Twitter Users Punk Teabaggers: Teaparty Activist Organizing Call 2009.11.17

[BR_Parkway]

http://wiretaps.typepad.com/warranted_wiretaps/2009/11/teaparty-activist-organizing-call-20091117.html

(Updated.)

On Tuesday evening, several organizers of the Teaparty Movement and of the ultraconservative website 73wire.com, including healthcare executive and conservative activist Michael Johns, hosted a telephone conference call for Teaparty activists. Twitter user @Strwbrry_Blonde learned of the call and enlisted Twitter-based community organizer @Shoq to disseminate the dial-in number. In the end, several liberal or satirical Twitter users, including Comedy Central's Elon James White (@ElonJames), Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead (@LizzWinstead) and a few dozen other tea-party-crashers participated in the call, livetweeting comments among themselves under the Twitter hashtag #teapartycall.

During the call, the organizers urged listeners to start their own blogs on the 73wire.com website to avoid what they claimed was routine censorship of conservative views by Typepad and other mainstream blog hosts. (They did not indicate who would receive any advertising revenue from those new blogs.) They also touted the growth of the "Liberty Movement" and called the Obama administration "corrupt... out of control.... a scam, a fraud," saying there is a "machine that's trying to steal my liberty."

The best parts, in terms of voyeuristic entertainment value, came in the last 10 minutes when the line was opened to questions. At one point, after a caller asked what she should blog about, an organizer told her to "watch Drudge." Later, two other callers repeatedly interrupted each other with worries about the Obama administration's "dithering! dithering!," "terrorists," "hesitation," and "lying" -- to the point that the organizers had to mute all participants' phones.

At one point, a caller who identified herself as "Marge in Minnesota" -- actually, Winstead -- asked what issues she should care about. The organizers answered, providing her with conservative talking points.

The audio link is posted at the site

[phantom power]

1. What issues should I care about?

Oh noez, I require new programming!

[BR_Parkway]

2. That's why Drudge is still relevant, just in case they forget what they are

supposed to be worried about