[Tea] Party foes plot vs. ‘racists, morons’
By Associated Press
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Tea Party foes, bent on making the conservative group’s members appear to be “homophobes, racists or morons,” say they’ll be crashing Tea Party demonstrations nationwide this week.
It’s unclear if anyone associated with crashtheteaparty.org will crash tomorrow’s rally on Boston Common. Founder Jason Levin couldn’t be reached yesterday and was reportedly traveling.
Levin told The Associated Press the group has 65 leaders in major cities across the United States who are trying to recruit members to infiltrate Tea Party events Thursday - tax-filing day.
“Every time we have someone on camera saying that Barack Obama isn’t an American citizen, we want someone sitting next to him saying, ‘That’s right, he’s an alien from outer space!’ ” said Levin, who wants to exaggerate unappealing qualities attributed to some Tea Party members to damage the public’s opinion of the entire anti-tax movement, made up of loosely affiliated groups and individuals.
“Do I think every member of the Tea Party is a homophobe, racist or a moron? No, absolutely not,” Levin said. “Do I think most of them are homophobes, racists or morons? Absolutely.”
The site states the group wants to dismantle the Tea Party by nonviolent means: “We have already sat quietly in their meetings, and observed their rallies.”
Tea Party members said the backlash comes from ignorance.
“They can’t actually debate our message and that’s their problem,” said Bob MacGuffie, a Connecticut organizer for Right Principles, a Tea Party group.
New York Tea Party coordinator Judy Pepenella said the attempt to destroy the movement was evidence its message is resonating. “We’ve been ignored, we’ve been ridiculed. Well, now they’re coming after us,” she said.