We’ve been hearing a lot about whether the protests against the Obama administration’s policies are phony nationally organized “Astroturf” or the grassroots, self-mobilized genuine article. While some movements are more bottom-up or top-down than others, it’s seldom as clear-cut a distinction as people make it out to be.

Events like the stolen Iranian presidential election don’t come along very often. Organized protests usually require organization, and experienced activists are best qualified to do the organizing. At the same time, you can’t have anything as widespread as the town hall protests or the tea parties without either moving people around the country or having lots of bodies in different places who are truly angry about what they are protesting against. In this case, we are looking at the latter. That’s grassroots even if some national organizations with cash on hand try to help the trend along.