Is the Tea Party a Big Pyramid Scheme?

We've got to hand it to MotherJones.com, they've actually plugged into the spirit of the Tea Party in a way we never thought of: it's basically a pyramid scheme.

Man, that's funny!

Who hasn't gone to at least one seminar or one gathering at someone's house where they told you that people who worked for a living were idiots, that they knew the way to quick, easy wealth, and that their way is the path to true freedom and financial independence?

Now I'm not criticizing people who get involved in multi-level marketing (MLM) -- keep drinking your Noni Juice if you really think that's going to keep your sickly a** alive. The point here is that Mother Jones, the unabashedly liberal but reason-based magazine and website, figured out that the Tea Party is set up the way any MLM scheme is, and boy has it suckered people in the same way.

But that's mainly because one of its figureheads, Mark Meckler, has been a pyramid scheme guru for years before he started Tea Bagging.

According to MotherJones.com:

...before he became a go-to guy for the press and old-line conservative groups seeking a tutorial on the tea party movement, Meckler was a top distributor for Herbalife, a controversial company that peddles dubious nutritional supplements and weight loss programs by way of "direct selling" or "network marketing."

Now, the reason this is so laughable to me is because for nearly 20 years, people, including some of my closest friends, have been coming to me, telling me the "way to get money" through this "plan" or introducing me to a "lucrative" business opportunity I could do "in my spare time" or even telling me they'd soon be "retired" because of the income they're generating. And in the two decades I've been hearing this crap, not one of them ever made a dime doing this stuff, nobody's life ever became better (in fact I know one dude who went homeless), and nobody became a wealthy entrepreneur.

The only ones who are ever successful are the ones who are able to sell this nonsense to others, and that's what the Tea Party and the politicians taking advantage of it are doing: selling nonsense.

The NAACP released a report that ties the Tea Party movement with racist elements within its fringe, despite their denial of that. Part that is likely because of the paranoia that naturally comes with having a black president for the first time. But many Tea Partiers are also there because they are sincerely looking for answers as to why the economy sucks so bad and how America can dig itself out of the mess it's in.
Is the tea party a big pyramid scheme?

People like Meckler come in with the MLM-style answer saying that simply lowering taxes and cutting spending on stuff they hate like health care reform, as well as spending lots more on pointless crap like abstinence funding and deporting Mexicans will save America.

But when you take a good look at things, it's all nonsense. The economy got this way, not because of President Obama, but because the current economic conditions were a long time in coming after 30 years of the country behaving like the goose would never run out of golden eggs.

A recent FORTUNE magazine article, that everyone seems to be sleeping on, does a very good job at explaining what is really wrong with our economy and puts in terms that any Tea Partier would understand if they'd bother to turn off FOX News for a minute and stop going to Glenn Beck rallies.

The truth is, we're in a fix. A bad one. Our economy has basically been that aunt we only see every couple of Thanksgivings only to find out when we grow up she's spent years as a crackhead, doing all kinds of unmentionable things to get that fix (read: credit card debt, subprime mortgage, and Starbucks mocha latte) several times a day.

And like our Aunt Strawberry, we have to be willing to suffer the withdrawal pains of slowly healing our economy over the course of years if we ever expect to get this fiscal monkey off our backs.

This is what the Tea Party won't tell you at all, either because guys like Meckler will do anything to keep that from you or because they don't realize it themselves. Instead, the good old MLM sales pitch to the gullible and desperate works every single time.