Derided by elitists as phony, the tea-party movement is spontaneous, decentralized, frequently amateurish and sometimes shrill. If it has a father it is CNBC’s Rick Santelli, who called for holding a tea party in Chicago on July 4. Yesterday’s gatherings were made up of people who may never meet again (there’s no central collection point for email addresses). But the concerns driving people to tea parties are real, growing and powerful. Politicians ignore them at their peril. [1]
Thanks bud. Until you outed yourself I thought we’d have to post an "eat crow" apology on our own sidebar 
This goes out for Doomers who may have been away from the planet for the last 22 years …
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[1]: "Republicans and the Tea Parties: The U.S. went 15 years without a federal tax increase", by Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2009.
The modern tea parties were started by Ron Paulers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6vGZAlN-xw
The GOP is definitely trying to hijack them. This is playing out exactly as expected: they have (in a generally cruel and authoritarian manner) shut us out of the party political process, and are now attempting to co-opt the grassroots aspect of what we were doing. However, this will fail, because it is just too obvious that they and all their figureheads were central in getting us into this mess, and they’ve got no new ideas for getting us out.
It should start with HR 1207, a bill to audit the Fed (now up to 55 co-sponsors, maybe more as of this writing). You won’t hear the GOP talking about that.
Aaron -
Thanks for dropping by. Just finished watching this interesting bit over at your place.
Aaron-
In order for the Tea Parties to make a difference, they are going to need the support of more than just the Libertarians. Even a coalition of Libertarians and Republicans [I know, not gonna happen.] would not be enough. There’s a big Democratic majority at the moment- it’s going to take a lot of people from all political persuasions saying, “This is enough, the madness has to stop,” to make the government pay attention.
I’ve been disgusted with the Republican party and their free spending ways. If any of them claim to somehow be the father of this movement, I’d be the first to complain. I figure at this point though, we need all the allies we can get. I’ll stand with anyone willing to work to stop the bailouts and reduce deficits.