundred years ago. Maybe I'm naive, but I have to wonder... If your ideas can't stand up to the light of day, and therefore you have to lie and manipulate in order to get your way, then what does that say about your ideas? (Not to mention what it says about you...)