While the President, liberal Democrats, union leaders and some in the media have tried to convince Americans that this is  a grassroots movement that is raging against corporate greed on Wall Street and is being led by disenfranchised Americans, the truth of the matter is that this is the usual bunch of suspects on the far left such as International ANSWER, Code Pink, the Communist Party USA, and the Workers World Party, to name a few — a loose coalition of anarchist groups and angry trust-fund babies looking for their lot in life.

President Obama and liberal Democrats, in praising this bunch, are trying to give them mainstream exposure, but as the American people have come to find out more about this so-called coalition group and their list of demands, which read something like a Communist Redbook, they are coming to realize that this is the same bunch that show up at annual IMF/World Bank Meeting and engage in massive protests which includes general mayhem, destroying private property and battling the police in the streets. With that said, you can hardly call this group grassroots; they are professional protestors whose overall objective is to replace our system of individual freedoms with big government socialism, even if that means using violence to accomplish it.

President Obama and liberal Democrats know full well that they have to appease this bunch right now and convince them not to abandon him in 2012, as they were part of the coalition that propelled Democrats to mass majorities in the House and a filibuster-proof Senate along with the President’s election in 2008. Many of these same groups who publicly endorsed President Obama believe that his skin color would make passing their socialist agenda easier and quail any opposition with a rubber stamp Congress. For his part, President Obama realizes that he must direct their anger and rage elsewhere (i.e. Wall Street, one of his biggest fundraising sources) because if enough of these hard Leftists defect to a third party in 2012, then President Obama’s reelection chances in key states are seriously in doubt.

Union leaders, for their part, must try to convince these hard leftists to remain part of the 2008 coalition as President Obama’s so-called jobs bill will be another cash cow for them to use as a slush fund to elect more Democrats nationwide. They will direct their members to join these professional protestors in an effort to try and make this astroturf seem like a legitimate movement of working-class people raging against corruption and greed, when in reality it has been the working class that has borne the brunt of President Obama’s failed policies and governmental greed. I suspect that union leaders believe that if they can convince enough moderate Republicans in the House that this bad acting is actually legitimate, Boehner and his colleagues will panic and side with House Democrats in passing the President’s agenda over the objections of Tea Party-backed Republicans.

The incoherent message and list of demands from this coalition of hard leftist groups is more than enough indication to the majority of Americans that this is nothing more than pure astroturf at best and bad comedy at its worst as we watch what amounts to be a bunch of angry trust fund babies throw a tantrum over the fact that government (namely Obama and the Democrats) hasn’t provided them with all the promised goodies from 2008, Momma and Daddy refuse to carry them any further in life, demanding they grow up and become productive member of society. This is not a movement but a public display of children behaving badly, and this astroturf will never have the legitimacy of a pure grassroots movement like the Tea Party, which is a diverse group of Americans seeking to strengthen individual freedoms for the benefit of all Americans, including those who seem to be confused by the role of government in our lives.

The following clip is only 2 minutes long, so watch all of it, and then look at the images below to understand why this video is nothing short of media prostitution for their progressive cause.

This report attempts to paint a picture of a moderate, open minded movement in the process of conducting early, friendly gatherings.

:25 – Brewing yes, but steamed? Well, not if they can help it.

:45 – Leaders of this group say civility is their first priority

:55 – We’re not looking to balance extremes. When we sit down for a cup of coffee, we’re not at each other’s throats.

1:37 – Organizers say they are just volunteers, and invite those with different opinions to join their effort to swallow their pride in the interest of progress.

1:44 – [Organizer] I don’t particularly think it is useful to sit at a table with only people who see things the way I do.

But context is everything, and this report ignores some glaring facts which betray the lies being pushed in this story.

The reporter doesn’t bother to identify it, but the meeting took place in a coffee shop called Mokabe’s. More than one of your Founding Bloggers has been in this establishment more than once. And while the coffee is very good, and they still believe in the freedom of adults to smoke indoors, it is by far one of the most politicized eating establishments we have ever seen.

:44 seconds into the clip, you will see the iconic Barack Obama image hanging on the wall in the background. That’s tame for this establishment.

Below are a couple of snapshots of some of the other political paraphernalia on display, which provide the proper context for the claims of open mindedness being made by the organizers of this event, and parroted by their mainstream lackeys.

Boy, nothing says political inclusiveness like a Cheney/Satan bumper sticker (pictured above).

Either all of this crap was taken down before the meeting, or the “reporter” who covered this PR firm packaged media opportunity has a bit of a political blind spot.

They might as well have conducted this meeting in an SEIU meeting hall, or DNC headquarters.

A friend and I took turns filming protesters on both sides of the issue. We caught an organizer from the group Health Care for America Now (HCAN) instructing followers to block dissenting views: “So if they stand up and start asking questions, and you’re in that area, simply stand up, and start chanting… ‘Health care now! Health care now!’”

My experience at Rep. Schakowsky’s town hall meeting that night convinced me to challenge her in the 2010 election. I had already stood up to Rep. Barney Frank at Harvard University, when I asked him about his role in the financial crisis. I could not simply watch thugs drown out the people of my own community back home, and do nothing.

The HCAN video became a YouTube sensation, the “smoking gun” in the controversy over which side of the debate was “Astroturfing”—i.e. creating a false image of grass roots support. I have since discovered that the video contains clues about how the entire nationwide health care campaign was planned and executed by congressional Democrats and the White House.

It turns out that the organizer in the video is John Gaudette, the Illinois director of HCAN. Gaudette also works for a left-wing group linked to ACORN called Citizen Action/Illinois. Rep. Schakowsky sits on the Policy Council of the group, which suggests that she may have known about or even coordinated the suppression of her own constituents’ views by HCAN.

The plot thickens.

Rep. Schakowsky’s husband, Robert Creamer, used to be the leader of Citizen Action/Illinois. He also founded its predecessor, Illinois Public Action, in which Ms. Schakowsky served as Program Director. He runs a political consulting firm, the Strategic Consulting Group, which lists ACORN and the SEIU among its clients and which made $541,000 working for disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.

Creamer resigned from Citizen Action/Illinois after the FBI began investigating him for bank fraud and tax evasion at Illinois Public Action. He was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to five months in federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, plus eleven months of house arrest.

While in prison—or “forced sabbatical,” he called it—Creamer wrote a lengthy political manual, Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win (Seven Locks Press, 2007).

The book was endorsed by leading Democrats and their allies, including SEIU boss Andy Stern—the most frequent visitor thus far to the Obama White House—and chief Obama strategist David Axelrod, who noted that Creamer’s tome “provides a blueprint for future victories.”

In the book, Creamer draws lessons from decades of experience on the radical left, including the teachings of arch-radical Saul Alinsky, and several episodes from Rep. Schakowsky’s political career. He also lays out a “Progressive Agenda for Structural Change,” which includes a ten-point plan for foisting universal health care on the American people in 2009:

• “We must create a national consensus that health care is a right, not a commodity; and that government must guarantee that right.”
• “We must create a national consensus that the health care system is in crisis.”
• “Our messaging program over the next two years should focus heavily on reducing the credibility of the health insurance industry and focusing on the failure of private health insurance.”
• “We need to systematically forge relationships with large sectors of the business/employer community.”
• “We need to convince political leaders that they owe their elections, at least in part, to the groundswell of support of [sic] universal health care, and that they face political peril if they fail to deliver on universal health care in 2009.”
• “We need not agree in advance on the components of a plan, but we must foster a process that can ultimately yield consensus.”
• “Over the next two years, we must design and organize a massive national field program.”
• “We must focus especially on the mobilization of the labor movement and the faith community.”
• “We must systematically leverage the connections and resources of a massive array of institutions and organizations of all types.”
• “To be successful, we must put in place commitments for hundreds of millions of dollars to be used to finance paid communications and mobilization once the battle is joined.”

Creamer adds: “To win we must not just generate understanding, but emotion—fear, revulsion, anger, disgust.”

Democrats have followed Creamer’s plan to the letter. They have claimed our health care system is in crisis despite polls showing the overwhelming majority of Americans are happy with the care they receive. They have—with the help of President Obama—circulated false horror stories about Americans dying for lack of health care and health insurance.

They have targeted the health insurance industry, with Rep. Schakowsky herself promising to “put the private insurance industry out of business,” though it is a top employer in Illinois.

Democrats have cut deals with the pharmaceutical industry and the American Medical Association, among others. They have brought in the President himself to tell wavering “Blue Dog” Democrats that their re-election chances depend on passing health care reform. They have bused in SEIU members to town hall meetings, and used rabbis and pastors to back health care reform from the pulpit.

They have used a complex, interconnected web of organizations—including HCAN and Organizing For America, the former Obama campaign arm—to whip up support and silence opposition. And they have benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising to convince the public to support bills that their representatives have never read themselves.

Creamer wrote his plan in 2006, explicitly proposing that it be carried out in 2009, once a “progressive Democrat is elected President” and once Democrats could count on 60 votes in the Senate. It is curious that Creamer, sitting in prison, could have predicted the details and the timing of President Obama’s legislative agenda so precisely.

The likeliest explanation is that Creamer helped design the Democrats’ health care strategy. That would explain why President Obama made health care an obsession in 2009, when it was only one among many issues he raised on the campaign trail in 2008. It would explain the role of several overlapping left-wing groups, including Creamer’s own Citizen Action/Illinois.

It would explain why HCAN was particularly aggressive at Rep. Schakowsky’s own town hall meeting. And Creamer’s involvement would also explain his high profile after being released from prison. He worked for the Obama campaign, training volunteers at “Camp Obama.” He has continued his work at the Strategic Consulting Group, leading “many of the country’s most significant issue campaigns,” he claims. He was also at the White House state dinner last month—together with Stern, Axelrod, and other cronies—despite the fact that ex-convicts are usually barred from such events.

Creamer’s broader aim, as laid out in his book, is the “democratization of wealth” in America and “progressive control of governments around the world.” As he recently wrote on his blog at the Huffington Post: “If we succeed in winning health insurance reform we will have breached the gates of the status quo. We will demonstrate that fundamental change is possible. Into that breach will flow a wave of progressive change.”

It is a radical agenda, making use of Rep. Schakowsky’s public profile, a network of far-left organizations, and Creamer’s old friends in the White House. It began in federal prison, and has unfolded exactly as intended, over the protests of thousands of ordinary Americans across the nation. It will not end with health care. It will continue until Mr. Creamer’s Alinskyite dream of radical change is realized—or until voters stand up and put a stop to it in 2010.

From a list of those participating in the conference call:

After we uncovered the link between Winner and Associates, David Axelrod, and the smear campaign against Sarah Palin designed to look as though it was coming from the “grass roots” we begged — literally begged! — the MSM to look into whether the large campaign consulting firm was subcontracted by David Axelrod for work on the Obama campaign. As I noted at the time, I’m just a blogger and don’t really have the resources necessary to conduct a thorough investigation.

As Ace notes here, once Ethan Winner confessed that he was behind the video, the MSM concluded that there was nothing more to investigate. This despite the fact that I showed that at least two other Winner and Associate employees — a subdivision of the largest advertising agency in the world — participated in the astroturfing campaign during normal business hours.

Three employees, one of them the President of the subdivision and another a VP, claimed they were doing this on their own time — which we showed could not have been the case — and on their own dime. On their own dime? Maybe, but it still seems unlikely.

And now we have another Winner and Associates guy at the NEA conference call? He’s also listed as one of the founders of Generation Obama.

Are you going to now tell me that his relationship with Generation Obama is purely on a volunteer basis? And that his involvement with what appears to be a move to make the NEA push Obama’s agenda is being done pro-bono?

Winner and Associates: the largest PR firm in California, but all their major work is done for free!

Something. Doesn’t. Add. Up.

More over at Ace’s.

UPDATE:

Smoking Gun?

We found out, when earlier this year, one of our Senior Associates, Bim Ayandele, was asked by the Obama Administration to help with the launch of the White House’s Office of Public Engagement (OPE).

And who runs the White House Office of Public Engagement? Buffy Wicks, who set up the NEA phone call.

Thanks to Stable Hand.

UPDATE 9/22/2009: It looks like Bim Ayandele uses twitter. His tweets after the August 10th NEA conference seem to suggest that he’s involved in an orchestrated astroturfing campaign.

Follow the link and take a close look at the time stamps. He’s pushing Health Care and anti-Tea Party propaganda on company time during normal business hours.

Also not that none of his tweets prior to the conference call were political in nature. After the conference call nearly all of them are. Yet we are to believe that a paid political consultant with a firm that specializes in damage control and grassroots organizations just happened to be in on a non-partisan call for artists?

Artists who, after the call, “spontaneously” begin to support Obama’s health care plans?

Give. Me. A. Break.

This has all the signs of astroturfing. Will post updates at link above.

PS– Here’s the original Ethan Winner produced video mashed with an official David Axelrod/Obama produced video.

UPDATE NEWBIE: Its the Cover-up

Update by Howie:

Hmmm right after I started following Bim’s twitter feed. He took down his icon.

click for larger

Odie must have frightened him. He is kinda scary in a harmless comic book kind of way. I mean not as scary as Bim’s thug icon but pretty scary.

Oh and Bim, its called the Google cache.

Update II: Awww, you put it back, there you go Bim……if you’re going to be a thug, be a proud thug.