I know this probably comes as a surprise to no one in this forum, but it just seems surreal to me that this is actually happening.
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“Astroturf.” Fake grassroots. It’s what you get when big business and rich zealots hire pricey consultants to manufacture public outrage. With big budgets, limitless manpower, sophisticated targeting, and a sympathetic media channel, it’s not difficult to generate anger. We will spend the next days documenting exactly who these people are. They are pushing a message out to the press, and with the press. It’s going to take information and work to push back.
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Think Progress: Despite these attempts to make the “movement” appear organic, the principle organizers of the local events are actually the lobbyist-run think tanks Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works. The two groups are heavily staffed and well funded, and are providing all the logistical and public relations work necessary for planning coast-to-coast protests News Hounds: Also, as was reported by two Playboy reporters (more on Playboy’s report here), CNBC’s second-stringer Rick Santelli’s rant against President Obama on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange wasn’t exactly spontaneous, but was actually a carefully-planned trigger for an anti-Obama campaign, funded and assisted by the right-wing big-wig Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, including the Cato Institute, Reason Magazine and FreedomWorks. (The Koch Family’s head rightie, Fred Koch, was also a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society). Does seem a little odd, doesn’t it, that a bunch of tea party websites and organizations were online and live within hours, even minutes, after his rant, and voila – a week later a protest was born.
The tea-party protest movement is organizing itself, on its own behalf. Some existing organizations, like Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions and FreedomWorks, have gotten involved. But they’re involved as followers and facilitators, not leaders. The leaders are appearing on their own, and reaching out to others through blogs, Facebook, chat boards and alternative media.
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The good news for Republicans is that, while the Republican Party flounders in its response to the Obama presidency and its programs, millions of Americans are getting organized on their own. The bad news is that those Americans, despite their opposition to President Obama’s policies, aren’t especially friendly to the GOP. When Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele asked to speak at the Chicago tea party, his request was politely refused by the organizers: “With regards to stage time, we respectfully must inform Chairman Steele that RNC officials are welcome to participate in the rally itself, but we prefer to limit stage time to those who are not elected officials, both in Government as well as political parties. This is an opportunity for Americans to speak, and elected officials to listen, not the other way around.”
Im loving how the website you linked to attempts to make a direct connection between these Tea Parties and white nationalist movements.
Personally, I dont bother putting faith into any website that uses the terms “rightwing” or “leftwing” more than once in a single sentence when describing someone or something .
Originally Posted by The CloserView Posthttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB123975867505519363.html Im loving how the website you linked to attempts to make a direct connection between these Tea Parties and white nationalist movements. Personally, I dont bother putting faith into any website that uses the terms “rightwing” or “leftwing” more than once in a single sentence when describing someone or something .
If you’re going to convince me the tea bagging is “spontaneous,” you will have to do better than a joke of an editorial from the WSJ, owned by teabagging sponsor News Corp.
ps. Fox and the lobbyist and right wing backers stole the idea for tea parties from the Ron Paul movement, and the Ron Paul movement isn’t pleased with their idea being used in support of borrow and spend republicans like Gingrich.
Originally Posted by ytView Post ps. Fox and the lobbyist and right wing backers stole the idea for tea parties from the Ron Paul movement, and the Ron Paul movement isn’t pleased with their idea being used in support of borrow and spend republicans like Gingrich.
I know…but you kinda just helped me make my point. A lot of the tea parties going on are part of that little movement. And living in Chicago, it was news here for a while when Steele was denied the opportunity to speak.
Believe it or not, there are some people out there who arent racists, white nationalists, Fox News enthusiasts, etc who dont necessarily have anything against your buddy Obama but oppose higher taxes, bailouts, and the dramatic increase in the size of government on perfectly reasonable and well thought out grounds. And believe it or not, some of these people have organized rallies recently to make their disagreements known.
If you’re going to convince me the tea bagging is all part of some vast rightwing conspiracy, you will have to do better than a joke of a website like Save The Rich.
Originally Posted by The CloserView Post Believe it or not, there are some people out there who arent racists, white nationalists, Fox News enthusiasts, etc who dont necessarily have anything against your buddy Obama but oppose higher taxes, bailouts, and the dramatic increase in the size of government on perfectly reasonable and well thought out grounds.
Right. And they’ve just been biding their time lo these past eight years. Gimme a goddamn break.
Originally Posted by Jacob SingerView Post Right. And they’ve just been biding their time lo these past eight years. Gimme a goddamn break.
And I’m sure these type of movements would have sprung up doing the Bush administration if the bailouts they are protesting against would have happened his watch.
Regardless of stance, it’s good to see local people becoming more involved in politics.
Weren’t there some anti-bailout protests while Bush was in office? Maybe they weren’t from the conservatives but I thought they had more than a couple …
I don’t question the sincerity of the Ron Paul followers, who totally outshone the GOP convention last year (not that I agree with them, but I see their consistency). What is a total sham isn’t a “conspiracy” at all; it’s a corporate marketing campaign, baldly and plainly. You can use $ave the Rich as a way to discredit that idea, but it’s just aggregating facts about where the money and organization behind this “movement” is coming from.
It’s using the usual wedge and fringe people to make it look like the country is rising up against a tax on the very rich (with some good oldfashioned anti-labor propagandizing thrown in). It’s also obfuscating the fact that the people it’s using are the very same people who were so harshly punished in favor of the rich and powerful under Gingrich’s “permanent Republican majority” congress.
And, as JS points out, where was the populist outrage when Bush was throwing the nation’s treasury at the rich and powerful while leaving the country to rot, turning a surplus into a deficit and skyrocketing the debt to please his base of “haves and have mores”?
Originally Posted by MoonBaseNickView Post And I’m sure these type of movements would have sprung up doing the Bush administration if the bailouts they are protesting against would have happened his watch. Regardless of stance, it’s good to see local people becoming more involved in politics.
The first bailouts happened on Bush’s watch, and the policies that led to the bailouts happened on Bush’s watch.
And these protests aren’t about bailouts, though their organizers are using anti-bailout rage as a way to manipulate people into joining the fray. They’re anti-tax anti-spend anti-union anti-Obama.
Originally Posted by ytView Post The first bailouts happened on Bush’s watch, and the policies that led to the bailouts happened on Bush’s watch. And these protests aren’t about bailouts, though their organizers are using anti-bailout rage as a way to manipulate people into joining the fray. They’re anti-tax anti-spend anti-union anti-Obama.
And as ElCaption said people did protest what Bush did, just not on this scale.
And wouldn’t just about everybody be against high taxes and large government spending?
Well, Obama is supporting the status quo and keeping the rich failures rich as well. I don’t see how you can really support either party; the Dems are just the lesser evil.
Originally Posted by ElCapitanAmericaView Post Weren’t there some anti-bailout protests while Bush was in office? Maybe they weren’t from the conservatives but I thought they had more than a couple …
Wouldn’t know. Under Bush, shit like that rarely made it in front of a camera.
Originally Posted by ytView Post The first bailouts happened on Bush’s watch, and the policies that led to the bailouts happened on Bush’s watch. And these protests aren’t about bailouts, though their organizers are using anti-bailout rage as a way to manipulate people into joining the fray. They’re anti-tax anti-spend anti-union anti-Obama.
I got a facebook invite to one of these rallies, it said it was anti bail out and anti spend. So again, to me it’s the conservative response to the bailout mess which I thought I saw from the liberal side under Bush’s watch.
Originally Posted by ElCapitanAmericaView Post I got a facebook invite to one of these rallies, it said it was anti bail out and anti spend. So again, to me it’s the conservative response to the bailout mess which I thought I saw from the liberal side under Bush’s watch.
And how much endorsement did these liberal anti-spend protests get from Fox News and Americans for Prosperity? Yeah, the tea paries are just totally grassroots everyday Americans who hate deficit spending. Especially under a black Democratic president.
Originally Posted by ElCapitanAmericaView Post Weren’t there some anti-bailout protests while Bush was in office? Maybe they weren’t from the conservatives but I thought they had more than a couple …
There were a few indeed. And they were usually set up (as they are today) by actual conservatives. You can’t help but appreciate the distance some of these groups are trying to create between them and the GOP.
And like it or not, it seems that Santellis nonsensical rant was the spark that ignited this thing, but methinks it was also perfect timing considering the big news stories in the days leading up to The Santelli fiasco were a new round of bailouts plus impending increases in taxes and government spending as a % of GDP.
Originally Posted by Jacob SingerView Post And how much endorsement did these liberal anti-spend protests get from Fox News and Americans for Prosperity? Yeah, the tea paries are just totally grassroots everyday Americans who hate deficit spending. Especially under a black Democratic president.
Nobody is suggesting that GOP backed organizations aren’t trying to support and grow this movement. It doesn’t change the fact that a good amount of these folks who are speaking out against taxes, bailouts, etc were doing so before it became chic.
And I figured we would make to at least the 22nd post before someone accused those attending these rallies as being racist. Kudos to you on the quick work.
Originally Posted by ElCapitanAmericaView Post I got a facebook invite to one of these rallies, it said it was anti bail out and anti spend. So again, to me it’s the conservative response to the bailout mess which I thought I saw from the liberal side under Bush’s watch.
Through one of the Austrian Economics groups I belong to, I started receiving these types of invitations after Bear in March of 08.