After dinner with the aroma of cooked fowl lingering in the air, Julian agreed to demonstrate a couple of his techniques.
“The man’s brilliant!” George said as he read the comments Julian wrote to adroitly weave an argument in the intended direction.
“A master shill.”
“Stop being sarcastic, Mavis. You just don’t understand the intricacies of what we do.” George nudged her in the ribs slightly as they stood behind Julian while he sat at their dining table typing on George’s computer.
“I guess I just don’t like manipulation in general. I mean, people are just writing their opinions about something they read. I just don’t like the way you guys are trying to sway them to follow an agenda you are paid to promote. I guess I wouldn’t feel so strange about it if you believed your comments, but as it is, you’re writing whatever your employers want.”
Julian turned around. “That’s true, but in reality, many of the other people writing comments are doing much the same thing. They're trying to manipulate the readers to believe their own viewpoints are the correct vision of reality. They construct their arguments in the way they feel is best to convince someone else.”
“Also, you’re never sure that many of the other comments aren’t written by another troll . . .”
“Or even by a staff member of the newspaper or website itself in an attempt to hype the thrust of the article,” Julian added.
Mavis grinned and shook her head. “Does that happen?”
Julian nodded vigorously in agreement. “You’d be surprised at how many of the comments that follow a news story, especially an opinion piece, are of that type.”
“Hell, just to construct a passable setup takes twenty or more,” George said.
Mavis looked at both of them, started to back away, put her hands in front of her face as though she was trying to protect herself and said in an exaggerated tone of voice, “You’re trying to manipulate me right now, aren’t you?” Both men laughed, but they and Mavis knew she was partly correct. In fact, they wanted to convince not only her but themselves that they provided a form of public service by contributing viable viewpoints to the overall body of knowledge.
“After all, citizens need to be informed to make informed decisions.”
“And they need to learn how to distinguish between intelligent reasoning and straw-man hyperbole,” George added.
Mavis was sure that the barbecue at Rick’s would provide plenty of opportunity to practice distinguishing between intelligent reasoning and hyperbole. She had a strong suspicion that it might be the main course.
When George and Mavis arrived with Julian, Gerold, Bill and their wives were already there. No one brought any kids. Since no one mentioned children, one would have to ask, but neither George and Mavis nor Julian cared enough to bother. From the start, the barbecue seemed like another breakfast meeting, but later in the day and in a different venue; at least, that is how George took it initially. Something to do on a Sunday afternoon for people who shared life in a small town.
“You didn’t have to,” Rick’s wife Edna said as Mavis placed a three-bean salad on a picnic table already laden with several covered dishes, paper plates, plastic cups and other accoutrements common to backyard barbecues. All in all, this was a well-shaded backyard of an older two-story, wood-framed home. To the right of the table was some lawn furniture on which sat several late middle-aged Caucasians. To the left was a portable grill at which Rick was standing with a much older man who could have been his father.
“It’s nice that you invited us.”
“Oh nonsense, it’s the least we could do after Rick lured you to the Midwest. I mean you were in California, right?” Edna looked up to the much taller Mavis.
“That’s true, but we were ready for a change and it’s lovely here this time of the year.” Edna appeared almost as tall as she was wide. She must have been around sixty like most everyone else in attendance, but Mavis was struck by her thick, shoulder-length, light-brown curly hair that seemed stolen from a much younger woman as did the ample rack she displayed in front. Both were in sharp contrast to Mavis’ peppered mane and her own much flatter chest.
“Let me just take a few moments here to make a toast and to introduce everyone. I guess the three people who should be introduced first are our guests from out of town. First up are my old buddy from high school and his lovely wife: George and Mavis Kincaid, standing by my lovely wife Edna. Next to them is ‘The Kid,’ Julian Bartel. To my right is my mentor, Todd Green. Seated in the chairs are the Hussemans’: Gerold and Louise. Next to them are Bill and Patti McGregor. I’m Rick and these are my friends: sizzling chicken breast and grilled beef.” He raised a glass of beer. “Cheers!”
“Cheers!” Everyone repeated and drank whatever drink was readily available.
After eating, in a very stereotypical fashion, the men lounged around the patio furniture while the other three women helped Edna gather up the refuse from the feast and transport it indoors before the yellow jackets and other pests came to call.
“I must say, it was a surprise when I found that Oraz was someone I knew from high school.”
“It just shows how birds of the feather . . .”
“. . . bullshit together.” Bill finished what George started.
“You know, what amazed me is how many people in this community are involved in the same line of work. Frankly, I’ve never seen this before. Actually, this is the first time I’ve been contacted by the Bitmore Group to conduct a seminar,” Julian said.
“We're pretty rare, I think.” Rick agreed.
“Why is this town a hotbed for astroturfers?” George asked.
Gerold with a couple of fingers pushed his wire-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose and leaned forward in his chair. “I’m surprised that most trolling isn’t done by people who are close geographically. None of us would’ve started if we didn’t have the support from one another, I think.”
“I started since I was looking for a way to supplement my income when things got tough the past couple of years,” George said. “How about you, Julian? You had a business go belly up, right?”
“There were other reasons, but, for me, it’s the excitement of furthering an agenda I trust.”
“I guess I could be considered the grandfather of the movement here in Centerville.” With that, Todd explained how it all began with the tradition of local retailers and business people meeting together for breakfast at the Fast-Track. Todd had held a middle management job at the local newspaper for most of his career. He started meeting most mornings at the restaurant when he realized it was one of the best ways to learn the inner workings of the community. Gerold had started at the paper just out of high school working on the presses. He got the job since his father was a janitor there. When he started moving up the ranks, he joined the breakfast club. So did Rick shortly after he had transferred here to take over as manager of a new big-box store that had opened in the area.
By that time, Gerold was in charge of newspaper advertising. Bill had worked for the branch office of a bank that had been in town, and had joined the fellows for breakfast around the same time as Gerold.
Several years ago, the newspaper was sold to a conglomerate and subsequently shut down when the company consolidated the papers of several Indiana townships. A similar thing happened to the bank branch at which Bill worked. Todd was offered an early retirement package when the newspaper folded, but Gerold and Bill were not as lucky in their jobs. Ironically, Rick’s store was closed since the corporation had to scale-back due to heavy pressure from a stronger competitor.
Bill leaned back in his chair, stretched and cleared his throat. “It was kind of like a perfect storm in that all of us faced unemployment about the same time.”
“Luckily, our mentor had a few buttons to push.” Rick pointed to Todd.
“Having spent decades at the paper, which had a libertarian-bent, I developed some contacts through the years with state politicians and numerous business leaders. I found some were aware journalists and other professionals were being laid-off or becoming redundant due to outsourcing and/or the overall digitization of our infrastructure, but with that came a few opportunities in content and to those able to supply it.”
“Another success story for the Bitmore Group,” Julian said.
Todd looked at Julian. “What’s that supposed to me?”
“You became a proponent to help spread their agenda.”
“An agenda I’m more than pleased to support.” Todd sounded a little defensive.
Julian raised his glass of red wine. “The same for me as well as for the rest of us here, I’m sure. I propose a toast to limited government, an opposition to wealth redistribution, and interventionism.”
Bill raised his beer and added, “Both political and economic.”
“Don’t forget interpretation of the Constitution as it was intended by the Founding Fathers,” said Gerold.
“Cheers to freedom!” Julian shouted.
Looking out the screen of the sliding glass door that faced the backyard, Edna shook her head and smiled. “It sounds like demon rum has affected the boys already.”
“I’m sure it’s just the start. During the past week, Gerold has been almost uncontrollable after he comes back from those morning gatherings.”
“Rick’s the worst, I think. Since he got connected with this organization, he rarely shuts up. It’s Founding Fathers this or fiat currency that. When he was busy as a store manager, I used to wish we’d have more time to spend together. Now that he’s at home most of the time, he rambles on about how the message must get out . . .”
“Before we lose our personal liberties,” Louise said.
“I must admit, I agree with a lot of what Rick says, but I’m usually relieved when he’s typing away on the keyboard rather than babbling it to me.” Edna noticed that Rick got up out of his chair and started to walk towards the house. She turned away from the door and rejoined the other women seated around the dining table.
“Well at least the two of you work, I’m stuck at home and Bill really starts to drive me bonkers with it,” Patti said just as Rick slid the screen open and stepped inside the house.
“So, what are you ladies scheming?” he asked.
“We’re just complaining about our drunken husbands. What else? I guess I should complain about having to miss church this morning to prepare for this afternoon,” Edna replied from her chair at the head of the table and closest to the kitchen entrance.
“Well, this sloshed spouse needs to water the pipes.” Rick smiled at himself and continued on his way to the bathroom.
Patti, Bill’s wife, smiled back. Edna noticed this and looked a little strangely at the horsey woman. Patti glanced back. “What are you thinking, Edna?”
“I was just wondering why you were smiling at my husband?” she asked.
“My, my, aren’t we the jealous one.”
“Jealous of what? I was just wondering what was so funny. Obviously, it wasn’t what he said.”
“You know, I don’t know what it was. Maybe I’m a little surprised you missed church this morning. ”
“It doesn't happen very often.”
“Maybe I'm surprised we’re all sitting in here while the men are outside. Is this the 21st century or the 19th?”
“It’s pretty strange, isn’t it?” Mavis agreed.
“By the way, I hear from Bill that you and your husband live in an RV.” Patti turned to look at Mavis.
“Yes we do. You can imagine how confining it can be when George starts jabbering about obliterating wackos online.”
“Is that what he says: wackos?” Rick asked as he returned from taking a leak.
“I think that’s about the same thing you say, isn’t it?” Edna asked.
“Yeah, it is. That’s why I’m surprised that he uses the same phrase. It’s a small world, eh?”
“It takes one to know one, I guess,” Louise said.
“Are you calling our husbands wackos?” Mavis asked.
“Well, I’m not sure about yours, but I know that Gerold certainly has a few wing nuts loose.”
“You can be sure I’ll tell him that,” Rick said as he left through the screen door.
“Feel free, I’m sure it won’t register.”
Rick returned to the men clustered together in a small circle to the right of the picnic table and outdoor grill. He sat back down in a white, plastic lawn chair between identical ones occupied by Todd and Julian. “The ladies are inside bitching about us.”
“No doubt they’re pissed off that there are no extra chairs out here,” Gerold said.
Bill leaned forward and smirked. “I guess lap dances are a possibility.”
“I think I’ll pass,” George said.
Gerold grinned. “My Louise would crush any of us except Julian, I’d expect.”
A frown appeared on Julian’s face. “If the only entertainment planned is to have your wives lap dance, it sounds like time to call it a day, huh?”
“Gentlemen, please, this is probably the only opportunity I’ll have to meet with our guests, so I’d like to bring the focus back to something a little more pertinent.” Todd took the wine glass he was holding, placed it on the ground next to him, and turned his balding, gray-fringed head toward Julian sitting on the other side of Rick. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but I have difficulty understanding how you’ve become influential so quickly in an organization that has its roots in a generation twice removed from your own?”
“Are you insinuating that all is not right in the far right?”
“It’s my investigative training to sniff out any inconsistencies in a story.”
A smile replaced the frown on Julian’s face. “No doubt we can see why you have retired from investigative journalism. Simply, if you dug into my background, you would have discovered that my grandfather was one of the founders of the movement from which Bitmore derives the majority of its political agenda.”
For the next few minutes, Julian explained he was convinced the primary reason his bath renovation business had floundered was due to the bursting of the housing bubble that came about by overreaching government involvement in guaranteeing an insanely large number of bogus loans fated to fail.
“While I was working on a degree at Georgetown, I had the opportunity to intern at my grandfather’s foundation. This provided me with a firm understanding of the principles held at Bitmore. These led me to conclude the best solution to the disaster that created ventures like my own to fail was to find a way to utilize social networking and political websites to help direct public opinion.”
“You’re saying you were the one who began this program?” Rick asked.
“You mean paying people to astroturf?”
“If it weren’t for you, I’d be living off my wife’s meager earnings?”
“You’re mostly doing that now anyway, aren’t you Gerold?”
“Speak for yourself, Rick. If your wife didn’t teach a couple of classes at the community college, I doubt you would have been able to keep this place with what you earn by trolling.”
Bill started grinning. “I guess I’m the one who owes Julian the most since Patti and I would probably be homeless right now. As a sign of gratitude, I’ll command her to come out here and dance on your lap.”
“Hell, why not let him take her back to the RV park?” Gerold asked as he slapped him on the back.
Bill fell down on his knees, pressed his hands together as if he were praying and looked up at Julian's flabby face. “Would that please you, my dear patron?”
“Say, ‘dear master’ and it’s a deal,” Julian replied as he grinned through his bushy goatee.
“Don’t you think things are getting a little out of hand, gentlemen?” Todd asked, looking tired.
“One thing I don’t understand is why haven’t you attended the morning sessions, Mr. Green?” George faced Todd sitting next to him.
“What point would there be to that? I know nothing about such details. All I am is a facilitator. I’ve just helped set up the operation.”
“He’s the behind-the-scenes guy,” Rick said.
“The Wizard in Oz, I guess, huh?” Julian added.
“Oh that reminds me, George, I was curious to find out how you got connected to this project,” Todd said.
“Why should I tell you? What right do you have to ask me that?”
“As Rick said, ‘I’m the behind-the-scenes guy.’”
“Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” Julian said.
From his chair, Bill leaned forward and looked George in the eye. “No Dorothy, you’re in Indiana.”
Rick held his hand to his mouth as though he planned to whisper something. “I find it hard to believe you don’t know this by now, but our attempt to improve the mind of the average American voter is not applauded by everyone.”
Gerold smiled as he copied the pose that Rick was using. “In fact, many out there consider it to be illegal and a little dangerous.”
Todd leaned forward and whispered, “You may now understand why I’m the ‘behind-the-scenes’ guy.”
George bent over and stretched out toward the middle of the circle and whispered in turn: “Why then do we meet in public every morning?” Everyone else except Julian and him started laughing.
Links to previous chapters of Book One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4