Generation-O know it alls. College-aged young adults think they know everything.

For the bulk of those who have never visited the state much less central TX (most of this thread), pining for "liberal" Austin, you might be interested that the following mutually sympathetic broadcasters call the city home:

Alex Jones Infowars: www.infowars.com

Oracle Broadcasting: www.oraclebroadcasting.com

Revere Radio: www.revereradio.net

Anomaly Radio Network: http://www.anomalyradio.com/category/anomaly-radio-round-up/

PRT | Paranormal Response www.prtcentx.com

Esoteric Sciences Roundtable: www.anomalytv.com

Freeman TV: www.freemantv.com

Get educations. Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od8bcCvX3jU

The tea party gathered momentum primarily from Bob Basso's Thomas Paine screeds on You Tube. The trillion dollar public bailouts of private finance brought some urgency to its organization.

Non-left/right commentators like Jones have been talking the same themes regardless of party affilations and office holders for over a decade.

Do these know-it-alls understand that it was a Blue state until the mid 1980s? (Until it was overrun by Republic upper midwesterners in the early '80s.)

Joan, it might help to understand that the tax protests aren't really about taxes.

Rather it's what people perceive is done with their tax money. Readers also understand that a hell of a lot more than half a trillion dollars were diverted to PPPIP. Here's Bloomberg.com asking (to no avail) where only 2 trillion of that went:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aatlky_cH.tY&refer=worldwide

It's true that liberal funding of lifestyle malaises is jeopardized by asking how we can afford to spendthrift our way into hyperinflation. Make it a class war if you want. But at least understand their motives.

It's also about Obama's wars, and all of his spending on those.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/20ac6c32-1fb3-11de-a1df-00144feabdc0.html

www.bahai.com/thebahais/pg73.htm

www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1864142,00.html

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD3BqK-9ZiU

More links upon request request.

The movement was only recently co-opted by the oft-mentioned Glenn Beck, Armey, etc. for their own gain. Several popular liberal columnists are convinced the group is behind it.

They're not. It appears to have been catalyzed in substantial measure by lesser-knowns, thematically influenced in part by Bob Basso's Thomas Paine pieces on You Tube.

>> "I mean, isn't there some bipartisan alliance of people who care about government spying? Glenn's part of it -"

Glenn Beck, not really.

Radio show host Alex Jones really is at the epicenter of a self-professed non-left/right conservative broadcast movement against the surveillance state: www.infowars.com

Also radio host Kathryn Albrecht: www.katherinealbrecht.com

To see firsthand that a sizable, and growing, genuinely non-partisan radio broadcast commentary exists (upwards of 60 AM/FM stations; not including the more popular web streams, podcasts), you might watch this as proof.

If for no other reason than to maintain a bead on popular culture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw

But you haven't watched it.

We're discussing its more contemporary application. The tea party trope is an old one. It's commonly acknowledged by a frustrated population that the tea party evocation is the only publicly acceptable way to express displeasure about spending.

Again, the follow-through. One doesn't watch fractions of a documentary.

Watch it in entirety, then argue if you like.

Who's reactionary here? Introductions to alternative media are by their very nature cursory and lacking in background to those first exposed. Topics explored in the reporting on events which remain deliberately uncovered by corporate establishment media can be surprising to some. It's disingenuous--or ignorant--to automatically impugn the research sensibilities of people who attempt to lead you to information you're (at least initially) unprepared to accept.

If you think these are rabbit holes, then drop a few breadcrumbs.

You have no credibility to report on precisely what it is exactly--because you decided not to view it after only a few minutes, proclaiming it racist and Republican. Was it the title? If you had the knowledge gathering talents you profess, you wouldn't be so superficial.

You may need to understand that scripts aren't perfect across the board; understand that not everyone with information that could be beneficial for you has the production values that you are accustomed to.

Also the informed citizen (and that may not describe you) can use knowledge harvested over time to cross reference material.

>> "Sorry...I didn't see your last post until I posted my last post."

Your stated intent to "snore" combined with the time stamps of our correspondence lead me to suggest you're not being truthful. I think you're intellectually insecure.

>> "Anyway, I "impugn" research sensibilities all the time,..."

I understand.

>> "...especially when they're obviously frivolous and don't have anything except hysteria to back them up.

It's up to you to not do the research if you lack the store of knowledge built up over time by a mature, educated individual.

Or something:

http://www.freemantv.com/articles/barackhenaten.shtml

Or a coincidence. Certainly the movement co-opters wouldn't be Republican caricatures, but after the plot turns of the last several months, how can you be so certain that this would not also have occurred around the same symbolic time if Bush still had another year in office?

It is exactly that kind of spending that is drawing these protesters.

Don't be led astray by the Republican opportunists who have elbowed their way to the stage of what has been brewing for weeks before Fox latched onto this. And be wary of leftist commentators who say that the movement was started by them.

The left hears "TAX[time] PROTEST" and all they can think of is a stimulus money valve that will be closed, depriving people who can't afford their mortgages of home loans, and taking Prozac from the mouths of the neurotic.