Which is more effective? Which one is genuine grassroots? Which one has more merit?
We could actually do so by looking into many of the details. We could for example analyze what brought the demonstration, what was the incident or situation that motivated people to go out into the streets and march. We could also look behind who is organizing it and why; we could further look at the participants, interview them, ask them about themselves and take notes of the results.
Surely no one could doubt that the first Tea Bagger outbursts during the summer of 2009 against Health Care Reform were contrived, fabricated, organized and funded by special interests. There were operatives who would be paid for this…to go out and urge people to come to Town Hall meetings and interrupt the democratic process of elected officials to have a meaningful dialogue with the constituents.
The Tea Baggers did accomplish a lot with those odious acts of sabotage: they managed to disrupt the dialogue process while bringing about a lot of attention to themselves from the media. Was it a grassroots movement? Certainly it was not. Was it warranted or justified? It was not that either.
We have also observed the Tea Bagger’s signs; we read them and shudder, we ask ourselves how can people not be able to spell correctly?. Then when they are interviewed, the garbage that comes out of their mouths, the way they express themselves indicates that these people don’t have much 
education either. These are the misinformed, uneducated and frustrated individuals in our society and there are many…in numbers it is overwhelming; but in substance we can only wish that they had finished the 7th grade and that they had a little intellectual curiosity. Also, don’t we wish that these people had the capacity to understand issues, to be able to tell when they are being bamboozled or misguided?
However, when you see nurses, teachers, firefighters and government employees…and we have also heard what they say and how they say it when interviewed…we can come to the conclusion that these are no dummies, these people have a reasonable amount of education and we are able to ascertain whether a protest is really necessary to underline a particular cause or call out a gripe. These people’s motivation is definitely legitimate and for that reason we are able to determine that their demonstrations have merit.
One last detail we can all look at is numbers. Certainly a couple of dozen saboteurs at a Town Hall meeting should not be counted as significant other than for their boorish actions. But when we look at a demonstration of thousands upon thousands of people as we have seen in Tunisia, Egypt and now in Wisconsin…we see that their presence and their efforts do achieve success; in Tunisia and Egypt they brought about regime change; in Wisconsin it will bring about a realization that government can’t go after the working class and their right to unionize.
And it is spreading: In Columbus, Ohio, about 3,800 state workers, teachers, and other public employees came to the statehouse for a committee hearing.
In conclusion, if the Republican Teahadists think that they can get away with squeezing the middle class even more and force upon them unpopular legislation, cuts and class warfare and culture wars while giving tax cuts to the very rich; they are sadly mistaken and have to bear the consequences. Wisconsin is but a sample, a very insignificant beginning of what is to come and surely this too will translate into votes come the 2012 elections.
Firefighters joined the protest, even though they are exempt from the Gov's plans to bust unions.A fire truck circled the capital during the demonstration. The firefighters union pledged $20,000 to support the public workers cause
PHOTO SOURCE: http://search.aol.com/aol/imageDetails?s_it=imageDetails&q=photos+of+Egypt+protests
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/17/wisconsin-protests-scott-walker-police_n_824697.html