Tea Party mockeries a corporate front

With the BTPers coming to Cincinnati on March 15, more has been learned about their phony Tea Party protests against the Obama stimulus package.

To the surprise of nobody, these rallies are not grassroots events but are bankrolled by far-right corporate interests - like so many other phony populist movements.

The domain name for the Chicago event - chicagoteaparty.com - had been registered to an experienced right-wing media operative since last summer. The website is also tied to Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, a so-called anti-tax group that developed from the misnamed Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was formed to increase corporate influence on public policy.

CSE was funded heavily by right-wing foundations and by corporations like Philip Morris and Exxon.

CSE also sprouted an affiliate that joined William Bennett's far-right Empower America.

General rule of thumb: If conservatives are protesting something, they're almost always being bankrolled by the Republican National Committee, major corporations, or right-wing foundations. Much like the countless right-wing websites out there that all repeat the same discredited talking points and lies.

Although the BTPers bill their scripted events as tax protests, this makes little sense - because Obama's economic plan would actually cut taxes for a vast majority of Americans. So why are they protesting? Because it cuts taxes for working-class families, not billionaires.

As irrational and babyish as the BTPers are, you still need to keep an eye on them. This isn't something like the Freepers' bluster about Republicans retaking Congress in 2010 which has no chance of happening. As inane as the BTPers' ravings are, they're a very real (bowel) movement.

(Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Tea_Party_protests_sees_as_corporate_0301.html;
http://www.alternet.org/story/129523;
http://sobeale.blogspot.com/2009/03/theres-astroturf-at-tea-party.html)