{"id":1272,"date":"2010-04-25T01:47:10","date_gmt":"2010-04-25T08:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2010-04-25T01:47:10","modified_gmt":"2010-04-25T08:47:10","slug":"europe-fears-teabaggers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/04\/25\/europe-fears-teabaggers\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe Fears Teabaggers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raymond Johansen is looking for advice.  Perhaps we can help.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"teabag-obscene\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

Tim Phillips, lobbyist and chairman of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is in Europe and Oslo to endorse and teach the Norwegian right wing party (Fremskrittspartiet) how to organize so-called grassroots campaigns. But the grass root campaigns such as those the Tea Party Movement and AFP holds aren’t bottom-up crowds, but pure lobbying campaigns financed by billionaires with a clear political agenda.<\/p>\n

When the financial crisis was a fact Mr. Phillips and AFP among others funded and organized campaigns to spread disinformation, fear and hatred. Crowds called the American president a Marxist to fight against government intervention to counteract the financial crisis. To the contrary Newsweek<\/a> interviewed our Party Leader and Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg this week about the financial rescue that really worked. <\/p>\n

The campaigns have also traveled the country with a bloody hand logo to deny poor Americans the right to health insurance, and launched the "Hot Air Tour" to claim that the climate crisis is conspiracy and carbon cap and trade is the expressway to national bankruptcy. These so-called grass root movements and Mr. Phillip’s salary is for the most part paid by the oil and gas company Koch Industries. This week he shared the podium with Party Leader of the right wing party Ms. Siv Jensen, called Scandinavia’s Margaret Thatcher by her own International Secretary. Next week he shares the stage with non other then the Tea Party queen herself, Sarah Palin, to fight their common goal of tax cuts and limited government.<\/p>\n

Until now we in Europe have watched this absurd political theatre from afar, but now I truly worry that the right wing party will learn from these extremely reactionary forces and adapt the same strategies, in Norway and Europe<\/strong>. It represents a form of campaigning that the Norwegian Labour Party fears. I am truly afraid that our society will not be recognizable in 20 years if the right wing party comes to power, with the help of a speculative American lobbyist – far away from the real grass root.<\/p>\n

I ask you American progressives and people from the real grass root movements. How can we disclose and prevent these pure lobbying campaigns financed by billionaire’s political influence? Please tip me on Twitter or Facebook.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Raymond Johansen, Party Secretary of the Norwegian Labour Party, which is the senior partner in the current Norwegian government, with Jens Stoltenberg as the current Prime Minister of Norway. The Labour Party has been the central actor in building the Norwegian Welfare State after the Norwegian Model post World War Two.<\/em><\/p>\n

#teapartyfear<\/p>\n

@raymondjohansen<\/p>\n

[emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Huffington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

Raymond the first thing I can tell you, should the Teabaggers establish themselves in your country, is to be ready for an end to civility in politics.  You will receive none from them.<\/font><\/p>\n

The second thing you can expect is an end to honesty and integrity.  The Teabaggers specialize in the big lie.  No matter how absurd, they will repeat a lie over and over again until it sinks in.  You will be tempted to ignore the big lie, because you will not think that anyone will believe it.  We made that mistake here.  At one point, over 25% of Americans actually believed that the health care reform Democrats proposed actually contained provisions for death panels to kill senior citizens.  You must challenge every lie they tell, adamantly and forcefully, using unequivocal evidence, and keep up the challenges as long as they persist in the lie.<\/font><\/p>\n

The third thing you can expect is outrageous behavior.  They do it for media attention, and they will get it.  I don\u2019t know if Rupert Murdock has media outlets in Norway, but I know he does in other European nations.  His outlets will promote the Teabaggers.  Hopefully you can turn the behavior against them by holding it up to ridicule.  Here I coined the term Teabuggery<\/em> to label their more distasteful activities, including virtually everything they do.<\/font><\/p>\n

The best advice I can give you is to start organizing authentic grass-roots opposition to them before they become established.<\/font><\/p>\n

This morning, Leslie, aka Tnlib, who writes a fine blog<\/a>, posted this video on Facebook.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

This is the face of your enemy.  Take him seriously.  I know little of Norwegian politics.  What I do know is good.  Yet I have no doubt that you have a Quisling there, just waiting to embrace this foul philosophy, hoping to ride it to power.<\/font><\/p>\n

I hope our readers will add to this advice in comments.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raymond Johansen is looking for advice.  Perhaps we can help. Tim Phillips, lobbyist and chairman of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is in Europe and Oslo to endorse and teach the Norwegian right wing party (Fremskrittspartiet) how to organize so-called grassroots campaigns. But the grass root campaigns such as those the Tea Party Movement and AFP […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}