Broken News: “Spontaneous grassroots movements have no leaders" say movement leaders

WASHINGTON—With the recent push for health care and energy reform within the government, news coverage has been rife with stories of citizens and citizen groups being organized, exploited, and in some cases fabricated out of whole cloth in the service of large corporations and the interest groups that represent them on all sides of the debate.

Representatives from the various groups embroiled in the debates gathered today to assure everyone that these grassroots movements are in no way a naked extension of well-established political and corporate actors.

“We take offense to the notion that these expressions of support for our industry are anything other than populist movements in support of our agenda,” said Gerald Faraday, director of communications for the National Organization of Moderately Evil Pharmaceutical Conglomerates.

“That several of these groups seem to parrot our press releases word-for-word is just a happy coincidence. I’m not going to deny we offered help when we saw the public’s desire for the pharmaceutical industry to maintain its profit margins. That said, we provided assistance in only a few small areas: namely organization, funding, media strategy, and message. It’s not like we invented these groups in conjunction with PR firms, no matter what the New York Times or Washington Post claims those intercepted e-mails say.”

When some of the assembled media rabble pointed out those recently discovered memos show blatant collaboration between health care companies, lobbying firms, and the Republican Party in creating instructions for how these ostensibly "grassroots" organizations could best disrupt town hall meetings designed to open discussion on the issue, the assembled groups were quick to defend their practices.

“Look, we just wanted to make sure these groups knew how to best maximize our, I mean, their, interests,” said Dr. Victor Arlovsky, spokesman for the American Health Industry and a former convicted Crimean War criminal who is kept alive solely through his hatred of Sardinians. “And what better way to open the debate by making sure that anyone trying to intelligently talk about the matter was shouted and hooted down by easily organized childish armies of teabag-swinging birth certificate experts? We were merely advising, not organizing, encouraging, or busing in people. This is about the people’s outrage over cheaper health care.”

Questions quickly turned to the energy debate, where some energy companies had come under recent fire for hiring a public relations firm, Bonner and Associates, which subsequently forged letters from non-profit groups purporting to show them siding with the interests of the coal lobby. But those assembled today laughed off such accusations.

“Are we to extinguish the fires of American ingenuity as well?” asked energy lobbyist Eric Sandoval through a microphone powered by a coal fired generator that was quickly filling up the room with black smoke. “It was merely an artistic writing exercise that the media spun out of control. ‘What if Batman’s parents had lived?’, ‘What if Superman never landed on earth?’, ‘What if organizations that were opposed to our goals were to be shown to support them?’ You know: creative fiction.”

“But somehow once the media finds out we sent them to lawmakers, purely in the interest of getting their opinion on our creative works I assure you, then suddenly we’re ‘evil.’ We were merely positing a world in which everyone supported us,” he finished, noting that the smoke that several of the members of the media had begun to choke on was “just good old fashioned CO2”, that it was natural, and to stop complaining about the burning sensation in their lungs already.

The press conference began to take a nasty tone when the recently announced involvement of trade unions in the health care town hall meetings was discussed.

“Get fucked ya fuckin’ humps,” said Vinnie “Da Balls” DiNelco, Director of Outreach and Bustin’ the Heads of Fuckin’ Mouthy Pieces of Shit for the AFL-CIO. “What’s more fuckin’ grassroots than the one of the country’s largest unions gettin’ its members to invade these meetins to shout down those jagoffs from the pharmaceutical companies who’re shoutin’ at those assholes from Washington who take money out of our fuckin’ paychecks? Just two grassroots organizations cussin’ and fightin’ while nothing of importance is able to be discussed by the public at large. Now if you’ll excuse us, this meetin’ is fuckin’ over.”

With that, several groups of people ran into the room and proceeded to shout down additional questions, hoot, and hang media members in effigy.

“My God, a completely grassroots protest of our treatment at the hands of the vile media and their whorish masters in the Kingdom of Sardinia,” Dr. Arlovsky was heard to cry, before the shouting and ranting from the grassroots protesters drowned out all potential for worthwhile conversation. As members of the media left in disgust, some noted their disbelief at the gall of the proceedings but were surprised at the level of grassroots support that had been shown for the assembled industries.