So you honestly believe that before 2002, nobody used the term Tea Party for anything other than a historical reference. And that in 2002, Evil Inc. decided to use the phrase for their planned future staged nationwide protests against … well, who knew back then, but somebody. Slowly, surely, they began to draw their plans against us…
And that the machinery and foundations all lay dormant for seven years until the time was right, and in some smoky room somewhere a shadowed figure slithered slowly into the light and said “It has begun”, and bam off we go, in less than two months from the activiation of sleeper agent Rick Santelli on MSNBC, we have Tax-Day protests all over the country. All based on some seven-year (or longer) plan. Not because people we fed up and the idea got out there that it might be a good idea to show it, but because they had been primed and ready for activation by the Puppet Masters.
You really believe that?
As to your acronym fetish, may I point out that it was only used in the early days of the movement, in the 2-3 month period after Robo-Santelli spouted off. Once the powers-that-want-to-be realized they had a ready-made base to build on (not your pre-made and planted based of 7+ years that you seem to think existed) then they remade it more in their image. That’s when it became “The Team Party” instead of a gereralized loosely-affiliated group of local organizations that may have identifed more as the TEA Party.
I believe that you seem to have a definite problem accurately stating other poster’s positions. Come back to me when you care to discuss what I actually wrote instead of your silly strawmen.
I prefer "It was a collection of small disconnected groups of disgruntled right-wing people who had someone from the Puppet Masters come around (metaphorically) in late 2008 and say “Say, we really like what you people are doing and we want to help. We’ll organize some local events, a couple of trips to DC, a lot of talking points and media coverage in heavy rotation on FoxNews and related RW media sites. How’s that sound to you?”, which then resulted in a right-wing feedback loop as FoxNews viewers joined the movement complete with all the other right-wing talking points of the day and so it went.
It would hardly be the first time a political movement has stirred up the proletariat (I hesitate to use the apocryphal “Useful Idiots”, but…) in order to use them to further their political aims. Of course, if history shows us anything it’s that the proletariat often refuse to go away when they’re no longer needed, and often hijack the movement. Sound familiar?
Yes, they’re pretty snarky, which is why I tend not to read it either. Doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
Hey, you know what, you’re right man. I’m sorry I doubted you all along. The website states the organization called The Tea Party was founded in 2004. It was a setup all along, and I was just blinded by the notions of smaller government and less taxation. Clearly, everything I have come to believe about politics and society and individualism is nothing more than a cleverly constructed fantasy placed in my head by some guys I never heard of before a couple of years ago.
I really don’t care about the Tea Party in it’s current itteration - I was mildly interested in 2009, but I quickly saw that it was being corrupted - or I thought I did, but apparently it was corrupted from its very inception. If only I had been wiser back then, I wouldn’t have spent… well, nothing and wouldn’t have joined.. well, no one, and wouldn’t be such a…well, non-Tea Party member - like I am today. I assure you that my non-association with the people who call themselves Tea Partiers (or more jovially, Teabaggers) will continue from this day forward.
So go forth secure in your knowledge that you (and your associates) did, in fact, beat me at a game of Internet Jousting. I yield to your superior whatever.
Was there a pro-tobacco or anti-smoking-law component to Tea Party protests? I don’t remember that, and all Google is finding me are references to that same study. Did Big Tobacco get what they paid for?
For many years they did, that profit gained for all those years where they managed to press FUD and about restrictions to tobacco was money in the bank, incidentally I became familiar with those groups thanks to seeing now virtually the same faces in the current efforts to discredit climate science and delay any changes on the control of emissions in the USA.
Video showing the sorry tale of Dr. Seitz that claimed that no tobacco study of his showed any harm coming from tobacco, then the same Dr. shilled for the fossil fuel industry.
The same groups supporting Seitz morphed to the ones now denying anthropological climate change, guys like that know what rackets are profitable.
¨Any money is good as long as it´s green, I´m not quite clear about this moralistic issue.¨ -Dr. Seitz
Most TPers are white and most of those probably racist, but it’s not a racist movement – nor a deficit-hawk movement, either – it’s based on feelings broader and more diffuse and less articulate than that, a general reaction against the country and society changing.
I just have a problem with self-righteousness from any side of the spectrum. I’m certain there must be many right-leaning sites with similar, if not worse, examples.
I, of course, am not self-righteous, I’m simply right.
(Editor’s note: That was not intended to be a factual statement regarding the current, past, or future discussions, it was merely the author’s misguided attempt at humor in a political “discussion”. Govern yourself accordingly.)
I think that video from Science Writer Peter Hadfield (AKA Potholer54) is appropriate since many Tea Partiers are indeed living in the ¨Feelie¨ world ***and going to congress to make policy based on those feelings used by deniers. ***
