Fake Teabaggers Are Anti-Spend, Anti-Govt.: Real Populists Want to Stop Banks from Plundering Us

[marmar]

from AlterNet:



Fake Teabaggers Are Anti-Spend, Anti-Government: Real Populists Want to Stop Banks from Plundering America

By Mark Ames and Yasha Levine and Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted April 15, 2009.

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. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/136688/fake_teabaggers_are_anti-spend%2C_anti-government%3A_real_populists_want_to_stop_banks_from_plundering_america/

[Lasher]

1. Shouldn't they be dressed as indians instead of wearing colonial era hats?

I mean, if they're going to wear costumes they might as well...

Oh nevermind. They're stupid.

[Laelth]

2. Excellent article. Recommended. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Democrats_win]

3. That's why Republicans always think they're herding cats.

No one wants to go where they want to go: anti-government, pro-businesses that are crooked. Americans want to shrink these too-big-to-fail banks and put their CEOs in jail.

[Mopar151]

4. ask any premium hemp grower

About manure tea