Tea Party Profiteers: How Republican Operatives Are Exploiting Economic Anxiety For Power, Cash

[ProSense]

Tea Party Profiteers: How Republican Operatives Are Exploiting Economic Anxiety For Power, Cash

Republican partisans — aided by lobbyists and corporate front groups — are exploiting the legitimate feelings of anger and distrust among many struggling Americans. These operatives and profiteers, many of them experienced public relations professionals, have set up sophisticated social networking portals and online solutions to control the flow of information within tea party organizations. As gatekeepers to ostensibly open forums, these political operatives and profiteers have been able to set the political agenda of the tea parties and hand out marching orders. And tea party profiteers are making millions cashing in on the movement. They are selling tea party support to candidates and policies which continue the legacy of Bush-era unregulated capitalism and corporate bailouts:

– Eric Odom: Odom, who appears regularly on Fox News and on other venues as a spokesman for the tea party movement, is at the center of tea party profiteering. Odom maintains dozens, possibly hundreds of tea party websites and community forums which he controls through a “Ning” technology based social networking platform...

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The RW are morons and have been voting against their own interest for years. People like Odom are now making a ton of money off them.

[Jennicut]

1. Sheep easily led to the slaughter. Nothing new here.

[Zomby Woof]

2. I have been re-reading Zinn's "People's History of the U.S."

He says this same dynamic is what helped the standard-bearers for independence such as Samuel Adams and their cohorts with their cause. They harnessed the energy of the unemployed, hungry, poor, overtaxed, and otherwise anxiety-ridden colonists - the kind of people middle and upper-class agitators like Adams would privately call "the mob" - and steered it towards the British. The propertied classes got the powerless, property-less classes on their side, through both debate and propaganda, against the British and FOR independence. Zinn made effective arguments that this is a recurring theme throughout U.S. history. No doubt in the last months of his life he noticed the same dynamic at work with the Tea Baggers, although this time, the poor and exploited have NOTHING to gain, whereas at least in colonial America, they stood to benefit to some extent, by being relieved of regressive taxes, impressment of their labor by quartered British troops, and so forth. If the Tea Baggers ran things, the tax code would only be more onerous and regressive. It's the same dynamic, but perverted to a Randian extreme.

[ProSense]

4. "He says this same dynamic " That's a misread of Odom and others. As the OP article states

The profiteers say that the original American revolutionaries cast their tea into the Boston harbor as a simple rejection of taxation, so the modern tea party movement should similarly reject increased financial regulations, health reform, and taxes on the rich. But the history tells a different story. Boston revolutionaries rejected subservience to the East India Company, a British-run international corporation. They cast the tea into the harbor as a symbolic message to say that their taxes should go back into the American community, not subsidizing the profits of London elites and foreign corporations. Now, Republican tea party profiteers are trying to exploit the movement, pushing them to oppose policies which would actually liberate the middle class and crack down on international corporations. Despite the populist rhetoric, the profiteers see the tea party movement as a pool to extract fundraising dollars and volunteers for Republican campaigns. Indeed, RNC Chairman Michael Steele, himself a former lobbyist, has said that he has an “expectation” that tea partiers loyally toe the Republican line.

[Zomby Woof]

5. I realize Zinn is too left-wing for you

But I did mention how there are differences - namely, that the "rabble" (i.e. Tea Baggers) are having their anxiety/hatred/fear/etc harnessed by those with the loudest megaphones and largest financial backing (Fox News, Rush, etc) in order to vote against their own interests, and fight against policies which also help them (health care reform) - so that the Baggers, without realizing it, are part of the "common enemy" (which they think, through all their ideological filtering and assorted baggage, is the government). I wasn't trying to draw 100% parallels between the American Revolution and NOW, but rather, backup Zinn's theory that this is a recurring pattern in our history, but the names change, the players change, and who even benefits and WHY changes. But it's always from down-to-up, even when sweeteners and bribes are thrown into the deal. The wealthy colonists like Adams were cognizant that the lower classes did need help, and that the health of their society as a whole depended on it. The ones exploiting the Baggers for their own profit today couldn't give less than a shit about the Baggers. The Baggers are a cash cow as long as their seemingly endless supply of misdirected outrage endures.

So the dynamic varies in many subtle ways, but the general gist is always there.

I can see why you cause so much contention on here - you don't even like people to agree with your posts beyond mindless "K&R"'s and "+1"'s.

[ProSense]

6. What the hell does that have to do with the fact that those exploiting the teabaggers are

nothing like the original American revolutionaries? The analogy is an insult. The teabaggers are lunatics and Odom and others are exploiting them based on their lunacy.

[DrToast]

3. Obama thinks we should do this in a bipartisan fashion!

:(