[lbo-talk] Mark Ames: The Tea Party as a front group for oil flacks

Somebody Somebody philos_case at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 11 13:28:22 PDT 2010


Michael: All of which makes me wonder if this astroturf/authentic movement question is really best thought of as an either/or thing.

Thailand is another recent example that comes to mind.

Somebody: Come on. The Red Shirts may have been funded in part by the exile tycoon Thaksin but they reflected genuine pro-democracy sentiments of the working class and peasantry of Northern Thailand and Bangkok slums. There's little comparison between poor folks in Thailand fighting against a dictatorship for the right to vote and an upper middle class, anti-tax movement in the U.S. storming the Bastille against stimulus spending and universal health care. There's a reason why one movement was drowned in blood and the other is given endless airtime on the corporate media.  Having said all that, I agree with your larger point that there's not a clear distinction between elite orchestrated protests and authentic mass actions. The U.S. government's successful covert actions and regime changes tend to fall somewhere in between.



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