The first big "teabaggin" convention scheduled for February 4 in Nashville has run into a little hiccup. Well actually a series of hiccups. Okay they have a chronic case of the hiccups!The first problem is that the organizers of this event do not seem to understand their group's financial situation.
Let me be blunt: charging people $500.00 plus the costs of travel and lodging to go to a "National Tea Party Convention" run by a for profit group no one has ever heard of sounds as credible as an email from Nigeria promising me a million bucks if I fork over my bank account number.
Then there is the difficulty of organizing a bunch of people who mistrust, or even fear, established political organizations.
The tea party is far from cohesive. By one count, eight separate organizations make up the movement, and they sometimes compete against each other. Some tea party leaders are uncertain whether this unruly collection of activists can—or should—be organized into a unified force.
"If you get 10 tea party organizers in a room and try to tell them what to do, you're going to alienate nine of them, and the only one you won't alienate is yourself," says Ken Marrero, a conservative activist and blogger. "At its root, the tea party is really people who have had enough and decided to get involved. It's really a grassroots thing. If you are ever successful in creating a single tea party movement, you will have ruined it."
Cunningham agrees: "Our strength is our diversity, with so many people empowered to do so many different things."
"Many of these folks have repudiated party membership," Marrero points out—so why would they want to join a unified organization under the tea party banner? "They're looking for performance, not parties or politicians," he says.
In some ways Sarah Palin is the perfect figurehead for this group. Disjointed, ill-equipped, under educated, a little crazy, how is that NOT a perfect description of Caribou Barbie?
Perhaps Matt Taibbi said it best: Sarah Palin is the Empress-Queen of the screaming-for-screaming’s sake generation.
When you really have nothing to say, all you can do is to keep saying it louder in the hopes of drowning out your critics.
Update: It looks like a key sponsor of the event has pulled out. Oh oh, it looks like the Teabaggers are in hot water now! (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)
Historically "teabaggers" have objected to taxes. People who cannot afford $500.00 to attend "their" convention certainly do not pay taxes of any magnitude. To be legitimate the organizers of a tea party convention should require people to show their last 5 years of tax returns. You want to see tax payments? I'll show you real tax payments, and I don't complain. I pay the highest tax rates and appreciate all of the amenities I receive: paved streets, stop lights, sidewalks, freeways, national parks, police, fire, schools, court systems, food regulations, environmental regulations, airports etc, etc,etc. These tea baggers need a one way ticket to a 3rd world country so they can see first hand what they DO NOT have. Haiti would be an excellent first stop. Matt Taibbi DID say it best, they just scream for screamings sake. Maybe the media needs to do a series on what exactly our tax dollars pay for.
ReplyDeleteIf you and another person are being chased by a bear, you don't have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun the other person.
ReplyDeleteIf Sarah Palin does run for president, she does not have to be smarter than her opponent, she just has to be smarter than the people that would vote for her. As absolutely stupid as she is, she still is less stupid than these idiots.
Good post. I agree with Anonymous (1st comment). I recognize where our taxes go, and most people get a great bang for their buck. How would they like to pay to send their children and grandchildern to school and each time they use all the things our governments provide. It is amazing to me that they think (or at least the few teabaggers I know do) they know best how the government should be run when they probably can't even prepare their own tax returns. They want someone "like themselves" (Palin???) to run the government. I wonder if they would let someone like themselves to perform surgery on them, or even prepare their taxes? They don't seem to recognize they don't know everything. If they do pay taxes, I bet their taxes have never been lower.
ReplyDeleteOh no. Will they ask Miss O'silla to give up any pay out, even to SarahPAC?
ReplyDeletehahahahaaaa hope she cancels on them
Good point about how much tax teabaggers don't pay anyway.
ReplyDeleteJust like the anti-healthcare reform people who are on medicare and medicaid and VET care.
Just like the people who think they will be among the 2% to owe any estate tax.
I put my daughter to sleep every night with what we call, "bore me to sleep." I lecture on any and all topics but when I talk taxes and current events, I make sure she understands that we are all part of a family called America and we pay into a kitty to help everyone.
ReplyDeleteWe heard snowplows outside (NYC) and I asked her, who pays for that?
To quote another poster, "Let's all pray for them."
ReplyDeletecounting down until she bails... right wing scum is reporting that...
ReplyDelete"We already had one Tea Party event implode over "legal issues" two weeks before it was to happen. PAlin is taking 100K from leftist sponsors, one other sponsor has already bailed and they invited a birther. "
and that a Left wing org. is sponsoring the TRN convention!
http://leedoren.com/2010/01/12/why-is-a-radical-environmentalist-group-sponsoring-the-national-tea-party-convention/
She will HAVE to bail or lose her cred! They are already mad she is accepting a speaking fee!
This is going to be good...4,3,2,1!
Here's an interesting thought from Andrew Sullivan
ReplyDeletehttp://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/01/classic-palin.html
I forgot to add in my last comment with the link to Andrew Sullivan that reporters are not allowed into the opening ceremonies of the convention.
ReplyDeleteThat's what the link is about.
Sorry.
Gryphen,
ReplyDeleteI think I read a comment on the Mudflats Open thread by someone that one of these ' organizers ' had some shady financial dealings as well or that he had been charged with embezzling or something in the past. Don't remember the name at the moment.
Most of the teabaggers I know use more in government aid than they would ever pay in taxes, if they did (which they don't). Most of them are on Social Security, get veterans benefits (including medical care), and use every thing they can get free from the government they can lay their greedy hands on.
ReplyDeleteTeabaggers want smaller government and believe that the States should be the one that takes care of their own.
ReplyDeleteWith the economic crisis, people started using their cars less which meant that less gasoline was being purchased. Then people started complaining how the roads were in such bad shape and expected the State/County to fix them. The problem is, less gas sales meant less taxes collected.
People expect a lot of services but, are not willing to pay for them.
Do they really believe that their freeways, rails, schools, etc. could have been built without federal help?
Can these States pay for their own disasters when they occur?
Look at CA prop 15. No increase in their property taxes have come back to bite them in the ass.
These teabaggers are from States that take more from the govt than they give and yet they complain.
They are nothing but a bunch of loons who would be the first to beg for govt aid in time of need.
What strikes me about this so-called movement is that its members seem unable to recognize that the most an individual can do is make a small noise. It is teamwork, cooperation, and concerted and sustained group efforts that can make a difference.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this would mean that teabaggers learn to trust and share, analyze and compromise. From what I've seen of the people who make up this so-called movement, they just don't possess these abilities...
... which is just fine with me.
I read the whole article that you posted in your Update. At the end I was tempted to write the author as he requested but did not because I do not have the information that some of you do. I wanted to point out to him that Sarah Palin, contrary to what the tea party people believe, fits into this "for profit", "I'll get mine off the people", role. I wish that gryphin or Patric or someone would write a letter to him to point out the similarities of Palin to the Lawyer who wanted to profit from the Tea Baggin movement.
ReplyDeletetoo bad some pay and many don't.
ReplyDeleteCome the new healthcare bill union members will be off the hook as well as those who don't pay any taxes currently while the majority of Americans will be strapped with higher costs,penalties and taxes which they like to disuise as 'fees".
And since senior citizes have paid nto the medicare system then they are entitled to it.
You can expect those snow plows to either increase in prices in the way of taxes or decrease in services with aded penalties and taxes to the oil companies.
I guess you will have to dig your own hybrid out then.
many sponsors of the Teaparty convention are starting to withdraw due to the corporate overthrow of the movement and subsequent profiteering.
ReplyDeleteLiberty U just withdrew as sponsor of CPAC due to GOProud (teh geigh) being kept as a co-sponsor.
The entire conservative movement and GOP are wandering aimlessly ... and still the Dems can't seem to grab the reins???
Teabaggers aren't forward thinkers.
ReplyDeletePalin is getting $120,000.00 for speaking to the baggers.
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.nashvillescene.com/pitw/2010/01/tempest_in_a_tea_party_activis.php
Each time I find an article, the price goes up and up. These reporters are always accurate.
So what 100 congress people and their families flew to Copenhagen on private jets and military planes costing millions of taxpayer dollars and we should be concerned about Sarah Palin making a mere 120,000? A drop in the bucket according to this administration.
ReplyDeleteI bet union workers will be happy to know tat their Union dues also went to the Massachusetts election to back the democrat. Union members from other states.
Who are the ones who are out of touch?
Priorities people.
Palin said she will get no fee for this gig.
ReplyDeleteOne of the funniest things I heard for the first tea party was the rumour that ACORN was going to be collecting names, so people were actively discouraged from providing any contact info at the tea party. Some even said to beat up anyone trying to collect information.
ReplyDeleteCollecting names and organizing people is one of the best things to do as a grassroots movement, you can't have a movement without it.
Its obvious from the pictures and signs that teabaggers are not the high income earners in the US. They aren't leaders. And they aren't smart enough to get anything done. But they sure can yell loud and get red in the face.
Palin is getting her fee - she said she "wouldn't profit personally" but that it would be going - presumably via her PAC - to deserving candidates.
ReplyDelete(Like her relatives?)
Make no mistake, she absolutely did *not* say she was appearing for free.