Astroturf: On Heels of Failed ‘Coffee Party,’ It’s ‘The Other 95%’
Marco Ceglie has been a busy, busy man.
Ceglie is now executive director of a non-profit called Vote 18, a “get-out-the-vote” organization that harvests the liberal lean of many young voters for the benefit of the Democratic Party. Ceglie spent the second half of the Bush administration as campaign director for the “Get on the Limo” tour, a project by the satirical “Billionaires for Bush” group. They hoped to keep alive the left-wing meme that Republicans only care about the very richest Americans (while studiously avoiding where Democratic candidates such as Barack Obama filled their coffers).
Ceglie now also teaches a variation of Andrew Boyd’s “Culture Jamming 101″ course, which attempts to refocus and counter movements and beliefs with which they disagree:
Many Culture Jams are simply aimed at exposing questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture so that people can momentarily consider the branded environment in which they live. Culture jams refigure logos, fashion statements, and product images to challenge the idea of “what’s cool,” along with assumptions about the personal freedoms of consumption. Some of these communiqués create a sense of transparency about a product or company by revealing environmental damages or the social experiences of workers that are left out of the advertising fantasies. The logic of culture jamming is to convert easily identifiable images into larger questions about such matters as corporate responsibility, the “true” environmental and human costs of consumption, or the private corporate uses of the “public” airwaves.
Ceglie’s latest project is something called “The Other 95%,” which he touts as an activist group to counter the acceleration and rise of the tea party movement. The group — such as it is — only recently came out during last week’s tea party protests, where Ceglie and allies were among a relative handful of counterprotesters that claimed to represent “that 95% of working Americans [that] received a tax cut from Obama.”
It is an interesting angle Ceglie is promoting, to be sure, but no more interesting than the timing of the group’s sudden coming out. The group seems to be a scrambled effort to make up for the failure of the watered-down and bitter “Coffee Party,” a previous effort of another group of pro-Obama liberal activists to counter the tea parties. The Coffee Party received unwarranted accolades and interest from the left-leaning mainstream media as it was founded, but the group quickly fizzled out. As Democrats in Congress continue to be excoriated for their partisanship and more Americans continue to identify with the tea party movement in recent polls, left-wing activists had a desperate need for a countering organization, which Ceglie and his allies seem intent on creating.
Ceglie casts the group as being good-humored moderates — hoping to attract Democrats, Republicans, and independents who are thankful of the Obama “tax cuts.”
Unfortunately for him — and like the founders of the Coffee Party before him — Ceglie makes the unforced error of publicly proclaiming his hate-filled left-wing radicalism on his Twitter page.
The American people know, they really know, how bad things are and who is responsible for it. Obama has not only brought back the welfare state, but he is determined to turn America into a European-style socialist welfare state. And for that “privilege,” you get to have very high taxes, high unemployment, very little economic growth, a rapidly declining military, and now horrific medical care for the rest of your life. True, the government will supply you with the bare minimum to get by, assuming that your goal in life is to have the bare minimum to get by. Nobody will be envious of the “rich” anymore because there won’t be any and, in true socialist form, you will have the “honor” of working hard your entire life and precious little to show for it.
Welcome to Obamaland, or socialism light. I say “light” because he’s bringing it in ever so gradually, one legislative bill at a time, rather than all at once. But a coup by any other name is still a coup and the American people have had enough. We certainly do NOT want to be like France or Spain and we definitely did not work hard all our lives just so the government could take it all away from us. You know, deep down, that we want to actually leave something better for our kids when we’re gone, instead of endless debt and a failed welfare state.
Stick with us, people. Stay with the Tea Party protesters. Join us, work with us, help stop the economic slide this country is in, stand up and make a difference. You can do it and the fact that the left is yelling at us, trying to demean us, trying to insult us, trying to crush us, only proves that what we are doing is working and that the powers that be in the Democratic Party are now scared of us. Keep it up. November is only seven months away and then you’ll be able to show them the true power possessed by the American people.
Vote. It makes a BIG difference, and the election of that pathetic socialist in the White House proves how important elections are. There is still time to change the course of history. Take advantage of it. Embrace it. Heed history’s call to really and truly “send a message” to Washington they will never forget.
There will still be rich people in socialism. The difference is that instead of making yourself rich by creating products and services that people want and need, you get rich by glad handing the right politicos so that you can move up the party hierarchy and become one of those people who spend thier lives deciding how other people should spend their lives.
1968
1980
1994
2010
Every 10-15 years the country relies how bad the democrats are. Lets get on with it.
Crony Capitalism, it’s what makes socialism rot from the top.
Watching these liberals and their shill groups sink below the waves is a fun sport.
The Internet has changed everything.
Obama gave us a tax cut? What he actually did is send over a round of drinks for the table and had the waitress put it on our tab. Thanks a lot.
Don’t forget the handling fee of 80% of what we are charged: 4x the cost of the drinks.
There’s nothing like bashing your head against the wall to get results.
Millions upon millions will pour into the streets to demand even bigger deficits, deficits that will turn our currency to toilet paper. The same millions will scream for tax increases, more auto clunker programs, and the opportunity to destroy our medical care system. I can see it now.
Well we had the Coffee Protesters, and the undercover Counter Demonstrators, the combined force of both being about fifty people, and Ceglie calls other people stupid? I never thought I would live to see the day when people would demand to be raped by their government, and be driven to rage at the thought of opposition to this.
But the insane left has willingly swallowed the bile fed them by the media over the years and need something to feed their dumb fury.
VAT, oops, I mean
‘that’ 95% figure is a farce.
At the DC tax-day rally, this crowd of provocatures marched into a group of sane,concerned taxpayers who were protesting the direction the nation is headed and shouted and screamed about the “debt left behind by eight years of the evil Bush presidency” and the “hypocrisy of the republicans”.
When reminded that pResident Obama had tripled that debt in a mere eight months in office,their response was that “Republican refuse to give Obama a chance” and that conservatives “Hate poor people”.
We don’t hate poor people, we hate that people are kept poor and on the gov’t dole for generations.
So those San Francisco Polk Street chicken hawks want to be “tea baggers” too? Is this something peculiar to limousine liberals, or does it happen on Lear Jets too? I thought those latte liberals hanging out at weapon free zone Starbucks were already into oral sex?
I think that whole “The Other 95%” premise is a mistaken strategy for them.
Anyone who feels their taxes went up in any way will be given the impression that they got lumped in with the unlucky 5%, which makes them suckers.
The other nite, I was watching Beck. One of his guests was the niece of Martin Luther King, Dr. Alveda King. Talking about her uncle’s understanding of what was needed to wake people up to the evils of racism in America at the time, she said the following:
“You know, my uncle said that America will not reject racism until America sees racism.”
King was absolutely correct. And it’s this principle that we should all be focusing on in our current fight against the Left.
While it is certainly a great thing that the Tea Party movement is advocating for a return to our Constitutional principles of individual freedom, personal responsibility, and limited govt, the true service that the movement is doing for our country lies in flushing the Left out into the light. The political violence that we’ve seen spewing from the Leftists over the past few months is just the beginning: it’s going to get worse…and even the useless MSM will not be able to ignore it forever. But rather than getting caught up in anger and bitterness, we need to remember that removing a cancer is never pleasant or painless.
America will not reject the Left until America sees the Left.
All we need to do is what we have been doing: advocating our principles – vocally and peacefully – to the American public. The Left has no counter for it, so they lash out…and that will be their undoing.
The other nite, I was watching Beck. One of his guests was the niece of Martin Luther King, Dr. Alveda King. Talking about her uncle’s understanding of what was needed to wake people up to the evils of racism in America at the time, she said the following:
“You know, my uncle said that America will not reject racism until America sees racism.”
King was absolutely correct. And it’s this principle that we should all be focusing on in our current fight against the Left.
While it is certainly a great thing that the Tea Party movement is advocating for a return to our Constitutional principles of individual freedom, personal responsibility, and limited govt, the true service that the movement is doing for our country lies in flushing the Left out into the light. The political violence that we’ve seen spewing from the Leftists over the past few months is just the beginning: it’s going to get worse. But rather than getting caught up in anger and bitterness, we need to remember that removing a cancer is never pleasant or painless.
America will not reject the Left until America sees the Left.
All we need to do is what we have been doing: advocating our principles – vocally and peacefully – to the American public. The Left has no counter for it, so they lash out…and that will be their undoing.
That is absolutely, absolutely correct!!! As more people become familiar with the true face of the Left, they will come to see that this is not just a battle over differing theories of economics or governance, but truly is becoming a battle between good and evil. I would never have thought (or much less said) such a thing a few years ago, but events of the past months have convinced me of its truth.
The “light” is the truth. We all must speak the truth as we know it and continue to seek the higher truth. There is always more to truth to know. The liars are all being drawn out into the open for their destruction. The liars current boldness is a testimony to their current level of deception. In the past they knew of this peril and hid themselves. Now being as deluded as they are, they readily come out in the open. The result will be their end. The last dance. Celebrate their boldness, pity their souls.
Mark,
Couldn’t have said it better. Welcome to serfdom America with Democratic pols as your master and caretaker. It was inevitable once the left figured out they could buy votes under the auspices of class envy, social justice and “fairness.” Been going on since FDR, first slowly and then picking up speed with only a few speed bumps along the way. It took about 80 years to complete the inevitable process. I give it about another five, maybe ten years before the house of cards crumbles.
What I want to know is what are these “public servant” types going to do when the well finally runs dry and Uncle Sam’s Visa Card maxed? Because before hand, Uncle Sam was there to pick up the tab. Can divvying up hard assets be far behind?
It should be noted that in socialist societies there is a rich elite. In the former Soviet Union, the model state for international socialist like Obama, the inner party members had the country dachas, the limousines, the caviar and the elite university education for their children. Just look at America’s socialist elite, the Clintons, the Kennedys, the Obamas , the Pelosis they eat caviar while the rest of us depend on food stamps. The American public demanded change and they got it, good and hard.
Talk radio seems like an old thing now, but it was a sort of remediation to left-leaning news media that was a long time coming. From local AM stations to a few local FM stations in the heartland, talk radio was a true bottom-up phenomena of the center-right and libertarians. A number of times, Progressives tried to replicate that and failed, most recently with Air America.
The TEA Parties are also a long time coming, a bottom-up phenomena of the center-right and libertarians. And again, a number of times, Progressives have tried to replicate it and failed.
So, really, is it true to say that the left is the grassroots side of the aisle? It seems to me that they’re the ones with the top-down astroturfing sponsored by George Soros and executed by David Axelrod. They’re the ones with the Community Organizers, the rabble-rousing careerists.
#3 If you’re puzzled as to why people would call on the government to take more from them, the first thing you must note is that they do not simply donate the wealth themselves. Once you recognize that, you understand that it is not that they want to give more tribute to Leviathan. What they want is to make you do it. One may wish to be a little bit slave if doing so allows one to pretend to be a great bit master. Their chains feel lighter because they know they have made yours heavier.
Looks to me like Ceglie is little more than a front man or employee of Andrew Boyd. Look at the whois listing for theother95.org.
http://www.whois.net/whois/theother95.org
Yep. Here he is: http://www.andrewboyd.com/
I think I figured out the Obama/Soros master plan. Obama destroys the American economy, saddles it with taxes and regulations forever, and then moves to the UN where he becomes Supreme Ruler of the World (with Soros help, of course). Obama hates America. He is only interested in his next goal – Supreme Ruler of the World. Soros just introduced his new think tank in the UK as an alternative to capitalism. They are already preparing white pages on how American capitalism was broken and how Obama fixed it. OBAMA LIES, THE ECONOMY DIES! TOO SLICK TO BE CONVICTED!
I can see November from here.
They need a Kool-aid Party.
Can anyone tell me how to actually become one of the other 95%? It really sucks being a lonely 5 percenter. My government raised my taxes, raised the debt to guarantee that my taxes will go up yet further. and then raided the medical savings account that I have been paying into since 1965. I think I could handle paying more taxes, but I am beginning to believe that they are actively trying to kill me.
They won’t kill you until after they’ve worked you to death.
“Sarah Palin talks a lot of s*** for someone who is recognized by most of the world as a complete f***ing idiot.”
This is typical, poisonous, left-wing jealousy over a woman who was so stupid as to give up a $125,000 per year government job and the bull’s eye for the MSM pie-throwers and carping Hollywood bag-of-hammers to write a book and land a commentator’s gig that has grossed her over $12 millions in the last six months.
..I wish I were a dumb f***ing idiot like her.
A thing I never quite understood is that these methods sound nominally anarchistic, but I’ve rarely met an anarchist who didn’t feel that “society” owed him – or at least his pet causes if he’s a bit more “generous” – a long laundry-list of free stuff.
An anarchist is just a statist who’s out of power, and for many of these people, “democracy” means “we’re in charge”.
Yes, that is exactly the way “Anarchists” strike me. They have no interest in personal liberty for anyone but themselves, and want to be the ones who tell everyone else what to do.
You have to differentiate between anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-socialists. The type of personality you describe is usually and anarcho-socialist. The anarcho-capitalist type usually just wants everyone to leave him alone.
I am a full time student, and work part time to help pay for my expenses along with my loans. While I do not technically pay any income taxes, I still do contribute to Social Security and Medicare each paycheck, and do not receive any of that money back in any form (because when I’m old, if I need the money, god forbid, youngsters my age and a little older will pay for it). I understand the point that those people do not pay income taxes, but until this year I have never had a refund of an amount more than what I paid in taxes. Unlike some of my coworkers, who chose to have no money withheld, knowing they will not have any tax liability, I chose the fiscally stupid course, and let them withhold my money, so that I must remind myself each year how stupid and onerous the tax system is, especially now that I have accumulated several stocks and bonds. The end result is that my parents (luckily for me) help me with my taxes, although I refused to let them take me to see their tax accountant because I do not wish to support a system which drains wealth from the economy while producing nothing but bureaucratic headache. What lower income people like those I work with fail to understand about economics, is that no one with the power to prevent it will take a pay cut or lose money on purpose. This is why they consistently state that we should tax the rich more, while failing to realize that costs do trickle down, because the powerful and rich are not stupid, and act in their own self interest to preserve their incomes at or above their current level no matter what the cost may be to others.
What amazes me about the Left is how hate filled they are. You see it in everything they do and promote. Its always group vs group, class vs class, gender vs gender, etc. What a sad and pathetuic group they are. While the conservatives hold up the founding fathers as models, the Left has nothing but bile for them. One wonders who their idols are?
The websitre’s owner, Andrew Boyd, has other websites with interesting liberal rubbish, like “Billionaires for Bush” (He calls it one of his “campaigns.)
http://billionairesforbush.com/
These people have too much time on their hands. What happens after Nov. 2nd and they’re really, really PO’d?
It’ll get worse before it gets better. And the Internet will be a place where nothings is as it seems.
“The Other 95%” has already been re-branded as “The Other 98%”. I guess they figured another 3% added to their asinine made up number was more impressive. Some of the people who were dumb enough to buy their merchandise now what refunds as their crap is obsolete. Most posts on the site have comments in the single digits and many of those are from people like me making fun of them.
The main people who are still on board with Obama it seems are the lefty elites who don’t bother going to meetings and such. I don’t think working class Democrats are real thrilled about his performance. They won’t condemn him outright but they sure as hell aren’t going to launch a counter protest to the tea party movement. I think they agree in principle with the main points the tea party folks are making. Dems have bet the ranch on big government and unions, and both groups have a horrible reputation amongst average folks at the moment.