The Hijacking Of A Cause
A few weeks ago, a wonderful grassroots movement began when regular citizens began to band together to form local tea party protests. It was government activism in its truest form, and I for one had great hopes for true reform from the grassroots level. When the call went out for a national tea party in July in Chicago, I was excited and launched a website devoted to the cause locally. I started getting emails from folks excited and wanting to participate, so I organized a meeting so that we could get organized. Shortly after launching this effort, I noted a “national effort” which was beginning to extend its tentacles into the effort. Before long, another individual, identified only as reformpolitix came along and started another “local” effort for a tea party on 4/15 (tax day).
At our first organizational meeting, I informed the group of this effort and we decided not to duplicate effort, but participate in the 4/15 event with an eye towards the July 4th goal. Now I for one have no desire for leadership in such efforts, but those who know me understand that I will work my behind off to make sure a cause (or person) I believe in succeeds. We were in the process of creating a charter/bylaws and it would ultimately be up to the group to select their leadership (not me, because that is simply not my thing).
I established contact with the “national” effort organizer and informed her of our decision. Unfortunately, she was rather evasive about who she was or who the “‘national” group was. However, when I forwarded her an email from a citizen who suggested Senator Lamar Alexander’s Office as a potential site of the protest, she responded:
“It would be a GREAT idea to have his name on some signs, but I am afraid that being too radical too early in this movement will only mean that it takes longer for the moderates “moderate-rights” to join us.”
News flash – The whole idea is to get a little radical! I don’t care if the “moderates” join the cause or not. John McCain “moderates” is NOT what this country needs right now. My suspicion was at the time that Senator Alexander was being “protected” and that could only mean one thing – somewhere along the line the Republican Party was moving in to take over the cause. So, I decided to do a little more research into who was behind this “national” movement.
I found my first clue in the Tennessean headline, “Tennessee GOP’s ‘tea party’ draws hundreds to oppose stimulus“. One of the organizers in Nashville I had contacted early on had informed me that Top Conservatives on Twitter (TCOT) was organizing for 4/15. So I checked up on that group, only to find it too was headed up by a Republican Strategist. However, even with my concerns mounting, I decided to still support the “national” efforts and be a team player. Then came the shocker.
“I will take care of the media coverage and promotion and have already spoken with some media outlets and have things in the works.”
No doubt remained in my mind at this point that someone was hijacking the tea party cause to suit their political agenda. I opted to not attend their organizational meeting this weekend, since the mission statement our local group was creating, along with the charter/bylaws was being pushed completely to the side at the whims of some “unseen” group from outside of Memphis. My participation (and others) was going to simply be one more body in the attendee count to give support to what THEY wanted to pump into the media. In other words, I had just become a pawn in a political game.
I asked one of our group who was going to the meeting to take notes and report back on Facebook. Sure enough, here is who THEY are:
Group is in nationwide group that is affiliated with Michelle Malkin and Newt Gingrich.
Mike Fleming at WREC will sponsor event in some fashion that is yet to be determined
*******
There are 10 tea party dates set aside from now through election day 2010.
Oh well, it was a great idea while it lasted. Now it is just a show for the Republicans to regain power in 2010. Yep, we gotta get those “moderates” back into office so they can sell us out like they did last time. For those of you wanting to see the Lamar Alexander’s of the world back in office, here is your big chance! Sorry folks, I am not a pawn in any one’s game.
Wise activists are wary of attention-seeking activities that challenge public order. Any such major activity nearly always attracts the media. Television crews and reporters hope to find strife, faction, contention, and even violence at such events. News coverage of public dissent in the form of marches, demonstrations, or protests plays directly into the hands of the Conspiracy. Anarchy — or virtually any form of public disorder — creates an excuse for government to show its muscle and exercise force against the dissidents, which turns out to be force against everyone. This is one of the most subtle ways by which governments expand their power.
The general public wants order, and the Insiders want police power for which the disorder is a pretext. Citizens must beware of being used in demonstrations, marches, or any form of public protest that strengthens the enemy by furnishing an excuse for more laws, more government, and extreme enforcement measures.
Once a public protest is organized — for good or ill — all it takes is one or two people planted in the crowd to provide the violence or ill manners that can be displayed on television to discredit the cause.
“Many are hacking at the branches of evil, few at the root” -Thoreau
[...] Collar Republican has some thoughts on people trying to hijack the bandwagon. Its happening all over the country including in Maine. [...]
Once you started to get numbers you knew that people would try to hop on board. There are people who have been working on this for over a month only to have some “organisation” stick their oar in with a new event, sometimes in the same place.
What makes me laugh is people are inviting politicians along…kind of missing the whole gist of the event. This is non-party political and non-politician, its grass-roots and I wish people could respect that.
I have no issue with the Republican Tea Party concept. If a person is a die-hard Republican and wants to take to the street to voice his/her opinion, then I’m all for that. My only issue is the hijacking of a bipartisn effort by the Republican Party and its minions. Now that they have, I want no part of it because they are nothing but hypocrites willing to take any cause or position they deem popular at the time to win elections.
[...] did a post over the weekend announcing I was withdrawing from the “tea party movement” and I [...]