Peter Schorsch
As news surfaces about the character of some protesting the state’s deal with U.S. Sugar Corp. to buy 46,800 acres of ecologically sensitive land — 50 or more of the outraged demonstrators are paid actors — the mood turns more and more away from serious discussion about a vital issue to more of a farce that offers far more heat than light.
Sarah Bascom, spokeswoman for the Support the EAA Reservoir Project Coalition, an actual stakeholder with something meaningful to say, thought so too.
“This is absolutely ridiculous and, quite frankly, embarrassing for these two groups to have hired paid actors to pose as protestors who ultimately had no idea what they were there to oppose,” Bascom wrote in a statement Thursday.
“It is bad enough to have these last-minute groups pop up without any accountability on who they really are being funded by — but now, we have actors posing as concerned Floridians. If they could not find 50 people who were truly and genuinely concerned about the future of Florida’s drinking water and how best to spend funds from Amendment 1, we could have gladly helped them with crowd development.”
Bascom is absolutely right. Amid a lot of silly frivolity in the Legislature and in Congress these days, grassroots organizations and activists ought to be a bottom-up example of how to really engage in the issues without all the drama and tomfoolery.
Instead we get a troupe of actors posing as Florida’s ultimate stakeholders, the engaged citizenry, on one hand and a warmed-over cover version of the infamous Death Mermaid on the other.
I’m all about using communication persuasively, that’s how I make a living. And I’ve participated in some electoral theater here and there myself. But we can do better than cheap sideshows when it comes to the debate over how Florida will manage its most precious natural resources.
