KvH - a columnist who really understands Occupy! strategy . . .

[Plane]

-  she senses the grass-roots power of the movement, in contrast with the Astroturf roots of the Tea Party

Those who live in glass houses , should not throw turf.

[Michael Tee]

Tainted or not, I don't know that anyone has ever refuted anything he wrote about the Koch Bros.-Tea Party connection and no one tells the story better than he did. 

As far as I'm concerned, Monbiot's story linking the TP to Koch, until refuted in its major particulars, is good enough for me. 

[Kramer]

<<Clinton was rumored to own an Chevy El Camino with AstroTurf in the back for hooking up with young sluts.>>

Confirming my long-held belief that not more than 188% of all conservative hatred of Clinton boils down to pure sexual envy at a guy who has always been a natural babe magnet.

except for the fact I wouldn't have known about it unless Clinton brought it up and of course you with the article. It's not a big deal to me and I don't know why the writer of the article thinks it's a big deal. Do you know why astroturf is a big deal to liberals?

[Plane]

<<I did and came up with nothing definitive.  They aren't as obvious as . . . >>

Apparently that's because they try a lot harder than Soros does to cover their tracks.  Here's just one article that connects the dots:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/25/tea-party-koch-brothers

  . . .   No, no, that's not necessary.  Your satisfaction is reward enough for me.

   That article is very considerately conneted to sorce material.

For instance...

David Koch is deeply antagonistic to the Obama administration. He fought the health-care bill, and the financial-regulation measure that was passed last week (“Everyone I know in the financial world is terrified by the powers it gives the federal government”). He also opposes the president’s climate-change proposals. In his office, Koch showed me a photocopied flyer Greenpeace had produced with sketches of him and Charles below the words wanted for climate crimes and shook it in the air. Koch Industries’ emissions, Koch told me, are far less than legally required. “And yet they’re attacking us as environmental criminals,” he said. “Wanting to put me and Charles in jail.” Koch says he’s not sure if global warming is caused by human activities, and at any rate, he sees the heating up of the planet as good news. Lengthened growing seasons in the northern hemisphere, he says, will make up for any trauma caused by the slow migration of people away from disappearing coastlines. “The Earth will be able to support enormously more people because a far greater land area will be available to produce food,” he says.



Koch concedes that he sympathizes with the tea party. “It demonstrates a powerful visceral hostility in the body politic against the massive increase in government power, the massive efforts to socialize this country, which goes against the conservative grain of the average American,” he says. He insists he vigorously opposes the elements of the party “that go too far” and that he stands firmly against “violence” and other “bad things” perpetrated by tea-party members. “I’m not a racist. I’m very broad-minded,” he says.



Koch’s critics, however, say he’s being coy about his tea-party connections. “David Koch likes putting his name on all his things that aren’t evil,” says Lee Fang, a blogger for the liberal Thinkprogress.org. “He’ll put his name on his theater at Lincoln Center, but look at the Americans for Prosperity website and his name is virtually missing. All of his groups have used these same tea-party tactics before they actually had the tea-party brand.” Americans for Prosperity, AFPF’s political arm, has certainly not shied away from joining arms with the tea party. In April of last year, AFP took credit on its website for helping to organize Taxpayer Tea Party rallies in Sacramento, Austin, and Madison, and told visitors to “save the date” for National Tea Party Tax Day in Washington, which AFP would be hosting.



Koch’s detractors also like to point out the irony of the so-called grassroots tea-party movement’s being funded by a billionaire. Koch’s real motives, they say, are self-serving. In April, Fang posted a dossier on Koch that attributes to his groups a decades-long pattern of “Astroturfing”—funding movements designed to look grassroots, but which in fact represent corporate interests. Richard Fink insists that Koch’s political activity is about principles, not money. “I view David as a courageous American who has a set of beliefs that he’s willing to support consistently over time despite all the flak he gets,” Fink says. “Very few people would do that.”

http://nymag.com/news/features/67285/index4.html

[BT]

Interesting. So David Koch is a GOP supporter. I wonder if he will follow the Tea Party folks when they launch a third party.

[Kramer]

Interesting. So David Koch is a GOP supporter. I wonder if he will follow the Tea Party folks when they launch a third party.

they claim Cain is their house boy.

[Plane]

   I don't think that people are created by funding.

    On the street the occupy Wall Street people are spending a little money donated by who? Does it matter?

     Tea Party is people , the availibility of money is enableing but these people had parents just like trhe rest of us, they were not created by dragon teeth that the Koch brothers bought.

[BT]

Both the Tea Party and The Owwies are ideas that happen to draw people to them.

If the ideas are sound the money that a Koch or a Soros donates helps spread them but it can't co-opt them.

[Kramer]

Both the Tea Party and The Owwies are ideas that happen to draw people to them.

If the ideas are sound the money that a Koch or a Soros donates helps spread them but it can't co-opt them.

the people that went to the tea party we smart enough to do more than piss on the streets and look dumb. They had a plan, executed it, organized, showered, and got a shit load of people elected last Nov. This group can't do much, especially now that Obama has become their fearless leader.

[sirs]

Can't argue with how they shaped the GOP drubbing of the Dems during the last election cycle, and one of the biggest reasons that the Dems, even when they had their majorities, couldn't/wouldn't give Obama the kitchen sink as well, as in Obamination care, as folks like Tee would want

Too much of the country still embraces freedom, over the perception of cradle --> grave security, which masks the real intientions of focusing power with the Government and its Public Union Leadership $$$$ trough

[Michael Tee]

<<Do you know why astroturf is a big deal to liberals?>>

Yeah, I think I do.  It's a matter of authenticity.  Grass-roots movements have authenticity because they're genuine people's movements, rather than movements of political partisans and activists;  Astroturf, the opposite of grass-roots, denotes movements that CLAIM to be grassroots but are in fact the product of political partisans and activists, i.e., are not authentic or sincere.

[BT]

Journolist 2.0: OccupyDC Emails Show MSM, Dylan Ratigan, Working With Protesters To Craft Message

[Kramer]

<<Do you know why astroturf is a big deal to liberals?>>

Yeah, I think I do.  It's a matter of authenticity.  Grass-roots movements have authenticity because they're genuine people's movements, rather than movements of political partisans and activists;  Astroturf, the opposite of grass-roots, denotes movements that CLAIM to be grassroots but are in fact the product of political partisans and activists, i.e., are not authentic or sincere.

You and XO should join them for a while or are you guys too good to hang out with scum like that?

[Michael Tee]

I would have gladly joined them last time I was in NYC, but I'm not a citizen and if I come to the US to get involved in their politics they could refuse me admission next time I want to visit my grandchildren. 

Bottom line is, they ask me each time I cross the border what's the purpose of my visit, and I tell 'em the truth, that it's to visit my grandchildren and my daughter.  And that's ALL I do, believe me.  I don't want to give them the smallest excuse to turn me back at the border.  Those kids love to see me and I love to see them.  I wouldn't want to jeopardize those visits for anything. 

But I sure as hell wish them (Occupy Wall Street!) every success.  Your country sucks.  Occupy Wall Street! is the only hope it has to get better.  You really should support them as much as you can.

[BT]

You really should support them as much as you can

They need to work on their communication skills.