Astroturfing, Tea 'Baggers and Populist Conspiracism

[Emit]

Populist Conspiracism

~snip~

When conspiracism is blended with populism, the result is frequently a worldview called "producerism." Producerist movements consider the "real" patriotic Americans to be hard-working people in the middle- and working-class who create goods and wealth while fighting against "parasites" at the top and bottom of society who pick their pockets. 140

Gary Allen provides an example of producerism in his 1971 None Dare Call it Conspiracy, which included a graphic chart showing the middle-class being squeezed between the ruling elite "insiders" above, pressured by the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and Council on Foreign Relations, and the rabble below, pressured by "naive radicals" of the left, such as SDS, the Black Panthers, the Yippies, the Young Socialist Alliance, and Common Cause.141 In 1974 Allen updated the scenario in Rockefeller: Campaigning for the New World Order, articulating the anti-globalist theme of much current conspiracism in the Patriot and armed militia movements.142 Allen's work is championed by the John Birch Society.

Producerism not only promotes scapegoating, but also has a history of assuming that a proper citizen is a White male. Historically, groups scapegoated by right-wing populist movements in the US have been immigrants and people of color, especially Blacks. Attention is diverted from inherent white supremacism by using coded language to reframe racism as a concern about specific issues, such as welfare, immigration, tax, or education policies.143 Non-Christian religions, women, gay men and lesbians, youth, students, reproductive rights activists, and environmentalists also are scapegoated.144 Sometimes producerism targets those persons who organize on behalf of impoverished and marginalized communities, especially progressive social change activists.145

The nativist and Americanist movements emerged as a way to promote a broad Christian nationalism, and a way to enforce implicitly white supremacist northern European cultural standards among increasingly diverse immigrant groups.146 Producerism played a key role in a shift from the main early mode of right-wing populist conspiracism which defended the status quo against a mob of "outsiders," originally framed as a conspiracy of Freemasons or Jews or aliens. Today, right-wing populist conspiracism targets the government and other "insiders." According to Michael Billig:

"With the replacement of the old aristocratic orders in Europe and the increasing participation of the middle classes in political life, there came a change in the themes of the conspiracy mythology. In the United States the change accompanied the threats to the hegemony of the old white Anglo-Saxon Protestant group, posed by waves of new immigrants in the middle of the nineteenth century. The conspiracy theory ceased to defend government against conspirators, but located the conspiracy within government, or more often behind government."147

Two organizations representing the nativist tradition--the John Birch Society and the Liberty Lobby--played a significant role in promoting producerism and helping it transform into populist anti-government conspiracist themes during the 1960s and 1970s.148

The John Birch Society (JBS) maintains that internationalist "insiders" with a collectivist agenda, (claimed to be behind both communism and Wall Street capitalism), are engaged in a coordinated drive to destroy national sovereignty and individualism. JBS members are primarily elitist, ultraconservative, and reformist. Its conspiracist theories do not center on scapegoating Jews and Jewish institutions, nor do they center on biological racism. In a more subtle form of racism and anti-Semitism, JBS promotes a culturally-defined WASP ethnocentrism as the true expression of America. Echoing historic producerist themes, implicit racism and anti-Semitism are intrinsic to the group's ideology, but they are not articulated as principles of unity. JBS conspiracist narrative traces back to Robison's book alleging a Illuminati Freemason conspiracy. The Society's roots are in business nationalism, economic libertarianism, anti-communism, Eurocentrism, and Christian fundamentalism.149

~snip~

Copyright 2010 by Political Research Associates

http://www.publiceye.org/apocalyptic/Dances_with_Devils_1-02.html

This was posted a while back, but, in light of what we are seeing with the tea 'baggers and recent events, I think, this, too, deserves a re-post. Lengthy, but worth a look.

edit to add copyright

[PinkFloyd]

1. I'm so sick of teabaggers identifying themselves as "populist"

Yet they seem to be totally against the core principles of populism. In fact, I bet they would scream their fucking guts out about "socialism" if we really implemented populist policies. They don't understand what populism is anymore than they know what socialism is. Why don't they just call themselves what they really are, right-wing conservative Republicans? They're not independent, original or a "grassroots" movement, they don't have their own party candidate (all their candidates are conservative Republicans). The damned things even funded by their former majority leader. So typical of the right. Bullshit so plain and out in the open that anyone can see through it and the media never calls them on it.

[Emit]

2. Welcome to DU, PinkFloyd

:hi:

I read elsewhere today on DU that they should be called Armey's Army, after Dick Armey from FreedomWorks.

[CommonSensePLZ]

4. They're for the people's rights! Just like a people's republic

China for example, they're all about the rights of their people :eyes: And as soon as they're rewarded for failing to obstruct healthcare reform and then wanting to resort to violence because they couldn't have their way by winning elections suddenly their populism will switch back to defending the government at all costs.

They'd call themselved Miss Mary Mack to avoid calling themselves right-wing extremists. Populists and libertarians my ass.

[baldguy]

3. The Teabag "movement" is just a populist as The Pepsi Generation or The Colbert Nation.

Conceived, created & paid for by corporate lobbyists.

[Emit]

5. Yes, deployed from the bottom up

What I found interesting is, Who's pulling the strings?:

Populism can come from the bottom up, but it also can be deployed from the top down--used to attack the status quo by outsider business factions seeking to displace entrenched power structures. These outsider factions use populist rhetoric and conspiracist, anti-elite scapegoating to attract constituencies in the middle class and working class. As right-wing populist movements grow, they can lure mainstream politicians to adopt scapegoating, in order to attract voters.

and, Where might it ultimately lead?:

There is a need to educate and thus inoculate large sectors of the white middle class and working class against the dead end of right-wing populism with its penchant for scapegoating. If we tolerate the paradigm of conspiracist scapegoating by right-wing economic populists simply because it appears to advance a short-term anti-corporate or anti-government agenda, we are creating a dangerous alliance with people whose long-term vision--wittingly or unwittingly--promotes racist, sexist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic outcomes.157 We will be throwing our long-term allies overboard and helping sink the ship of state, when we should be plotting a new course on a sturdy vessel we all help to rebuild.

Dick Armey, et al and what's left of the GOP are creating an ugly monster here, imho.

I hope they do not start winning elections.

edit word

[baldguy]

6. The scary thing is they don't have to win elections.

They just have to convince most people that elections don't work, and the results we see don't accurately reflect the will of the people - which means they are actively working to subvert our democracy.

And with the help of the corporate media, they're succeeding.