Teabagging & Fake Grassroots: Fury Over Conservative Con-Job Allegations

By Tana Ganeva, AlterNet. Posted April 18, 2009.

Last Wednesday, angry conservatives took to the streets to protest taxes by draping themselves in tea bags and wielding a variety of terrifying (some borderline racist) signs.

The so-called tea parties were packaged as an outpouring of populist rage. But, as many liberal writers delighted in pointing out (almost as much as they enjoyed making teabagging jokes), the ostensibly grassroots, spontanous demonstrations were in fact launched by the conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks, nurtured by Republican operatives, then blasted out through the Fox News propaganda machine.

In an article recently published on AlterNet, Mark Ames, Yasha Levine and Alexander Zaitchik note that the tea parties are mere Astroturf -- fake grassroots. They go on to highlight the real movement growing against corporate greed and government malfeasance.

Not so, argued a bunch of conservative trolls who came onto AlterNet’s comment boards to argue about the article.

Sports Warrior Casey Jones starts the comment boards troll party on a violent note:

 ... gun control must be ABOLISHED COMPLETELY!  Because you see, Big Brother is gonna be fucking with us all. Better to have a shotgun ready to shoot those motherfucking drones down.

Further proving that they should be heavily armed, Sports Warrior goes on to argue:

What's wrong with a TeaBag Party? Better yet, us NRA members would be happy to join the crowds! Because you know what? We're gonna need our guns when we're done getting our asses robbed by the fuckers in Washington!

only_me also has some alarming findings to share:

The same people that are for Obama have no idea what the real agenda is. I'm sure half the people have no idea that mass graves are being dug up, FEMA camps are being built and a "bird flu" epidemic is on the horizon.

snowhound, though not going so far as to accuse the Obama administration of digging mass graves, is also concerned about the so-called attack on American liberties represented by our government's sinister plan to continue our system of taxation:

The main role of the federal government is to preserve liberty. The current liberal ideology of social programs is unsustainable. The current conservative ideology of the imperial empire is unsustainable. This will all end in the economic collapse of our nation because we didn't follow our founders written document, the Constitution.

But AlterNet commentor Bliss Doubt responded:

"... no idea of the definition of Liberty." 

I've been reading about the protest movement that will take place today.

The participants' definition of liberty includes privatizing Social Security and privatizing the Internet. It includes nothing about repealing the Patriot Act, you know, that law that turned our Constitution into toilet paper and turned the great legacy of our nation's founders into an antiquated notion. To me it just looks like more support of corporate welfare at the expense of the working class.

It would seem that the word liberty is open to wide ranging interpretation.

Ky Lake Dave also presents a strange version of "liberty":

Finally, at the age of 47, I am getting to do the hippie thing and protest against our unfair government and President Obama. Obama is attempting to toss out the Constitution. He is firing private citizens. Taking over the banking industry. Taking over the auto industry. He wants to take over the health care. The Democrats are pursuing a "Fairness Doctrine" to censor the press and opposing views. President Obama and this unfair government attempting to toss aside capitalism in favor of socialism. He is spending my great-grandchildren's money! This presidency after less than 100 days is inching closer and closer to a dictatorship.

...

I wonder what we should wear?

I don't fit in my bell bottoms anymore.

2010 we will rein him in. I like that. Maybe that will be on my sign.

Anyone else like the ring of that?

Isnamther responds, pointing to the hypocrisy of conservative anti-government sentiment:

I am also 47 years old, and if this is the first time you've found something to protest your government about, with all of the shit that has gone down in this country over the past 30 years, it speaks volumes about where your head is. Endless wars, no problem; U.S. Empire, no problem; racial inequalities, no problem; gender inequalities, no problem; ruination of the environment, no problem; But a stimulus package trying to bail out this country's economic crisis, thoroughly caused by right-wing policies (including Clinton's right-wing policies); BIG PROBLEM .. for right-wingers who are NO LONGER IN POWER.

Derek Maddox argues that the tea parties do in fact have a populist feel, regardless of their origins:

See more stories tagged with: gop, economy, obama, taxes, conservative, tea party

Tana Ganeva is an assistant editor at AlterNet.

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