The tea parties are AstroTurf -- fake grassroots. But there is a real movement growing against corporate greed and government malfeasance. This afternoon, groups of angry conservatives will gather on street corners and in parks across the country to protest. They will carry signs and deliver speeches expressing outrage over the Democrats' stimulus bill, over entitlements, over budget pork, over taxes. They will dump boxes of tea on the ground and wear three-cornered hats. The leading lights of the Republican Party will be on hand to cheer them on.
But as with so much on the right, these apparent displays of populist rage are not what they will seem.Six weeks ago, two of us (Mark Ames and Yasha Levine) published an investigation exposing the nascent "Tea Party" protest movement for what it really is: a carefully planned AstroTurf (or "fake grassroots") lobby campaign hatched and orchestrated by the conservative advocacy organization FreedomWorks. Within days, pieces of the scam had crumbled, exposing a small group of right-wing think tanks and shady nonprofits at its core.
The Tea Party movement was born on Feb. 19 with a now-famous rant by second-string CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli, who called for a "Chicago Tea Party" in protest of President Barack Obama's plans to help distressed American homeowners. Santelli’s call blazed through the blogosphere, greased along by a number of FreedomWorks-funded blogs, propelling him to the status of a 21st century Samuel Adams -- a leader and symbol of disenfranchised Americans suffering under big-government oppression and mismanagement of the economy.That same day, a nationwide "Tea Party" protest movement mysteriously materialized on the Internet.
A whole ring of Web sites came online within hours of Santelli's rant, like sleeper-cell blogs waiting for the trigger to act, all claiming to have been inspired by Santelli's allegedly impromptu outburst.At first glance, the sites appeared to be unconnected and unplanned. But many were suspiciously well designed and strangely on point with their "nonpartisan" and "grassroots" statements. It was as if all of them were reading from the same script.
The Web sites heavily linked to each other, spreading their mission with help of Facebook and Twitter feeds. FreedomWorks, as if picking up on rumblings coming from the depths of the conservative netroots, linked to them, too.But as our investigation showed, the key players in the Tea Party Web ring were no amateurs, but rather experienced Republican operatives with deep connections to FreedomWorks and other fake grassroots campaigns pushing pro-big-business interests.
FreedomWorks has a long history of using such campaigns. Founded in 2004 by Dick Armey, the former Republican House Majority Leader and lobbyist from Texas, and publishing titan Steve Forbes, FreedomWorks represented the consolidation and rebranding of two older think tanks, Citizens for a Sound Economy, founded by the notorious Koch family, and Empower America, a powerful lobbying firm that has battled health care reform and minimum-wage bills while championing deregulation, corporate tax cuts and whatever else their corporate clients desire.
24 comments:
Pro-Life,
When you allow anyone to comment over at your blog, then I'll allow you to comment here.
This post is NOT about abortion. Since you feel so strongly about it, why don't you get a discussion about it started at your own blog?
You've become a pest. If you have something important to say about abortion, you undermine it by your rude and childish behavior.
Why do you say that?
My blog does allow comments!
Ya know what?
Forget about it. I don't want to even hear form you or the likes of you!
Pro-Life,
When I clicked on your link, it said only invited commenters could comment on your blog. Your blog does not say that now.
Blogger may have been at fault for showing me that prohibition.
If that's the reason, then I apologize for wrongly labeling your blog as invitation only. However, it took you several posts after I told you that your blog wasn't allowing at-large commenters to tell me anyone is invited to comment.
Also, in keeping with the policy of other bloggers, I've decided to ask my commenters to stay on the subject, otherwise trolls will come here and try to distract the discussions.
That policy is prominently displayed at the top of my blog.
You've continued to ignore it, which I consider rude.
Then you come here and feign indignation while continuing in your rude behavior?
Hubris.
What an unfortunately named movement...if only the organizers browsed wikipedia prior to deciding on the name.
I went to the protest and got a bunch of pictures. It was very "grass-roots", and I doubt anyone had heard of FreedomWorks. About the worst any of the signs got was the one equating Obama with Hitler.
If it follows from this article that FreedomWorks and Dick Armey controlled all of the tax protests, then perhaps the same sort of arguments can be used to claim that the anti-Iraq War movement was controlled by ANSWER and Ramsey Clark.
Psst: "Pro". There were no abortion-related signs at the protest.
If these folks want to protest something (someone) they should protest the people who put us in this situation that will ensure our taxes will rise for decades, to pay off the debt incurred by the tax policies of the last 30 years.
ie... Dick Army, Newt, both Bushes, Ronald Reagen, and the rest of the Republican legislators who have screamed "No New Taxes" for decades.
In 30 years the national debt has risen 10 trillion dollars. Yet the Republicans want to cut taxes again. Tax cuts are the only answer they have to all our problems, how stupid.
They created this mess, now they are protesting the tax system! They are blaming Obama for all of it, and all he's trying to do is bring some reality back to our national finances.
Mondale was right. We needed to tax ourselves 30 years ago to keep the books balanced. Bush himself call Reagenomics "Voodoo Economics." Reagan's "trickle down economics" theory is a proven failure! Reagan's 8 year term raised our national debt from under 1 trillion to over 5 trillion.
With Bush adding another 5 trillion to our debt our nation cannot withstand the kind of economic downturn we are experiencing, in fact the Republicans tax philosophy is the cause of this economic black hole.
It's hard to believe that Americans have swallowed this Republican tax disaster that is bankrupting America, but then a free lunch is hard to pass up.
If you want to dump tea, dump it on the Republicans, add water and stir. Then swallow it along with the hard pill of starting to pay off the national debt these Republicans have built up over the last 30 years.
I have written a post on this today, tax day.
I'm in South Florida on the east coast in a very large city. There were 20 "teabaggers" out in front of city hall today holding signs, some of which were unintelligible.
All the people in cars that I observed passing in front of them were honking their horns and putting their thumbs out the window in a DOWN position.
I didn't have my camera with me, but trust me, if this was a "grass roots" protest, then it needs some fertilizer--lots of it.
The country is NOT with this protest, no matter how much FOX news tries to talk it up and promote it.
Compare today's showing with the anti-war protests in the run-up to the Iraqi invasion. There were hundreds of thousands of people all over the country (and the world) actually, IIRC, someone guestimated 15 million people protest?
Time: "Then swallow it along with the hard pill of starting to pay off the national debt these Republicans have built up over the last 30 years."
Then who pays off the massive accumulating Obama debt, as he is on track to amass (at least) as much in 4 years as Bush did in 8? Looks like the leader currently in charge of things needs a big one of these pills.
Shaw: The large handwritten signs were readable. The least intelligble, and the least interesting, were the ones that were 8.5 x 11 and looked like they came off ink-jet printers. However, these ink-jet signs were few compared to the "Grassroots" home-made signs.
"The country is NOT with this protest"
That was very also true of the pre-Iraq War protests you refer to.
"There were hundreds of thousands of people all over the country"
This is feasible for the anti-tax protests, based on the numbers I saw anyway: a couple hundred turning out in a blue city in a blue state. Any idea what the national totals are?
addendum: My local CBS station just now estimated the totals for our local protest at 650. This must have happened after the protest moved from the small area in front of the post office to a large public park. I went to do other things at that point. The Lansing protect is said to have had 4,000 (totals from AP), thousands are reported in Madison (AP again), 1000 in Salem Oregon, 3,000 in Hartford (Hartford Courant).
These are just a few cities of the total of 750 I have seen listed, and based on these numbers it is easy to imagine why the CBS station (not Fox) said that the national totals are looking like "hundreds of thousands" (an estimate also given by UPI)
Oh, those confused conservatives!
All their yammering about tea bagging. They don't realize that, tea bagging is:
The act of putting your balls in and out of a persons mouth.
Plus, Christopher, the original tea party in my hometown, Bahstin, Mass., was a protest against taxation without representation.
As far as I can determine, all the teabaggers are represented in Congress, except for the DCers, who have a Representative, but no Senator.
Anyway, yes. I thought it was hilarious that the GOP used teabagging as a form of protest.
Maybe what they're really protesting is their lack of teabagging.
dmark
It's about time someone fixed the Republican financial mess. And yes, it will take money.
You must be one of those free lunch guys.
The party is over. Now we start paying for the last 30 years that the Republicans pandered to the voters saying "No New Taxes."
You probably think paying off our debt (taxing ourselves) is a bad idea. Hope your around to explain that to future Americans who can't make a decent choice, because they are constricted by The Republicans debt.
Time: "You probably think paying off our debt (taxing ourselves) is a bad idea"
Has anyone even proposed this? Instead, we get the debt soaring. More debt to pay off. A deeper hole.
"It's about time someone fixed the Republican financial mess. And yes, it will take money."
With current Democratic plans well underway which are increasing the debt by a huge percentage. Leaving the Republican President debt untouched and adding an even huger component of Democratic President debt.
"Now we start paying for the last 30 years that the Republicans pandered to the voters saying "No New Taxes."
Sensible policies like this are the right way to pander. Over this time period, tax revenues have been steadily rising. However, spending has risen much faster.
"because they are constricted by The Republicans debt."
And at this rate, a Democratic debt that will be mostly as big, if not bigger. The CBO projects a $1.7 trillion dollar defecit just this year. That is just a little more than the debt total that Clinton racked up in all of his 8 years of deficits.
Bush added $4 trillion to the debt in 8 years. Obama is on track to add $7 trillion in just 4 years (his first term) at his current rate.
$7 trillion is more than the total amount of Reagan and all of his predecessors combined. Obama is turning the debt accumulation problem from mostly "red" to mostly "blue". A second term of that would turn the debt problem a rich deep indigo.
nice post, shaw, except for one thing. i see no proof of any of the accusations made. you may be willing to just accept someone's word for these accusations but it isn't a logical argument just an ideological one.
mark says,
"Has anyone even proposed this?"
Yes, Bill Clinton. He had a budget with a surplus, that Bush destroyed. The projections would have allowed us to start paying off our national debt.
"The CBO projects a $1.7 trillion dollar deficit just this year."
That is Bush's budget, that Obama has to work under.
"Bush added $4 trillion to the debt in 8 years."
Try 5 trillion, but hey what's a trillion dollars, to be off by.
"Sensible policies like this are the right way to pander. Over this time period, tax revenues have been steadily rising. However, spending has risen much faster."
You contradict yourself. IF Republicans had cut spending(which they DID NOT) tax cuts might have help spurred businesses investing. Instead they ran up an 11 trillion dollar debt.
Businesses do not use tax cuts to hire more workers, they use extra money to invest in more efficient (cut # of employees) processes to earn more profits.
So your answer the question-How do we pay down the debt? Is to cut taxes. Go back to elementary Math classes.
Clinton had no surpluses: the national debt kept increasing.
"The projections would have allowed us to start paying off our national debt."
Projects, not reality. An actual Clinton surplus would have reduced the debt, even by a small amount.
"Businesses do not use tax cuts to hire more workers"
So? Who was discussing this? But you are wrong on this, as there are many examples of businesses using tax cuts to hire workers.Here is one I read about this morning. Caused directly by state government tax cuts for filmmakers. New auto factories also tend to open up in states with less punitive tax policies.
"You contradict yourself. IF Republicans had cut spending(which they DID NOT) tax cuts might have help spurred businesses investing. Instead they ran up an 11 trillion dollar debt."
I am not contradicting myself. I know that the Republican Presidents (and Clinton) are to blame for refusing to veto bad spending bills.
"So your answer the question-How do we pay down the debt? Is to cut taxes. Go back to elementary Math classes"
Makes more sense than your answer: to increase the debt by a huge percentage.
It's worth noting that the tea party phenomenon started out as being for all citizens, it was the Ron Paul supporters who started them first. Then the Beck 9/12, Santelli etc. MSM heads hijacked the tea party movement and made it into controlled opposition left/right stuff.
That (silly left-right divisionism) isn't what it is or was about, just ordinary citizens protesting a tyrannical government.
"Clinton had no surpluses: the national debt kept increasing."
I've tried to explain that to you and so have many others. You obviously don't have the intelligence to understand, but sadder, you don't even try. You are not only wrong, but lying. You compare national debt to Clinton's yearly budget.
"Clinton had no surpluses: the national debt kept increasing."
I am because this is the excuse Republicans have given for 30 years to sell their "No Tax" plan to the American people. Trickle down as Reagan described it, is a proven failure.
"I am not contradicting myself. I know that the Republican Presidents (and Clinton) are to blame for refusing to veto bad spending bills."
Lets see 21 years of Republican Presidents and 8 years of a Democratic President with a Republican Congress. Bush vetoed zero spending bills. No other President has that irresponsible record towards spending bills.
"Makes more sense than your answer"
So I'm right, you have not got the intelligence to learn from History. The course of tax cuts is a proven failure.
"You compare national debt to Clinton's yearly budget"
There is a difference, as has been discussed before. The national debt is the accumulation of the deficits and surpluses. Well, almost all deficits as lon as I can remember. Depending on the budgets. If there is a surplus, the debt goes down. If there is a deficit, the national debt goes up. And it turns out that the debt went up every year Clinton was in office.
"The course of tax cuts is a proven failure."
The history of tax cuts has been steadily increasing revenue. If they were a failure, you'd think that the revenue would go down. It is the spending that is the problem.
"Bush vetoed zero spending bills. No other President has that irresponsible record towards spending bills."
I can think of one off the top of my head. It's not a lot, but "zero" is incorrect. As for no other President being that irresponsible. Obama is doing very well at this. He even refused to veto the exact sort of waste spending bill he promised to stop (the 9,000 earmarks bill).
Adam: I saw no evidence of Ron the Racist at the tea party.
Ron the Racist lol...
http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/134/7587/high%20alert.asp?wid=134&nid=7587
I think that smear has been dealt with, don't you?
As I said, the original idea for tea parties was from Constitutionalists (the 'real opposition') who were opposed to the increase in the size of government and the loss of rights irrespective if which corporate party is in power. Fox, Santelli etc. (the 'fake left-right opposition') then hijacked it to turn it into a neocon love fest. But at least some conservatives are waking up to the size of government increases under successive leaders.
AdamS: The only smears here are the racial ones coming from Ron Paul.
Here is one: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be." (1992)
"Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." (also 1992. Nice example of racial profiling)
He also said "we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers."
A lot of these quotes are preserved for posterity in Ron's own newsletter which he has published since 1985.
Thankfully, Ron Paul's racist domestic policy and atrocious foreign policy (which appears to be fueled by antisemitism and fears of the Bildeburgers) he won him the hearts of a tiny percentage of the electorate. He is a joke candidate, not seriously running for office.
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