Unions Muscle Up to Confront Healthcare Protesters
The Union Liars are out in Force. Obama Jackboot Thugs have their orders from ObamaMessiah.
Unions Muscle Up to Confront Healthcare Protesters
Monday, August 10, 2009 1:02 PM
By: David A. Patten
Organized labor is gearing up to make a big push for President Obama’s “public-option” health care plan, while also claiming to be the victim in melees that sent one town hall protester to the hospital late last week.
Union leaders appear to have decided that their best defense, following charges that town hall protesters were roughed up, is to levy those same allegations against the opponents of reform.
“Attacking a staffer? Harassing a pregnant woman? All in a day’s work for the opposition to health care reform,” one post on the Web site of the Service Employees International Union stated.
The SEIU blamed conservative town hall protesters for “fear-mongering,” charging they are guilty of “harassment, intimidation, and physical violence.”
That allegation will come as a surprise to the town hall protesters who were blocked from attending a Tampa Bay town hall meeting last week by SEIU members, as well as a protester in Missouri who was seriously beaten.
Kenneth Gladney, a conservative activist, said he was handing out yellow flags with “Don’t treat on me” printed on them when he was attacked.
According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Gladney sustained injuries to his knee, back, shoulder, and face. An African-American, Gladney told the newspaper that one attacker who was also an African-American used a racial slur before striking him.
“It just seems there’s no freedom of speech without being attacked,” Gladney told the newspaper.
A St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter and an SEIU staffer were among the six people arrested at the Missouri town hall event featuring Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo.
Last week’s violence occurred the same day AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney sent out a memo to members urging “major union participation to counter the right-wing ‘Tea-Party Patriots’ who will try to disrupt those meetings, as they've been trying to do to meetings for the last month.”
Sweeney referred to the town hall protesters as the same “hooligans” whom he says harassed Florida vote counters during the contentious 2000 presidential election.
An SEIU post over the weekend accused the protesters of “harassment, intimidation, and physical violence.”
In an effort to seize the moral high ground in the town hall debate, the SEIU has posted on its Web site a pledge for members and others to take.
Members would promise to attend town hall meetings “without being disruptive or disrespectful” and “to allow the opinions of fellow attendees to be heard even if I disagree.”
On Friday, the unions claimed to be victims of violent threats. The Huffington Post reports that the SEIU was “deluged” with calls Friday accusing the organization of trying to assault demonstrators who showed up to protest “public-option” healthcare reform.
The Huffington Post report cited one anonymous tweet and one anonymous phone call to the union offering veiled threats of violence should the union try to “repress people’s First Amendment rights.”
The AFL-CIO has also reported receiving a flurry of angry e-mails.
The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that congressional Democrats are rethinking their strategy of town hall meetings.
Democrats are considering teleconferences and smaller, invitation only gatherings as ways to avoid meetings where outspoken opponents of healthcare reform are free to voice their opinions in disruptive ways.
“Democrats may think that attacking or ignoring this growing chorus of Americans is a smart strategy,” Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, told the Journal. “But they are obviously forgetting that these concerned citizens are voters as well.”
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs recommended on Friday that Democrats continue to hold town hall meetings, while urging that the proceedings remain civil. “I would recommend people that go to have their voices heard, that they have some respect for everybody else’s ability to be heard and participate in a town hall meeting.”
2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
(This post was last modified: 08-10-2009 01:33 PM by SumOfAllFears.)
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