Congratulations, Tea Partiers! You know you’ve become a genuine threat to the Progressive movement when they start making t-shirts about you.
The Agenda Project has launched “F*ck Tea”, an anti-Tea Party campaign that aims to “dismiss the tea party and promote the progressive cause.” Check out their nifty little video promoting their positive cause:
[youtube oA7yluQDfpY]
As Agenda Project founder Erica Payne explained to Politico’s Ben Smith:
“We will be launching new products in the next several months to help people all over the country F*ck Tea. Products like a Glenn Beck Bowl Buddy (Beck B Scrubbin) and others are perfect holiday gifts or just a great way to say, ‘I love you and our country’ to your spouse, friend or family.”
The website features a variety of t-shirts and mugs imprinted with the slogan “F*uck tea,” and Ms. Payne infers there will be more to come in the future. It also splashes a host of unsourced “Tea Party Facts” across the left side of the page, in an attempt to demean and minimize those who belong to or support the Tea Party movement, and imply that those who don’t are somehow of superior intellect based solely upon said “facts.” Meanwhile, the site dotingly highlights the word “progress” as “a movement toward a goal; advancement; growth; development; continuous improvement,” calling it “The Real American Party.” Frankly, I see nothing “real” about this or about any of the progressive people involved in it.
Now, I’ll admit, I’m one conservative constitutionalist who embraces the “F” word as part of my regular vocabulary, as much of a shock as that may be to leftists who may have already stereotyped me otherwise. But I was not aware that the word had become synonymous with positive development and improvement. (What a relief!) If brandishing the “F” word across my chest and gallivanting in public is a sign of intellect and the new symbol of the party of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, then I’m more than happy to save my $22.50, thanks. (Besides, if one’s cause were so important that such a word absolutely had to be used, the Libertarian in me wonders, why not just spell it out?) Also somewhat amusing about the entire venture is that the very people railing against the tea parties and against capitalism are shelling out over $20 a shirt for someone’s concocted-idea-turned-business-venture. It’s the very Capitalist tale that so many of the progressive left heartily opposes.
In viewing the video that The Agenda Project posted last night, it features many Republican politicians, FOX News commentators and conservative personalities, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, former AK Governor Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Andrew Breitbart, all set in time to the words “F*ck You” being sung. At the start of the video appears a montage of stereotypical signs that have been mainstreamed by the lamestream media as Tea Party signs. Of course, many of those people and signs were discredited, by evidence, right from the start as having been snuck into photos by leftist plants. But The Agenda Project saw fit to use discredited materials in its propaganda anyway.
But all of this back-story should be no surprise. Regular readers of the Big sites have likely already recognized the name Erica Payne and The Agenda Project from another of my posts, “SEIU, HuffPo and Media Matters: Is an Unholy Alliance About to Unravel?” and from other prior posts right here on BigGovernment.com.
As we’ve previously written, Ms. Payne was an original co-founder of the Democracy Alliance, along with former Bill Clinton Treasury official Rob Stein. That outfit was the group that spawned a host of liberal advocacy groups like Media Matters and the Center for American Progress. Democracy Alliance was created as an umbrella to shield the donations of an elite group of ultra-wealthy liberal donors with secrecy. Among those donors – George Soros, Susie Tompkins Buell and her husband Mark Buell, software magnate Tim Gill, and many others, including labor unions like the SEIU. Over the years, leaked internal Democracy Alliance memos detailing various covert and overt operatives, have revealed their propagandist activities – like this memo published on Face the State in Colorado, which detailed a plan to “educate the idiots and target minorities.” Creating propaganda from bogus data and manipulating information to make it mean something else that will appeal to or anger a particular base of voters was not something new to the Democracy Alliance, nor is it new to Erica Payne.
Ms. Payne is well known both in politics and in wealthy New York fundraiser circles. Her complete background includes heading up the liberal New Democrat Network think-tank alongside Democracy Alliance member Simon Rosenberg, who once hosted the now infamous reveal of Rob Stein’s “Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix” Powerpoint presentation on July 25, 2004. It was their connections that first brought aboard wealthy donors George Soros, Peter Lewis, and Andy Rappaport as the earliest investors in Democracy Alliance. Payne was also Deputy National Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee during Bill Clinton’s first presidential term and into the 1996 election, and founded the Tesseract Group, a political strategy consulting firm. She is also a senior strategist at the Roosevelt Institute. Payne created The Agenda Project in March, 2009.
The Agenda Project’s goal, according to its website is
“to build a powerful, intelligent, well-connected political movement capable of identifying and advancing rational, effective ideas in the public debate and in so doing ensure our country’s enduring success.”
Here’s the most ironic angle on this whole story: Erica Payne, a liberal-progressive, is also a regular commentator for FOX News.
You may remember Payne’s odd defense of SEIU on FOX News in the aftermath of the protest at the home of a Bank of America executive counsel, during which she manipulated the story to somehow blame the Tea Parties for SEIU’s despicable behavior. Pure propaganda at its best. And now we see it with her latest campaign.
I wonder what FOX News and their commentators have to say about Ms. Payne’s classy new business venture and about her “F*ck You” attacks against them in her organization’s new video? Way to keep it classy, Erica Payne! Is that the progressive way of team-building in the workplace and “advancing rational, effective ideas”?
At least now it will be even easier to identify the leftists out there. Just look for that classy “F” word shirt – the sign of superior intellect (note sarcasm).
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