The tax protests which sprouted yesterday in places like Sacramento, DC, and, of all places, The Alamo, were proclaimed to be "spontaneous" by the talking heads at Fox News (who "spontaneously" set up their crews and equipment around the country to broadcast the protests... and whose presence was repeatedly announced on the Fox News programs ahead of time, I guess, as a "spontaneous" piece of PR.)
To get to these protests, which took place in public squares, parks and historical sites (all supported and maintained by taxes), people took highways and subways and railroads (all subsidized by taxes)... and after the protests ended they probably went out to eat somewhere, having meats and vegetables which our Agriculture and other Departments keep a safety view on by means of taxes. Most of these protests were guarded and protected by police (paid by taxes), to make sure their right to protest was upheld and no one was hurt.
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!"
We've heard about Fox' astroturf "demonstrations" scheduled for April 15th. The blinkered adoption of the term "teabagging" has provided (admittedly juvenile) chuckles for me, and I want to give something back.
Of course gay male fans of "Sex and the City" have got to show up in counter-demos, but Fox is ready for that and eager to run footage of it. It makes their (Fox') efforts look legitimate.
More fun might be to show up in Fox swag and infiltrate the crowd. I mean Fox t-shirts and tote bags and caps. And not just with pictures of their news channel celebrities. Heck, hold a sign plugging "24"! "SAVE US, KEIFER! Mon. 9PM."
This would mock the astroturf nature of the events, and Fox News might not even realize that. Other news organizations might, however, and whether they recognize the sarcasm as such or not, heck, they might run stories talking about Fox' activities.
