Do you buy the assertion that the Tea Party people represent a grass roots movement?

Fox “News” is a big supporter of this. It may have started somewhere as grass roots, but it has ended up corporate.

not at all! these mostly are just racist people that use the tea party as a front. i know, my brother in law is the most judgemental, racist people i know, and he is one of the organizers in the cincinnati area. if they are sincere, where were they during the bush administration?

It would seem that way. I just came from reading this enlightening, and chilling, article about Dick Armey. His organization was responsible for organizing the famous teabag rally in D.C. in September – the one that gave us these wonderful photographs of the new political activism in this country.

Armey himself is an icon of the Republican establishment. After leaving Congress, he went to work as a high-powered lobbyist. His involvement with the teabaggers leaves little doubt that these people, whatever their sentiments are, have been readily co-opted by that same Republican establishment. The guy carrying the sign in that picture is probably not even aware of how he’s being used.

Of course they’re not grassroots. And the behind-the-scenes leaders are like Cardinal Ximenez: “I see. I suppose we make it worse by shouting a lot, do we?”

There’s a big difference between Grass Roots and Astroturfing.

@aprilsimnel If only someone would give them… the comfy chair! (Or something a little tougher.)

Well, it started out that way, then was hijacked by the extreme right. The agenda is not what was originally intended.

It started out as a Libertarian party/movement thing (I actually have a Libertarian buddy who went to the first movements last summer/spring… very strong Ron Paul supporter), and it was hijacked by right wing media (thinking that they were only speaking out against Dems, when in fact they aren’t very fond of Repubs either). Since it has lost popularity amongst the overall populace it has degraded more and more into a “psycho-far-right” movement, increasingly populated by the furthest right.

But hey on the plus side…. They’re a pretty strong help to the Democratic party… as they split the Republican base even further by driving it to the far right and scaring away moderates.

Nothing is grass roots anymore, especially if it is that successful and gets that much media attention.

I Believe they were initially orphaned, radical libertarians understandably shocked by the way Congress laid down for the Fed on the Bailout, who were quickly hijacked into an astroturfing operation, seeded with expert provocateurs, even before they protested in DC. Enter Dick Armey.

By the time of the Town Hall Meetings, they were well funded, organized and driven by FreedomWorks and other organizations run by former Rove associates going as far back as the Texas campaigns, funded by large elements of the Health Care Industry via FreedomWorks and sister orgs, initially with conservative media support and later with most of the mainstream media following as the story blew up. Under cryptic FreedomWorks support, they populated the net with clone info and strategy sites playing to local constituencies nationwide. Senile Dupes playig into the hands of NeoCon scumbags operating under the guise of a grassroots org.

This is how it works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

No I think it has been sufficiently exposed as a corporate trick.

I always assumed they were a corporatized lunatic fringe group designed to undermine the Democrats through the Far Right Lunatic Fringe network masquerading as the Fox News Network.

The paranoid in me is suggesting they’re really a smoke screen to make us believe the Republican party is more fragmented than it actually is. We all look at NY23 and assume that’s how November is going to go, at least in some of the races that are up for grabs. I’m not even sure NY23 wasn’t rigged. Like they sacrificed the seat to keep up the act. By the time November comes around, all you’re going to see running from the Republicans are bought-and-paid-for establishment candidates. With lots of corporate money behind them.