dysnomia.us

teabaggers

I’d like to check out this Tea Party movement a little more. They’re certainly getting a big push from Fox, but there’s probably a legitimate grassroots mixed up in it too. The first of these articles dismisses them as puppets, but the second sees more of the factions and the divisions among them.

• The Corporate Lobbyists Behind the Tea Parties
• The Tea Party Movement: Who’s In Charge?

Here is the organizational landscape of the April 15 tea party movement, in a nutshell: three national-level conservative groups, all with slightly different agendas, are guiding it. All are quick to tell you that the movement is a bottom-up affair and that its grassroots cred is real.

They are: FreedomWorks, the conservative action group led by Dick Armey; dontGO, a tech savvy free-market action group that sprung out of last August’s oil-drilling debate in the House of Representatives; and Americans for Prosperity, an issue advocacy/activist group based on free market principles. Conservative bloggers, talk show hosts, and other media figures have attached themselves to the movement in peripheral capacities. Armey will appear at a major rally in Atlanta, FreedomWorks said.

DontGO sound like the radicals of the bunch. Definitely worth scoping out.

dontGO founder Odom, on the other hand, does not see a parallel between his group and liberal ones like MoveOn. His vision for the movement is much more libertarian and revolutionary.

“Their agenda was to get these individuals elected. Our agenda is to declare war on incumbency and long term power,” Odom told me.

Here’s some of their organizing info:

• Tax Day Tea Party
• Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party Street Demonstration — PORTLAND, OR. (facebook)

I’m interested in this movement in part to study their organization and strategy. I also see some possible allies floating around the edges- people who don’t buy in to the broader agendas and may just be looking for any way to express their dissent. And I also see an undercurrent of gun imagery (mostly Revolutionary War) and more use of the word “revolution” than I’ve heard since I quit getting the Earth First! Journal. It might be worth doing some opposition research early on, in case we run up against some of these folks in the future.