Daily Pulse: Adele Stan talks tea-baggers

Last Saturday, veteran right wing watcher Adele Stan of AlterNet covered the Tax Payers’ March on Washington (aka the 912 March or the DC Tea Party). About 70,000 [1] conservative protesters converged on Washington to air their grievances, including opposition to President Obama’s health care reform agenda. Protesters carried signs warning of death panels, tax-funded abortions, and health care for “illegals.”

In this interview, Stan explains that while the event was billed as a grassroots convergence, it was in fact orchestrated by Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks [2] and the right wing Americans for Prosperity [3]. The rally also received massive amounts of free publicity from Fox News host Glenn Beck, coordinator of the 9-12 project. Stan describes how all the abortion-, immigration- and death panel-talk binds social conservatives, nativists and big business interests into a cohesive right-wing coalition.

Stan says that ,while the tea-baggers have cropped up recently, the leaders of the movement have been at this game since LBJ trounced Barry Goldwater in 1964.

To learn more, check out Addie’s recent writing on the Tea Parties at AlterNet. The Wing Nut Code [4] explains the significance of those creepy yellow snake flags and other right wing symbology; and The Same Old Faces [5] explains how old guard Goldwater partisans are still pulling the strings for the right wing.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care and is free to reprint. Visit Healthcare.newsladder.net [7] for a complete list of articles on health care affordability, health care laws, and health care controversy. For the best progressive reporting on the Economy, and Immigration, check out Economy.Newsladder.net [8] and Immigration.Newsladder.net [9]. This is a project of The Media Consortium [10], a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder [11].

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