I would not want to be Hugo Chavez right now.  Apparently he's trying to shut up the media and the people aren't gonna take it.  Keep an eye on The Devil's Excrement for more Venezuela news.

"What happens when the voice of the people gets as fake as a television laugh track?

That's what's happening to the "letters to the editor" column in scores of newspapers today, thanks to a tactic known as "AstroTurf." Borrowing a trick from lobbyists, interest groups are using phony grass roots letter writing campaigns to puff up their support."

The Christian Science Monitor on Astroturfing and the harm it can cause.

"This may seem like good political strategy, but it's bad for democracy.

One of the reasons Americans are turned off by politics is because of the inherent cynicism they see in the political debate. Every position seems like a commodity, espoused not out of belief but for tactical advantage. It's bad enough when politicians do it.

We shouldn't let our views, and the places we express them, be so cravenly manipulated. Keep off the AstroTurf, and let the sun shine in!"

And as a timely reminder that bad strategies exist and propogate on and from all sides of the political specturm I received a Astroturfing solicitation from MoveOn today and they're not even offering a free totebag.  Granted, they do say that your own words are best, but it still smells funny

"Though you will find suggested letters below, they are really only a quarry for you to use in writing your own letter.  The best letter to the editor is your personal and heartfelt response to something you read.  Find something in a news article or (even better) an op-ed or editorial that stirs you -- often because it's unbearably silly or dangerously misguided.  "How can s/he write that?"  Then, as you frame your response, feel free to draw on whatever part of one of the letters below that you find useful.  Your own words are always best.  The letter doesn't have to be -- probably shouldn't be -- as formal or technical as the sample.  We were simply trying to give you the resources to make your own statement for peace. "

"The Bush administration is preparing to release supersensitive electronic intercepts obtained by the National Security Agency that officials say prove that Iraq has repeatedly lied to United Nations inspectors, plotted among themselves about how to conceal weapons material and even appeared to boast afterward at their success in doing so, NEWSWEEK has learned."

Sounds like it could be a smoking gun.  If the intercepts are as compelling as this article implies, I can't see any reasonable argument left for UN members.  While France and Germany,  for their own domestic political purposes, will probably make noise over the existing resolution not providing for war, neither will probably put up a fight if the US decided to ask for a second resolution.  I guess we'll see soon enough.