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Most of these bodies call themselves free market thinktanks, but their trick, as (Astro)Turf Wars points out, is to conflate crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty. Between them they have constructed the philosophy which informs the Tea Party movement: its members mobilise for freedom, unaware that the freedom they demand is freedom for corporations to trample them into the dirt. The thinktanks the Kochs have funded devise the game and the rules by which it is played; Americans for Prosperity coaches and motivates the team.
Astroturfing is now taking off in the United Kingdom. Earlier this month Spinwatch showed how a fake grassroots group set up by health insurers helped shape the Tories NHS reforms(18). Billionaires and corporations are capturing the political process everywhere; anyone with an interest in democracy should be thinking about how to resist them. Nothing is real any more. Nothing is as it seems.
Most of these bodies call themselves free market thinktanks, but their trick...is to conflate crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty.
The article had citations. I assume you did not read it?
I believe this thread should be labeled "BoogaboogaKochbros".George Monbiot – Toxic Brew
Yeah, the article is going on two years old. Truth doesn't become less true with time, though.
Most of these bodies call themselves free market thinktanks, but their trick, as (Astro)Turf Wars points out, is to conflate crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty. Between them they have constructed the philosophy which informs the Tea Party movement: its members mobilise for freedom, unaware that the freedom they demand is freedom for corporations to trample them into the dirt. The thinktanks the Kochs have funded devise the game and the rules by which it is played; Americans for Prosperity coaches and motivates the team.
Astroturfing is now taking off in the United Kingdom. Earlier this month Spinwatch showed how a fake grassroots group set up by health insurers helped shape the Tories NHS reforms(18). Billionaires and corporations are capturing the political process everywhere; anyone with an interest in democracy should be thinking about how to resist them. Nothing is real any more. Nothing is as it seems.
The article had citations. I assume you did not read it?
I'm more interested in your thoughts. You appear to agree with this person that the TP "conflates crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty"
Tell us in your own words what evidence, logic or reason you have to support this claim. Or are we just supposed to accept it because you say so?
Good luck with that.The article had citations. I assume you did not read it?
I'm more interested in your thoughts. You appear to agree with this person that the TP "conflates crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty"
Tell us in your own words what evidence, logic or reason you have to support this claim. Or are we just supposed to accept it because you say so?
What is Playboy’s evidence of this?“How did a minor-league TV figure, whose contract with CNBC is due this summer, get so quickly launched into a nationwide rightwing blog sensation? Why were there so many sites and organizations online and live within minutes or hours after his rant, leading to a nationwide protest just a week after his rant?
What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s “tea party” rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called “astroturfing”to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders. As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape. To us, the uncanny speed and direction the movement took and the players involved in promoting it had a strangely forced quality to it. If it seemed scripted, that’s because it was.
What we discovered is that Santelli’s “rant” was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a “Chicago Tea Party” was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks. The scion of the Koch family, Fred Koch, was a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society.”
“Within hours of Santelli’s rant, a website called ChicagoTeaParty.com sprang to life. Essentially inactive until that day, it now featured a YouTube video of Santelli’s “tea party” rant and billed itself as the official home of the Chicago Tea Party. The domain was registered in August, 2008 by Zack Christenson, a dweeby Twitter Republican and producer for a popular Chicago rightwing radio host Milt Rosenberg—a familiar name to Obama campaign people. Last August, Rosenberg, who looks like Martin Short’s Irving Cohen character, caused an outcry when he interviewed Stanley Kurtz, the conservative writer who first “exposed” a personal link between Obama and former Weather Undergound leader Bill Ayers. As a result of Rosenberg’s radio interview, the Ayers story was given a major push through the Republican media echo chamber, culminating in Sarah Palin’s accusation that Obama was “palling around with terrorists.” That Rosenberg’s producer owns the “chicagoteaparty.com” site is already weird—but what’s even stranger is that he first bought the domain last August, right around the time of Rosenburg’s launch of the “Obama is a terrorist” campaign. It’s as if they held this “Chicago tea party” campaign in reserve, like a sleeper-site. Which is exactly what it was.
Because they're not base, covetous little looters?The article had citations. I assume you did not read it?
I'm more interested in your thoughts. You appear to agree with this person that the TP "conflates crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty"
Tell us in your own words what evidence, logic or reason you have to support this claim. Or are we just supposed to accept it because you say so?
How else to explain the many middle-class and lower people who are wholeheartedly supporting lower taxes for the wealthy?
The article had citations. I assume you did not read it?
I'm more interested in your thoughts. You appear to agree with this person that the TP "conflates crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty"
Tell us in your own words what evidence, logic or reason you have to support this claim. Or are we just supposed to accept it because you say so?
How else to explain the many middle-class and lower people who are wholeheartedly supporting lower taxes for the wealthy?
This is absolutely true! And the beautiful thing for that movement, because of that "box" in the corner, all our time and energy is spent arguing left vs right. There isn't too many discussions on "left/right vs them".George Monbiot – Toxic Brew
Yeah, the article is going on two years old. Truth doesn't become less true with time, though.
Most of these bodies call themselves free market thinktanks, but their trick, as (Astro)Turf Wars points out, is to conflate crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty. Between them they have constructed the philosophy which informs the Tea Party movement: its members mobilise for freedom, unaware that the freedom they demand is freedom for corporations to trample them into the dirt. The thinktanks the Kochs have funded devise the game and the rules by which it is played; Americans for Prosperity coaches and motivates the team.
Astroturfing is now taking off in the United Kingdom. Earlier this month Spinwatch showed how a fake grassroots group set up by health insurers helped shape the Tories NHS reforms(18). Billionaires and corporations are capturing the political process everywhere; anyone with an interest in democracy should be thinking about how to resist them. Nothing is real any more. Nothing is as it seems.
They climbed right up robmoneys ass the second they were told to
Money has nothing to do with anything. You don't mind wealthy people like Kennedy or Kerry or Pelosi, etc.
I'm more interested in your thoughts. You appear to agree with this person that the TP "conflates crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty"
Tell us in your own words what evidence, logic or reason you have to support this claim. Or are we just supposed to accept it because you say so?
How else to explain the many middle-class and lower people who are wholeheartedly supporting lower taxes for the wealthy?
Are you saying Tea Party members are "middle-class and lower" and that they support "lower taxes for the wealthy"? What evidence to you have of this? TP members tend to be middle and upper middle class and TEA stands for Tax Enough Already, which is not necessarily a call for lower taxes, just not more taxes.
More importantly, how does supporting the idea of lowering personal income taxes mean a person "conflates crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty"? Every TP member I've spoken with supports a flatter, fairer tax scheme. How is that the same thing is cronyism and confusing the meaning of liberty?
