OMG, the left is starting to drool again. Get the bib!
You know what a REAL Pyramid Scheme looks like?
Posted on 10/19/2010 5:49:39 PM PDT by woofie
One of the movement’s leaders, Mark Meckler, was once a top operator in a company accused of conning consumers. Is he applying the same tactics to the tea party?
There's a book Mark Meckler likes to recommend to reporters and others seeking insight into the tea party juggernaut. Called The Starfish and the Spider, it explores the "unstoppable power" of decentralized and leaderless organizations. "We're like the starfish," Meckler, a national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, said earlier this year. "There is no head, there is no leader of the organization. There are thousands of starfish out there and they are self-replicating in that way."
It's certainly an inspiring metaphor. If one tentacle is chopped off, the starfish grows a new one, making it a model of resilience. Yet there's another type of organization that's resilient, decentralized, and reminiscent of the Tea Party Patriots, a national umbrella organization that claims to represent 15 million activists and 2800 local affiliates. You can find it in companies like Amway, Herbalife, and others that rely on what's known as multilevel marketing (MLM), a business model some consider to be nothing but a pyramid scheme.
Like the tea party movement, these companies also operate as "leaderless," grassroots organizations. Organized by "networks," they espouse a bottom-up approach and depend on a neverending supply of people willing to work long hours with no assurance of pay. Meckler, it turns out, is intimately familiar with these types of outfits, having spent years at the highest ranks of one accused of preying on consumers with promises of easy money.
If this guy is associated with the Tea Party I hope he is not using it to hype his stuff
If there’s anything the left hates worse than patriotism, it’s profit.
I’ve invested all of $3 in the Tea Party “pyramid scheme” since they first appeared on the scene.
Anything that comes from Mother Jones News should be taken with a freight car’s worth of salt. Motehr Jones readers think that The Nation or The New Republic are right wing publications.
You’re really posting from Mother Jones? Here at FR?
Are you too old for the zot?
The left isn't getting anywhere with the usual stuff. You know, racism, crazies, etc. so they are going for the corruption angle. Gee, what next?
[If you are from Berkeley.... it is the most common action verb known.]
My thoughts exactly. Why this hasn’t been pulled is beyond me...and I’m no fan of Meckler.
Leftists can’t comprehend any movement which doesn’t involve leader-worship, collective thinking, or hatred of a race/class.
More like a trapezoid.
This idiot doesn’t understand a pyramid scheme. There needs to be a transfer of cash at each level, with each layer added making the originator more rich until the levels grow so large they collapse the structure. This is nothing like that...there is only ONE layer.
Pyramid scheme...? You mean like Social Security...?
Funny thing is they don’t seem to mention anyone losing their fortune to the tea party or how anyone at “the top” is getting rich off it.
OMG, the left is starting to drool again. Get the bib!
You know what a REAL Pyramid Scheme looks like?
I hate you.
This doesn’t even make any sense, not even to deluded college students and other misguided liberals.
Does Mother Jones even know how chain letters operate?
Did you add Mich. sales tax?
Mother Jones is not exactly a bastion of intellect.
At all.
The comparison is idiotic.
Meanwhile the Federal Gov’t. hugely extorts your tax $$ in a grande scheme called Ponzi! We willingly throw a few good investment dollars at the TP pyramid. At least we know the value of the end results.
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