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Tea-bag Protesters Were Bussed In Free Of Charge By Americans For Prosperity

by Ben Hoffman

The tea-baggers like to call themselves a grass-roots organization, but they’re really an astroturf organization funded by billionaire David Koch and others. And who is this David Koch? Well, he is a co-owner of a giant oil and gas conglomerate. Surprise, surprise.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the corporate front group founded in the 1980s by Koch Industries billionaire David Koch, worked closely with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to orchestrate the anti-health reform rally today. As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, AFP has been encouraging right-wing activists to board their buses — free of charge — to attend the rally. While AFP does not disclose all of its corporate donors, foundations controlled by David and Charles Koch provide millions in yearly funding, and David continues to chair the AFP foundation and preside over AFP’s annual convention.

Source

Posted on November 6, 2009 at 5:29 PM in Education, Politics, World News   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL

17 Comments to “Tea-bag Protesters Were Bussed In Free Of Charge By Americans For Prosperity”

    
  1. sleepygirl
    November 6, 2009 at 6:44 PM

    The teabaggers were never grassroots. These idiots and their shameful protest signs are merely pawns being used by corporations who want to push their own agenda.

    Reply
  2. Alan Scott
    November 6, 2009 at 7:18 PM

    Isn’t labeling tea partyers as tea baggers, actually using some kind of sick gay porn insult. I had hoped that with the election of our nation’s first post racial, post partisan President, that we were past the petty insults.

    I had hoped that since during the Bush years, when DISSENT had become an expression of Patriotism, that a group could peacefully demonstrate in our nations capital and be respected by those in power.

    Maybe these people are not corporate pawns. Maybe not all corporations are evil. What about The Corporation for Public Broadcasting? Are they puppet masters too?

    Reply
    • sleepygirl
      November 6, 2009 at 8:27 PM

      The so-called tea party folks came up with the name teabaggers themselves. It’s not anyone else’s fault but their own.

      Reply
    • pino
      November 6, 2009 at 8:47 PM

      The teabaggers were never grassroots

      As opposed to ACORN.

      who want to push their own agenda.

      Yes. That’s what protesting is all about; pushing your own agenda. That’s why Ben writes his blog and I write mine. Pushing our own agenda. I don’t begrudge Ben–I think he’s wrong–but I don’t begrudge him.

      It has always been a clear tactic of the left to advocate free thought, free expression and freedom to protest except when it clashes with their ideals.

      Isn’t labeling tea partyers as tea baggers, actually using some kind of sick gay porn insult.

      I don’t think it has anything to do specifically with being gay or with being sick.

      Reply
      • sleepygirl
        November 6, 2009 at 9:22 PM

        The problem I have with the teabaggers is not that they disagree with me. A lot of people disagree with me. I could give a flying f*** about that. What bothers me is that their rhetoric is filled with hate and violence. Carrying guns to an event featuring the president?? If a liberal protester had shown up to a Bush event carrying a loaded weapon, what do you think would have happened?

        When people protested against Bush, the conservatives called them “radicals” and constantly criticized them for calling Bush a “war monger” and other such things. They said the same things that they criticize liberals for saying now. I’m so tired of the hypocrisy I hear from conservatives. The protesters against Bush were constantly accused of being un-American and un-patriotic, but the teabaggers are patriots? Where is the equality?

        I believe that conservatives love America and that liberals love America. I’m so sick of being branded an evil socialist because I believe in social justice and am concerned about those in this country that are living in poverty or are having their rights taken away. I would never begrudge anyone their right to protest. But if I disagree with what they’re saying, I’m going to speak out. And people who disagree with me have that same right.

      • pino
        November 6, 2009 at 10:14 PM

        I would never begrudge anyone their right to protest.

        But you did:

        These idiots and their shameful protest signs are merely pawns being used by corporations

      • sleepygirl
        November 6, 2009 at 10:28 PM

        Excuse me? How is that me saying they can’t protest? All I’m saying is that the forces behind the “tea party” movement are corporations, and that it’s not a grassroots movement as some would like to believe.

      • pino
        November 6, 2009 at 10:52 PM

        Excuse me? How is that me saying they can’t protest?

        You say that so innocently. But then you refer to them as:

        idiots and their shameful protest signs

      • sleepygirl
        November 6, 2009 at 10:57 PM

        Ummm…yeah, because they’re idiots and their signs are disgusting. So…how is it that I won’t let them protest?

      • Ben Hoffman
        November 6, 2009 at 11:34 PM

        [It has always been a clear tactic of the left to advocate free thought, free expression and freedom to protest except when it clashes with their ideals.]

        No, not at all, but you seem to have a problem with people criticizing the anti-reform crowd. They have the freedom to protest and I have the freedom to make fun of them. 🙂

      • The Arbourist
        November 7, 2009 at 2:08 PM

        It has always been a clear tactic of the left to advocate free thought, free expression and freedom to protest except when it clashes with their ideals.

        It has always been a clear tactic on the right to drown out opposition with a well lubricated flak-machine (fox news and the rest of that particular ilk) that pushes progressive thought to the margins and out of the minds of the majority of the public.

  3. Ian
    November 8, 2009 at 11:34 AM

    So, pino, you’re okay with that poster of dead bodies from Dachau?
    Look, these people have every right to protest, just as we who opposed the Iraq invasion did. But these folks are going way over the edge.

    Reply
  4. Alan Scott
    November 8, 2009 at 5:59 PM

    sleepygirl,

    “The so-called tea party folks came up with the name teabaggers themselves. It’s not anyone else’s fault but their own.”

    I cannot prove you wrong, but I do ask you to post proof that you are right. The first I heard the term teabaggers was from a bunch of liberal pundits on MSNBC smirking to themselves about the tea party participants. They were just congratulating each other on their cleverness and the fact that these rubes would never get the joke.

    “What bothers me is that their rhetoric is filled with hate and violence. Carrying guns to an event featuring the president?? If a liberal protester had shown up to a Bush event carrying a loaded weapon, what do you think would have happened?”

    As opposed to Black Panthers harassing voters at a poll in Phila. a year ago, while brandishing night sticks. Also, MSNBC showed part of an armed protester at an Obama event and used it as an example of RACISM. What they did not show was that the guy was BLACK. What makes you think that tea partyers were the armed ones anyway? They could very well be separate groups of freedom loving Americans. It sounds as if you are profiling.

    Please give examples of your so called hate and violence rhetoric. I attended a local tea party and saw nothing of that. If you are being truthful, I suspect that you and your friends at MSNBC are cherry picking a small minority of signs and speeches, just to make your point.

    Reply
  5. Alan Scott
    November 9, 2009 at 5:48 PM

    sleepygirl,

    I quickly scanned your last link. Perhaps I missed something as I did not scan every single word on the sight, but I did not find where tea partyers referred to themselves as tea baggers. Your other links about hate and violence, I hope to check out later as I am pressed for time just now. I do thank you for your links.

    Reply
    • sleepygirl
      November 9, 2009 at 6:48 PM

      Yeah, the last one is really long and hard to get through. But basically it’s from when the tea party movement first got started. The reason they called themselves “teabaggers” is because they would send tea bags to members of Congress, etc. One commenter on the blog that I linked to said he was planning on “teabagging people left and right.” The act of sending the tea bags was referred to as “teabagging”. It wasn’t understood what teabagging actually meant, so today they deny that they themselves gave the movement that name.

      The other links in my other post, the ones to the pictures, are meant as examples of the attitudes of the protesters. Signs that depict the president as Hitler, calling him a Nazi or a Socialist (as if they are one and the same), comparing the proposed health care reform to the slaughter of millions of Jews in Nazi concentration camps, constantly questioning Obama’s birthplace (which just smacks of overt racism), making references to a revolution, bringing guns to events (which happens over and over again, and overtly suggests a willingness to commit violence)…basically, there is an environment of hatred toward the president, suspicion of him as a “foreigner”, someone who is not like them, who is un-American. The terms used to demonize him, like Nazi, Communist, Socialist, etc., are all terms that mean “enemy” and “evil”. These are enemies we fought against in wars, people who we believed were out to destroy America. To brand the president as an enemy, someone who seeks to destroy our country, someone that “real” Americans should fear, someone that they need to bring down…that’s what I’m referring to when I talk about the atmosphere of hate and violence.

      Reply
    

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