| A right-of-center blogger and strategist I know made an interesting point on Twitter, with regard to tomorrow's teabagging parties: OFA and MoveOn isn't astroturf... but FreedomWorks is. Come on. If this were them, it would be far more centralized & organized #teaparty
This seems like a suitable time to remind folks of how Dick Armey's "grassroots group" obtained it's membership: through illegal fraud. From the Washington Post: In 2001, Jennifer B. Chace heard an insurance broker's pitch for a new insurance company marketing tax-free medical savings accounts. She jumped at the offer, but first, the broker told her, she would have to sign an application -- already filled out -- that would entitle her to a low group rate. With that signature, Chace, a Florida dentist in the market for health insurance, unwittingly joined one of Washington's most prominent conservative organizations, Citizens for a Sound Economy, she would later testify. "Before I showed you this form today, did you even realize that you signed a form that was an application for membership in Citizens for a Sound Economy?" her lawyer would ask during a 2004 deposition. "I don't know what Citizens for a Sound Economy is," she replied. Chace's experience has brought to light an obscure arrangement between a prominent Republican businessman, J. Patrick Rooney, and a free-market interest group that has netted the grass-roots organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of new members. Citizens for a Sound Economy -- now called FreedomWorks and headed by former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) -- has netted more than $638,000 and about 16,000 members through the sale of insurance policies.
And unlike OFA and MoveOn, FreedomWorks is not funded by the grassroots. It's funded by giant corporations who pay it to create the illusion of grassroots support around issues that real people would never actually rally around. From Common Cause: Post-merger, the Astroturf lobbying continues. FreedomWorks has accepted corporate contributions from telephone giants Verizon and SBC (now AT&T). ...FreedomWorks is also on the record supporting the telecommunications industry's position on network neutrality. Broadband Internet companies like Verizon and AT&T would like to create "tiers" or "lanes" on the information superhighway: Their own content and services would be delivered using the fast lane; companies like Google and Amazon would be charged high fees to travel in the middle lane; and the rest of the web would be relegated to the slow lane.
Can you hear the masses now? "Give me a slow Internet!" "Stop taxing the rich!" "Stop Obama from giving 95% of working families a tax cut!" "Cut capital gains taxes for AIG execs, and trick me into joining your email list while you're at it!" Ah, the corporate grassroots. |
