Hey, DUers, I just wrote this for a progressive blog I write for and I wanted to share it with you guys. I searched high and low for a video posted here during the GE of the union singing "we are the union" as they marched somewhere...I couldn't find it. IF anyone here knows where it is, would you be so kind as to clue me in???? thank you!
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AFL calls a HALT the Brooks Brothers Riot Tactics on Healthcare
Just when you thought Real Americans were going to be shut down in Town Hall meetings across the country, democracy thwarted yet again by the Thug Tactics of the right, we hear a rallying roar from our union brothers and sisters.
No, this isn’t the country of 2000. No, we aren’t going to let a Brooks Brothers Riot stop another recount. No, we aren’t going to believe there are WMD just because the right told us we weren’t patriots if we dared to question them. It isn’t the country of 2004 either. No, we aren’t going to sit idly by depending on the civilized democratic process to overcome the loud, angry voices Swiftboating an American war hero.
No more purple band-aids for us!
Just who will stand up for our right to be heard? Who can meet the TeaBaggers head on? Who? Since all thinking people have jumped ship from the Republican party, your average American is voting Dem these days. So, we’re left with the Democratic Party of Discussion and Diplomacy. Good values. Our country is based on these ideals. But not so handy when you’re fighting a bully.
Remember when your mom told you to ignore the bully in grade school who called you or your friends names? Remember how it didn’t ever work out like she said it would, because the more you ignored them, the worse it got? My mom used to have me write compassion essays, or empathy essays. Good exercise, but when the wolf is at the door, you’re starving and you have no health insurance, an empathy essay isn’t the best weapon. At least not when you’re fighting thugs who are hell bent on avoiding an intellectual debate they know they will lose.
Oh, how we progressives fall into angst here! We respect their right to speak, we rush to defend the angry fat man on the radio who lies about us everyday, we talk about karma and muse about how to get them to see our point, we defend ourselves against attacks of being snobby intellectual elites, thinking if we just try harder to understand….
It’s all so lovely and high minded….and unworkable. In THIS fight.
What progressives fail to realize is that we are not fighting the same fight, so we will lose. They don’t want to have a discussion, understand our point, or allow us our freedom of speech. These are the same people who called VERBAL dissent unpatriotic and treasonous when they were in power! In 2007, Fox News host Brian Kilmead said that people who confront politicians are “threatening” and should be Tased or “beaten to a pulp.”
Because back in the Good Old Days of the Synthetic Cowboy and His Gang of Thugs dismantling the constitution, it wasn't American to protest. But suddenly, now, it seems the Screeching Minority has rediscovered the Sarah Palin Dept of Law and Constitution. You know, the one that's good for them but no one else? Good Dog, how long will it take until we get that?
There we were, writhing in the mess of 8 years of fascist takeover, as we carried our war protest signs to peace rallies the MSM ignored, and in our hearts we never thought we’d get this country back. We were demoralized and down-trodden.
But along came Barack Hussein Obama. Oh, a new day for us! With his awesome powers of organization and messaging, Obama proved over and over again that he could and would overcome the hate propaganda thrown at him during the GE. “Terrorist! Muslin! Hitler!” – your basic “look at the brown man” message – he overcame them all with grace, dignity and hidden strength.
We won. Yes, we overcame election fraud and voter fraud and illegal prosecutions and slander and MSM corporate allegiance to their party….We, the people, won. Our voices were heard.
At a particularly low point in the GE, I remember the Republicans going to a UAW plant and speaking. The union folks, themselves Real Americans, weren’t fooled by the Beer Heiress and her Prince. Legend has it that as the 12 houses (how many do they have? 12 or 13, but some not in their names? Very confusing) “everyman” POW no purple band-aids here, McCain, and the wife he calls ##@# exited, the plant workers began singing, “We are the Union, the mighty mighty Union.” It gives me chills just thinking about it.
My grandfather was a leader in the union movement, and I'm a proud member of a union myself. I can think of nothing more American than our unions; while they may be imperfect, they are necessary. They give the common person collective power. And they’re usually smart enough to keep their messaging simple.
Well, patriots, our union brothers and sisters have stepped up once again, riding to our rescue to save our Town Halls and the democratic process. The AFL-CIO union movement represents 11 million members. They are teachers and truck drivers, musicians and miners, firefighters and farm workers, bakers and bottlers, engineers and editors, pilots and public employees, doctors and nurses, painters and laborers—and more. In other words, you basic Real Amerian.
TeaBagging Astroturffers don’t want to let the nation have a civil debate regarding healthcare? OK, then.
ENTER THE UNION!
“AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka sends out a scathing statement about the town halls, hitting on Sweeney's themes and calling the events corporate funded.
Every American has the inalienable right to participate in our democratic process. Our politics is passionate, heartfelt and often loud -- as was the founding of our nation. But that is not what the corporate-funded mobs are engaging in when they show up to disrupt town halls held by members of Congress.
Major health care reform is closer than ever to passage and it is no secret that special interests want to weaken or block it. These mobs are not there to participate. As their own strategy memo states, they have been sent by their corporate and lobbyist bankrollers to disrupt, heckle and block meaningful debate. This is a desperation move, meant to slow the momentum for change.
Mob rule is not democracy. People have a democratic right to express themselves and our elected leaders have a right to hear from their constituents -- not organized thugs whose sole purpose is to shut down the conversation and attempt to scare our leaders into inaction
We call on the insurance companies, the lobbyists and the Republican leaders who are cheering them on to halt these 'Brooks Brothers Riot' tactics. Health care is a crucial issue and everyone - on all sides of the issue - deserves to be heard.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/06/unions-to-take-on-conserv_n_252...We are the Union, the Mighty Mighty Union!! Hear us Roar! From the WGA to the UAW, raise your voice, and be heard brothers and sisters!
Bring it, Astoturfing TeaBaggers! Game on.
http://www.politicususa.com/en/node/7045
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