Posted on 04/29/2009 12:42:59 PM PDT by kristinn
New York, New York – April 29th, 2009 - The National Leadership Team of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition (http://www.nationwideteapartycoalition.com) today accepted President Obama`s invitation "to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security.”
The invitation was extended by the President at a Town Hall Meeting held in Arnold, Missouri today (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21870.html). Michael Patrick Leahy, a member of the National Leadership Team of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, said " We want to broaden the scope to address the President`s runaway march to socialist-statism, and the rampant across the board irresponsible spending he is promoting with his $787 Billion Stimulus Plan and his $1 Trillion Annual Deficit, his takeover of General Motors, Chrysler and the Banks ."
Kellen Giuda, organizer of the New York City Tea party attended by 12,000 and of Parcbench (http://www.parcbench.com) said, “I think a constructive dialogue with the President would be a great opportunity for him to acknowledge that, yes, many Americans have a problem with the way Washington is handling our taxpayer dollars and also that we are concerned about health care and social security reform. I am happy he is open to a discussion. The Tea Parties are protesting against fiscal irresponsibility and any dialogue we can have will hopefully bring a better public understanding of our country`s finances. Health care and social security reform is a large concern to us."
The National Leadership Team of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition includes 25 of the more than 900 local organizers of the April 15, 2009 Tax Day Tea Parties held across the country, which were attended by more than 1 million Americans. Members of the National Leadership Team includes Judson Phillips, organizer of the Nashville Tea Party attended by 10,000, James Dickey, organizer of the Dallas Tea Party, attended by 5,000, and JoAnn Abbot, organizer of the Washington, DC Tea Party attended by more than 3,000. The full list of the 25 members of the National Leadership Team of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition can be found at http://www.nationwideteapartycoalition.com/about.php
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It’s true there were people who stepped up to organize and advertise the event around the country. They should receive thanks for those efforts. But by attending I’m aware of of no one who believed they were endorsing the coordinators of the events to be national representation to Washington.
It’s presumptuous in the extreme to claim to be the “Voice” of the protestors.
There was no election.
Maybe people mean well, maybe they don’t, I don’t care. All I know is that these people have only shown they can organize an event. They haven’t shown they, themselves, are akin to the NRA with an active membership that pays dues, organizes and receives their blessing to protect their best interests with an agreed upon message.
In short, they represent themselves. NOT me.
Surest way to ensure the rest of us won’t go to any event organized by these self-appointed student council leaders is to, well appoint themselves to the student council.
What a crap load. They don’t speak for me, and don’t have my support.
One important step in disorganizing a popular movement is to appear to ‘embrace the cause’. Next will come manipualtion of public perception, with media full cooperation. Axelrod is a master propagandist and uses asgtro-turfing to a very refined level.
The only reason Obama will meet with any tea party leader is to make them look like fools.
Frankly I am surprised at you, you more than any of us know how the Washington power game is played.
How many times have you been stroked and or ignored by the Washington elite?
They will be glad handed, get their pictures taken and told how things are going to be, then sent out to calm down their troops and nothing will come from this.
It will be the same politics as usual.
This administration is setting up the people who are willing to “step up to the plate”. Most of all, this administration is vile, ruthless, and vicious. They play Chicago style politics to destroy anyone that gets in their way.
The tea parties are a thorn in Barack’s flesh, therefore, they have to find a way to use the media (who never admitted the Tea Parties were important) to destroy whomever decided to “step up to the plate”. They will see who these so-called leaders are and dig up any dirt in order to use the "Tea Party Leaders" as poster boys and girls for the "Right Wing Extremists". Are these self-professed leaders ready for the Marxist Brigade to paint them as part of the Right Wing Extremist List created by the Obamanites in the government? Having their names, their families, their friends, workers, etc., plastered all over the National News Media in a negative light?
Without any doubts, some people do not understand this Narcissistic Egomaniac and that no one will get in the way of the “CHANGE” he has for this country.
Hi girlangler! First, it makes me furious if this is true! I heard Obama talking about the Tea Party movement today. His motives would be that he just cannot ‘believe’ that anyone would disagree with him! This is the attitude of a dictator!
I hope this is a fluke and not the truth and they won’t meet with Obama! All the MSM has done is make fun of those who participated in the Tea Party Movement and Repulicans. Thats why Obama and his team hates Fox, because he has everyone on his side except Fox!
I don’t think you can classify these folks (well meaning though they may be) as “THE leaders” of the movement. They may be the organizers of different tea parties, and they may all have the same ideals we all have, but the movement itself is more grass roots than this would indicate.
On top of that, Obama really has no intention of taking anything said by them to heart. He wants to label someone as the “LEADER” so he can then have someone to marginalize. It is the same thing he tried to do with Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Joe the Plumber. He tried to marginalize Hannity during the campaign (hence the opening of Hannity’s radio show) by mocking him, and he tried to portray Rush as the leader of the GOP and made sure all his minions hammered the “want him to fail” statement. Joe the plumber they tried to get with “unpaid fees and child support” etc. in order to make him look like some kind of failure. It is the same tactic the Clintons used to combat “bimbo eruptions”. It is the old nuts or sluts angle.
If he could blow up some statement (a polite “we agreed that the sky is blue” then edited to “we agreed”, or some other statement like “I want him to fail” that they could take out of context and have the media run with, then ***ALL*** the tea parties look like a bunch of losers or loons. As it stands right now, he is *trying* to mock us by waving around a tea bag, but it is just scatter shot, since there is no one for the media to focus on and go to for a statement, and therefore ineffective.
By the way, I heard someone on Hannity today say that they are putting tea boxes on their dashboards to let everyone know where they stand. I think I will do the same.
Well, I guess we kinda knew that all along.
EXCELLENT POINTS, SS!
If I had been well enough physically to attend it would NOT have been “all about taxes, healthcare, and Social Security”... I’ve got a list about a mile long of all the reasons I would’ve attended.
I don’t blame these organizers for wanting to “step up” and meet him face to face, although to go there and say they speak for anyone but THEMSELVES, and the people they PERSONALLY got to go to the tea parties IS presumptuous.
The ONLY reason these tea parties were so successful is because there was a HUGE INFORMAL GRASSROOTS coalition of a great many groups, and INDEPENDENT CITIZENS that attended...
To be perfectly frank (and I don’t know who these organizers are more than their names), I worked in the LP for a few years about 10 years ago. These particular tea parties are nothing new in one regard: Tax Day Protests organized by those in the LP have been going on yearly for at LEAST 10 years now — many of the signs and slogans present at these rallies looked VERY familiar to me. And, as someone who organized rallies and protests in Denver back in the early part of this decade I can tell you RIGHT NOW - the ONLY reasons these tax day protests were SO successful was because of the wide range of people and issues, as well as OTHER groups, organizations, websites (like FR), etc... etc... spreading the word and coming together as “ONE VOICE”.
And, of course, we DID have a rallying point — OBAMA HIMSELF and Congress’ actions over the last 3 months who at this moment are the “face” of the problem in Washington, a problem that has existed on BOTH sides of the aisle for a great many years now...
Current LP’ers please don’t take offense to the above. I’m merely stating facts — you and I both know how hard it is to get people off their duffs to protest something (and I don’t think that has changed much in the last decade has it?)
I am not trying to denigrate these protests AT ALL - Neither am I trying to imply these organizers in the press releases are Libertarians or libertarians, or that there is anything wrong with that if they are.
I’m just trying to help by sharing some of what my experiences have taught me re: protests, politicians, steering the debate in a campaign, etc... [I DO notice they are using a good tactic in agreeing that those issues are important to them as well, I just hope they know the rest of the “formula” to that kind of debate, and I hope those 3 things aren’t the ONLY thing they are going to address. And, I also have my doubts that this form of persuasion is going to work on Obama — no doubt he’s heard it all, and may even KNOW this stuff “better”.] BTW: Soc. Sec., Taxes, and Healthcare Costs were the “top 3” issues that we raised during LP campaigns years back. Not that others AREN’T worried about these things, but it is my feeling that Obama is trying to paint the supporters of these parties as “fringe”, and only concerned about certain issues, completely MISSING the BACKBONE of our protests — the CONSTITUTION ITSELF.
If these organizers allow Pres_ent Obama to define the issue, just like the media tried to do: “Taxes, Healthcare, SS” you will have ALREADY LOST, and Obama is NOT an idiot politically (even if we wish he was). Frankly, these people just LET Obama “define the issues”, they CONFIRMED to him and the public that these protests were “all about money”.
I don’t know how to say this more clearly — THIS IS AN AMBUSH, and the ‘enemy’ is bringing you onto HIS HQ under the banner of a white flag, but he is NOT being honest about his intents (anyone who thinks he is, is IMHO naive). Obama and his propaganda masters are MASTERS at double-speak, and spin. If you go in there with the mindset that he is actually going to listen to you — well, I hate to say this, but you’re going to be sorely, sorely mistaken. And if you’re trusting the media to present YOUR side of this TRUTHFULLY — well, you all should already know better than that simply from the coverage of these tea parties we saw just 2 weeks ago.
Again, I don’t know who these particular protest organizers are, or their background, but I see some mistakes (IMO) being made in how they are addressing this back to him. Not that they SHOULDN’T have continued the dialogue, but they DEFINITELY Shouldn’t have let him define the issues... Anyone who has worked on any type of political campaign knows that an opponent defining the issues is a death knell for your campaign...
And, in conclusion... LOL I hope and pray that I am WRONG in what I’ve spoken about above, and I will pray for these organizers that they are successful in getting Obama to open his eyes. As I said before though — I don’t think this is a “battle” we can win IN THIS WAY (by meeting him on his terms). I pray I’m wrong...
[Personal note: I know I could have done a better job explaining the above, and I apologize if anyone takes offense, or if I didn’t explain anything clearly. I am “open to a dialogue” if I’m seeing something incorrectly here, and unlike Obama, I really do mean that! LOL]
Back during the Ruby Ridge/Waco atrocities the NRA released a statement advising members not to associate with "fringe elements". They got called on that blunder, really quick.
The more decent law abiding American citizens we can muster, the better. Decent and law abiding should be the only criteria.
Pinging a few contributors on this thread to my post at #130.
Just my take on all of this... And, as I said, I know NOTHING about these people personally, their backgrounds, affiliations, etc...
I definitely agree. We NEED all ‘groups’ to come together. As I said, maybe I could have or should have taken more time to put together my thoughts. I’m not suggesting that various groups DON’T come together, or that we should be afraid of “associating” with different groups, or people, just that we could be heading into “dangerous” territory if we don’t know who the people are that are claiming leadership of this movement...
If we remember ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL - and keep the GRASSROOTS portion of this going - we should be fine. As soon as someone “steps up” and grabs that mike claiming to speak for all of us, well... I’m just VERY wary of things like that.
I mentioned the LP in my post — I have NO PROBLEM with the Libertarian Party, nor any of its members. I am a “small-l” libertarian in philosophy myself! And, yeah, I’ve been called “fringe” MYSELF at times! ;)
To paraphrase an overused Star Wars quote, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”.
Exactly. After their inconsequential meeting with Obama, he will have free rein to spin it or ignore it however he wants. What a joke.
Furthermore, by taking up his offer to have a “serious” discussion, they accept his insulting premise that the tea parties themselves were UNserious.
And on top of that, just one sentence before inviting discussion, Obama mocked the tea partiers complete with physical gestures. How can they let that stand? If a president stoops to mocking the people, it should be used against him. But as it is, they have passively validated it.
I tell you, the guileless, sheeps-to-the-slaughter naivite of our so-called leaders is getting tiresome. There’s a Bible verse that says something like “Be crafty as serpents and innocent as doves.” We need to get better at the first part.
I believe that having a so-called Tea Party organization kind of defeats the purpose of the whole tea party thing. Obama knows what we are saying without meeting with any so-called representatives. He does not care about us and what we think and those people that believe that he can be reasoned with are about as naive as Obama is when he thinks that he can negotiate with terrorists. I say keep up the tea party momentum and let him know that we’ve got his number and are not going to allow him and his ilk to destroy our great country.
When a president of the United States mocks Americans, he does not serve the nation, he serves his own interests.
I cannot remember in my lifetime any president that so arrogantly and openly mocked Americans citizens for their views and protests, even Nixon never directly attack antiwar protesters in such a way.
The tea party leadership should meet with the president on their terms, meaning when Washington is full of tea parties, enough to scare the bejeebus out of Congress, when around the nation millions of Americans demand that Obama abandon his plans to bankrupt this nation into self destruction.
Anything else is playing into their hands and by the rules they set forth, we need to shake things up, we need to rule the street and we need to use the same tactics they have used to destroy this country. We outnumber hard core liberals easily 5 to 1 maybe even 10 or 20 to 1 and unless we can show those sort of numbers nothing will change....
1. The media barely covered or made fun of the tea party
participants.
2. When asked about the Tea Parties, which took place on
April 15th, Barack Hussein Obama stated he did not know
anything about any “Tea Parties”.
Now let's assume Barack did not know about the Tea Parties, exactly what would he have to offer anyone if he did not know anything about them?
This is a guise, a trap, from one Patriot to another, don't get sucked into this photo-op setup. For the good of this country, the personal well-being of those who are taking a stand, and for the grassroots movement itself, don't get pulled into madness.
Obama is the one who is not legitimate
So much for the Grassroots leaderless movement.
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