Categorical Aperitif

George Monbiot observes that the Tea Party movement is "one of the biggest exercises in false consciousness the world has seen"—and a massive Astroturf campaign whipped by a handful of plutocratic interests and their archipelago of ever-eager-to-please think tanks. I think this sums it up pretty well (emphases mine):

Most of these bodies call themselves "free-market thinktanks", but their trick – as (Astro)Turf Wars points out – is to conflate crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty. Between them they have constructed the philosophy that informs the Tea Party movement: its members mobilise for freedom, unaware that the freedom they demand is freedom for corporations to trample them into the dirt. The thinktanks that the Kochs have funded devise the game and the rules by which it is played; Americans for Prosperity coaches and motivates the team.

Yes: many so-called libertarians are not libertarians; they're oligarchists. Whether they're dishonest about their true loyalties or merely confused, I don't know, but they are not champions of real human freedom.

Just ask Lauren Valle.