FreedomWorks Behind Tax Day Tea Party Protests [1]
Submitted by John Stauber [2] on
Who makes up the Tea Party movement [3]? The Tax Day Tea Party [4] protest movement is not as spontaneous as its organizers would like you to think. Chris Good writes, "Here is the organizational landscape of the April 15 tea party movement, in a nutshell: three national-level conservative groups, all with slightly different agendas, are guiding it. All are quick to tell you that the movement is a bottom-up affair and that its grassroots cred is real. They are: FreedomWorks [5], the conservative action group led by Dick Armey [6]; dontGO [7], a tech savvy free-market action group that sprung out of last August's oil-drilling debate in the House of Representatives; and Americans for Prosperity [8], an issue advocacy/activist group based on free market principles. Conservative bloggers, talk show hosts, and other media figures have attached themselves to the movement in peripheral capacities. Armey will appear at a major rally in Atlanta, FreedomWorks said. All three groups vehemently deny that the movement is a product of AstroTurf [9]ing -- fake grassroots activism organized from the top down -- as some on the left have claimed."