The Search for the "Tea Party" Puppetmaster

Perhaps even more mysterious than the question of who, exactly, was responsible for organizing last week's protests in Moldova is the question of who is behind tomorrow's planned "Tea Party" protests against, in the main, President Obama's economic policies and approach to shoring up the American economy. Many on the left have spent the last several days trying to peek behind the curtain to see who's lurking there. The Center for America Progress's Think Progress, for example, sees the national Republican Party and "a smorgasbord of far-right causes" as the puppetmasters. The just-launched SaveTheRich.com (itself of unclear origins) is calling them the "Fox News Tea Parties." Paul Krugman calls them "AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects." Who's that, exactly? In a post titled "Who's in Charge?," The Atlantic's Chris Good has it as three groups in particular: Dick Armey's Freedom Works, the advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, and Don't Go. The last is particularly interesting here, as it was a grassroots effort, largely fueled by Twitter, that grew out of this summer's Republican House floor sit-in over energy legislation.

Over on the Next Right, Jon Henke is calling on Krugman to issue a correction. Astroturfing, he writes, is when you pay people to do what they wouldn't do otherwise; it's not when political organizing groups help to organize political protests. Indeed, some of the charges against the groups involved -- they're capitalizing on a political moment to, gasp, grow their email lists -- seem to be exactly what political advocacy groups do. And for a pretty network-savvy crowd, searching for the one true man behind the curtain like a curious approach. In the end, if tomorrow's protests actually demonstrate decent turnout, it might not matter. As one commenter on Good's post puts it, "Now that's odd because I have never heard of any of those organizations and I am attending a tea party."

If you're interested, keep an eye on the #teaparty hashtag on Twitter tomorrow.

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Comments

Puppetmaster?

Hey Nancy, using such a word as "Puppetmaster" denotes a brainless "body" being manipulated by a hidden master. Is this truly what you believe? Is it out of the realm of possibility that a group of like minded, regular, ordinary citizens, didn't like "Dubya's" spending nor do they like BHO, Pelosi & Reid's spending. We (yes, I am a part of this grass roots movement) have had ENOUGH of no leadership & non-responsive government out of DC. This is not a Republican or Democrat issue - it is a out of control, free spending Congress with no leadership issue.

Puppetmaster

The word choice was more or less tongue in cheek. The context for it is what you might call the hunt currently happening to find out who exactly is behind these events. It's interesting to me that many people well versed in distributed online organizing are looking for a single entity calling the shots here.

Single entity - there is none...

As hard as it may seem, there is no single entity calling the shots... just "community organizers" of regular folks tweeting, fb'ing, etc. collaborating, just like BHO's folks did last year. We do what is right for our local community and really don't want the politicos or talking heads doing anything except take notice, listen and for the talking head to honestly report - not make jokes, and for those in Congress QUIT SPENDING!

Take note, the Silent Majority is PISSED OFF, watching the disgraceful actions going on "inside the beltway" and will do something about it in 2010 & 2012. Big spenders, their minions and the biased media keep laughing, making jokes and "pissing" on us ordinary folks. On the 1st Wednesday in November in 2010 they'll be looking at each other and whine "what happened?"