Where do I find some basic facts regarding the Tea Party movement (not homework)
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unique (
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April 14th, 2010
Please, I only need facts not opinions. Thanks!
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22 Answers
Here is the official home of the tea party movement.
Here is an article by CBS News.
Wikipedia.
When it comes to politically charged movements, their official homepage is among the last places you want to go for facts, because, no matter what group, party, or movement you are talking about, they will always try to present themselves in the best light possible, mostly by twisting facts to make them more positive, by omission or even blatant lies.
When I want to know something about a far right/left party for example, I do not go to their homepages for information, but go to neutral sources.
@Blackberry
Their only official website is a Ning page?
My art class has a Ning page.
It seems odd to me…they really did come out of nowhere, then…
@squidcake Why do you think no one takes them seriously lol? The tea party movement is a simple fiasco.
Since it’s a fairly new phenomenon, you might want to search the New York Times Archives using the search term “Tea Party” for the past 6 months-1 year. That may turn out to be more fact based than reading approving/hostile web sites.
Wikipedia.
Something like Fox or the New York Times is likely to have a bias one way or the other.
Wikipedia is a more reliable source than people give it credit for as long as you have good critical thinking skills and you know how to spot bullshit and/or look at the sources at the bottom of the page.
@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I would trust the New York Times over Wikipedia for hard news. Although Wikipedia has gotten better on editorial oversight, in my opinion the Times, while certainly considered liberal, attempts thorough fact-checking and non-bias in its news articles.
If you have access to some general databases such as Academic ASAP or Lexis-Nexis, I would also search them for recent newspaper and magazine articles. You will have to do some critical thinking, in any case, to sort out sources and evaluate for yourself what seems true.
Amen, @janbb. But I thought he was kidding about picking Wikipedia over the NY Times.
The reason I said Wikipedia is because just about any news source no matter how prestigious or trusted is going to have some type of editorial tone or slant. Wikipedia at it’s best and most useful is a dry restatement of facts without any editorializing. Take from that what you will, your mileage may vary.
Wikipedia is the last place you want to go for anything truly accurate including time and temp.
The Tea Party home page is a great place to start as you will get their published, unfiltered, carved-in-stone mission statement. From there you can Google all sort of off shoot blogs and forms even news reports on their activities and momentum and progress.
You won’t find a lot of info on their Website, but the right-wing political consulting firm, Russo Marsh & Rogers is behind the Tea Party Express and got Fox News involved in pumping the Express events up, mainly to make money for themselves. They have raked in $1.9 million so far and have little else going as a revenue generator. They are quick to point out that they do lots of paid advertising for events, but all those adds are also run to ask for donations which largely go to the Consulting firm.
Their website won’t disclose much, but you can get lots more at TalkingPointsMemo
Update: There is an excellent article on the Tea Party movement and who supports it on the front page of the New York Times today (April 15). You can access it online at nytimes.com if you do not have the paper. It has some surprising information about who the members of the Tea Party are; many are very wealthy, conservative white men.
Thanks for the article link @janbb! The article described them as “angry” wealthy Republican white men. No real surprise there!
It is very interesting that 85% of them believe that they represent the vast mainstream of American thinking, yet when you look demographically at what they believe, they are a very small minority of American thought. And while they bend over backwards to identify themselves as independent, the numbers show a very different truth. Just 2% vote Democratic often. Another 3% says they sometimes vote for a Democrat. The other 95% seldom or never do. So they may do more to hurt Republicans by running far-right primary challenges than they will do to hurt Democrats, whom they virtually never vote for anyway.
@ETpro And this bothers you so much why??
@Cruiser I wouldn’t say that it bothers me—more that it intrigues me. It is interesting, don’t you think?
@ETpro It is interesting especially if you look at what people are not saying about the tea party mainly it is a very good thing that is happening which is supported by the “poll” you referenced yourself.
“the emerging Tea party movement shows that its supporters are more affluent and better educated than the general public.”
I find it very ironic that so many Americans are quick to dismiss the POV of TP’rs who are “are more affluent and better educated than the general public”?!!? Plus these people who make up the core of the TP are not just are more affluent and better educated than the general public, many are business owners and leaders in their communities who are simply fed up with the out of control growth of our government and for anyone to write these people off as wingnuts is a serious error in better judgment. Yes @ETpro, it intrigues me greatly too!
@Cruiser I would not write them off as idiots. I do think they are almost exclusively the far right of the Republican Party. They represent 18% of the voters and are almost exclusively Republicans in their voting habits. 60% will not say that Barack Obama is an American Citizen. That’s an awful lot of Birthers to call them mainstream thinkers.
I also think there is a great deal of false logic and wishful thinking going on among them. They blame Obama for the deficit when nearly all of it was piled up by Republican Administrations and it traces back to Ronald Reagan cutting taxes for the rich by 60%. They insist we can cut taxes for the rich further (calling it a fair tax) and thereby balance the budget. They want to do this while retaining their Social Security and Medicare. The only way that would actually be possible is to eliminate our entire defense budget.
They claim we should have a government more in keeping with what we had when the country was founded. But in the 1790 census we had about 4 million people. Today we have about over 309,000,000. In 1790, we had no automobiles or highway system, no airplanes or FAA, no pollution problem or EPA, no nuclear energy or NRC and sop much more. It is utterly absurd to think that the USA of today would self regulate and move efficiently into the 21st century with 18the century management. That is as silly as saying that a child who can pedal a toy car around their house could equally drive an Indy car at the Indianapolis 500.
So I am watching. I am bemused. I am delighted that at least people are getting engaged. But I will fight with all I am worth to keep this crowd of selfish, simplistic thinkers from taking over the government and implementing their grand plan for America.
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