Crashing The Tea Party

Fox News thinks ACORN is going to crash conservative Tea Parties…perhaps they haven’t met my daughter and I?

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We’re holding our own Tea Party.

In case you missed it, “anti-tax” protesters are gathering across the country this April 15th to throw “tea parties” to show their…well, it’s unclear. Stefania from MOMOcrats calls it it a tantrum,

“We’ve been puzzling over this tea party concept ever since we’ve heard about it. From what we can figure Conservatives across the country are holding parties to protest being ‘Taxed Enough Already’ (get it?) among other things. This despite the fact that President Obama has just passed the largest middle class tax cut in history. Remember during the campaign how the GOP was telling everyone that Obama would raise your taxes? Makes you wonder if Republicans 1) ever read Obama’s proposed tax policy and 2) ever read the news.”

Jane Hamsher has a more detailed round-up on how all this tea party business got started. With “business” being the key word,

“Why all the effort to distance themselves (Fox News) from the teabaggers? It’s obvious they are integrally involved — Fox has given them millions in free publicity, despite the fact that there’s no evidence of ‘ratings gold’ here. Four of their biggest stars will be appearing at the rallies, Fox Nation will be hosting a ‘virtual tea party,’Glenn Beck is holding a $500 a plate fundraiser for them and Fox has been officially promoting the entire affair as the FNC Tax Day Tea Parties…Maybe they’re afraid that if people knew that those behind the demonstrations were the very same lobbyists and influence peddlers the teabaggers claim to decry, the whole thing would be revealed to be what it is — a hollow excercise in extremist right-wing hypocrisy.”

Confused yet? Teablogging.net also breaks down the Tea Party fun,

“Who is behind the Teabags Across America movement? Well, fuck if we know. But here are a few of the Founding Fathers:

Obvs we all know about CNBC “journalist” Rick Santelli, who got the ball (heh) rolling back in February when he sort of went apeshit on the air and then all the kids watched it on the YouTube, for laffs.

Next we heard, American Spectator boy wonder Managing Editor and known anti-twittite J. Peter Freire tweeted the idea of having a “New American Tea Party,” you know, for principles.

WHOA BUT WAIT. Next thing you know, new media genius Michael Patrick Leahy is just goin cold nuts about liberty and stuff. So now HE is in charge.

And then, because nothing says “grassroots” like “big money lobbyists,” our friends at FreedomWorks got in on the act! AND THEY MADE SHIRTS.

But you know it’s really not a conservative movement until the American Family Association signs on, and sign on they did.”

So where does that leave us? April 15th will be filled with extremists, anti-Obama-ites, GOP/RNC opportunists, lobbyist, plenty of t-shirt sales, anti-union groups, and according to Firedoglake white supremacists and xenophobic anti-immigrant groups.

Wow. Quiet the gathering.

Then there are those holding virtual tea parties like Technosailor.com‘s Aaron Brazell, who says he wants nothing to do with the extremists,

“…don’t bring me into extraneous issues. My ‘teaparty’ is only focused on taxcode/system. Non-partisan.”

Unfortunately that core message isn’t getting through. It seems  just about everyone has caught on to the double entendre with the Tea Party rhetoric in which participants have been encouraged to “tea bag” the White House, or “tea bag” their Congressman.

I’ll give you a second to go look it up on Urban Dictionary.

The giggles and snickers have spread to cable news and beyond, resulting in Tea Parties not being taken seriously.

Which leaves me exactly where I started, spending April 15th having a tea party with my daughter. The 4-year old won’t give me spin, lobbyists, white supremacists, or tax-cut rhetoric. No, all I will get from her is a little sugar.

crossposted at BlogHer.com