Reply #8: OK, here's what I've put together: [View All]

[TygrBright]

Well, I've done some research.

The Tea Party thing.

First mentioned (by that name) by Rick Santelli during a rant on CNBC's "Squawk Box" editorial/opinion show on February 9 of this year, during which he also asserted that (presumably pre-Castro) "Cuba used to have mansions, and a relatively decent economy".

Which is a cue to me that Mr. Santelli regards an economy where a very few people are fabulously wealthy and a small 'middle class' lives in prosperous gated communities, while vast numbers toil, illiterate, in serflike conditions with no health care, inadequate housing, horrific infant mortality rates, etc.; as 'relatively decent.'

I tend to differ with him on that.

Nor do I see any connection between pre-Castro Cuba and 2009 America, but hey, it's an opinion show, people make wild stretches of logic on opinion shows.

Anyway, shortly after that, presumably in response to Santelli's "We're thinkin' of having a Chicago Tea Party in July, all you capitalists that wanna show up to Lake Michigan, I'm gonna start organizing," a website called www.chicagoteaparty.com came online.

The really interesting thing about it is that the domain name "chicagoteaparty.com" was actually registered in August of 2008.

That's right. Last August.

Before the election.

Before any stimulus packages.

Before any foreclosure bailout plans.

Someone was planning this last August.

Who? And why?

Apparently, a guy named Zach Christenson, producer for a Chicago radio host named Milt Rosenberg.

Last August, Rosenberg interviewed a guy named Stanley Kurtz, because Kurtz had written about Obama being on a charity board with Bill Ayers, who was a Weather Underground member back when Obama was a toddler. The inescapable conclusion being that Obama is a firm believer in everything the Weather Underground ever stood for, including bomb-throwing and government-overthrowing. Okay. Sure.

So, apparently, after this "expose" hit the airwaves, Milt's producer went out and registered the Internet domain "chicagoteaparty.com."

About a month earlier, in Chicago, an organizing session was held by a group called RightOnline.com, to promote the Sam Adams Alliance, a project to create and link up conservative blogs and bloggers. Maybe Zach was thinking about being part of that.

I personally think it is interesting to note that the Sam Adams Alliance, although its projects include the site SunshineReview.org to promote transparency in government, declines to list any of its donors on its IRS form 990, citing regard for donor privacy.

The Sam Adams Alliance is the brainchild of Eric O'Keefe. Eric is quoted in a July 21st, 2008 Weekly Standard column as saying that there are "seven "capacities" that are required to drive a successful political strategy and keep it on offense: the capacity to generate intellectual ammunition, to pursue investigations, to mobilize for elections, to fight media bias, to pursue strategic litigation, to train new leaders, and to sustain a presence in the new media." Presumably the Sam Adams Alliance and the blogs it is encouraging and linking are focused on one or more of these strategies.

Now, there was also another website that appeared, on February 19th, 2009, called Officialchicagoteaparty.com. That one was registered by a guy named Eric Odom.

Eric Odom is a Republican media consultant, whose specialty is using "new media" like Twitter, to organize imitation-grassroots PR campaigns that, incidentally, support GOP policies and initiatives. Last summer, while Zach and Eric (O'Keefe) and Milt were planning for future Tea Parties in Chicago, Eric (Odom) was organizing a twitter-based campaign called DontGo.com to pressure Congress into passing the Republican-supported offshore oil drilling bill.

(Incidentally, one of the primary beneficiaries of that bill would have been Koch Industries. Koch Industries is owned by David and Charles Koch, who also control the Koch Family Foundation, profiled here: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_G._Koch_Charitable_Foundation
The Koch Family Foundation's giving focuses on funding conservative and libertarian think tanks, media organizations, and organizing efforts. I'm sure there's no relation between their objective and disinterested belief in pure capitalism and the fortunes of the family's oil and gas company.)

Now, here's the cool thing: Up until February, Eric (Odom) was listed as the "new media coordinator" for... wait for it... The Sam Adams Alliance!

Remember them? The guys Zach (who registered Chicagoteaparty.com last August) was hanging around with last summer?

Now, I, personally, do not think there is anything surprising or, indeed, in the least bit discreditable about this connection. They are presumably folks who share similar beliefs and philosophies and hang out together and bounce ideas off each other and suchlike. Why not?

Why not, indeed. Here's an odd thing. In order to see Eric (Odom)'s connection with The Sam Adams Alliance, you have to go to The Memory Hole online, and view cached pages from the Alliance prior to February. Because after that, the website erased all mention of Eric. Which is a little odd, really. I haven't worked my prior employer for quite a while but you can still find plenty of references to me on their website. Why scrub all mention of the connection?

So, what else might have been scrubbed?

Here's another interesting discrepancy between pre- and post-February versions of The Sam Adams Alliance website: After February 16th, an announcement that students applying for internships to the Alliance could also apply through-- wait for it-- the Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow Program, disappeared. The Summer Fellow Program being funded by the Institute for Humane Studies, which is a Koch Family Foundation funded entity focused on turning out future libertarian, pure-capitalist-type leaders.

Two Alliance board members, by the way, have strong connections with the Koch Foundation: Eric (O'Keefe) who served in the Institute for Humane Studies, and a guy named Joseph Lehman, who was a former VP at the Cato Institute (Koch is the major funder there.)

What I'm seeing here is a confluence-- not necessarily a connection, but certainly an interesting confluence-- of right-wing big money-funded organizing groups, and people who were thinking (long before the first bailout money was handed out, long before Obama won, long before any tax program redesigns were being considered in Congress,) about "Tea Parties."

And I'm also seeing a confluence of right-wing big money-owned media (Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation owns Fox News) and editorial/opinion pundits for those networks giving plugs for the whole "Tea Party" phenomenon. I'm not talking about "news coverage" here. I'm talking about pundits, not news reporters, urging people to attend the Tea Party gatherings. That's not "news coverage." That's a network making a clear effort to advance the success of this particular phenomenon. Here's the link to the "invitations" issued on air, by Glenn Beck: http://mediamatters.org/countyfair/200904060023

So, what I'm seeing here, and I have a hard time escaping the conclusion, is a major media player with a highly biased agenda to get people to these gatherings, in order to promote protests against the current Presidential Administration and its policies. Protests that were planned by people funded by big right-wing money, planned before this President was even elected.

Thanks, I'll pass on Fox.

Whatever Tea Partying may be, it doesn't fit my definition of a real, spontaneous, grassroots outburst against real government misdeeds.

(edited to remove a naughty link)