Before getting into the paranoid left-wing conspiracy theory about the tea party movement sweeping the nation, I wanted to post the audio from my interview today on G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show. He asked me about the tea party movement, which I explained for his listeners. It went really well, and is about 18 minutes into this podcast.

Left wing bloggers and two hack writers at Playboy’s blog are alleging that there is a giant Koch Industries conspiracy behind the tea party movement sweeping the nation. They argue that Rick Santelli of CNBC, the Koch Foundation and FreedomWorks somehow conspired to run an “astroturf” campaign to oppose president Obama’s massive spending and bailout plans. These guys actually think that the plan was hatched last year before Obama was elected, and “sleeper blogs” were created to be ready for the Santelli rant, which would activate an apparent grassroots movement against Obama’s policies.

The willingness to believe this ridiculous conspiracy is almost as bad as the unwillingness to believe that hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of Americans are quite mad about the Bush/Obama bailouts and massive spending during the last year. Although I have played a big role in the organization and direction of the tea party movement nationally, if there were not angry citizens to lead all the local protests, I wouldn’t be able to organize anything. The outrage is real, and the people emailing me by the hundreds asking to get involved with the tea party movement are real.

Just watch a few of the videos from around the country and you will see that regular people are coming out by the hundreds now, (and the thousands I assure you, in the next few weeks) to express their frustration and dismay about the bankrupting of our country, regardless of which political party is in power. You can’t force the folks to come out and speak up against what is going on. They are just fed up and looking for outlets to vent, and to organize to hold the politicians accountable. FreedomWorks just happens to be a grassroots machine with a long history of educating, training, motivating and mobilizing thousands of regular people to fight for what they believe in. We have tapped into a real anger out there, and we are very good at organizing, both online and offline, so that we empower the grassroots to be more effective advocates.

How did this tea party movement get started, then? Well, it started with the power of an idea, like most movements. FreedomWorks was the first group to call for the American people to take to the streets in protest, even before the stimulus bill passed Congress. We saw that the phone calls, emails and letters were doing some good, but not enough to make the point. So we asked our members and the American people to head to main streets in cities across the country and demonstrate against the wasteful spending in Washington. They heeded our call, first in Fort Myers, Florida, and later in other cities. Then, last week Rick Santelli called for a Chicago Tea Party this summer. That statement galvanized the people who were already upset and gave us a theme for our protests. The tea party movement took off, and it is growing every day, with events planned in places big and small.

If the lefty bloggers think all of this is just a contrived plot, they are mistaken. And if they think that only a few people are manufacturing events to sway public opinion, they are wrong. The public is opposed to the bailout nation, and high taxes, and they are ready to take to the streets in protest. I know this because I have corresponded with hundreds of people around the country in the last week who want to throw their own tea parties in the weeks leading up to tax day on April 15th. I will be working with them, encouraging them, suggesting ideas and helping them promote their events. But I assure you that the people they bring to our dozens of events planned over the next few weeks will be truly angry, and will be out there on their own volition to make their voice heard. FreedomWorks is here to ensure that the forgotten man in this equation is finally heard. And that is why people are contacting us every day to get help and advice so that they can help us put an end to the socialist madness descending upon our country.