The liberals, at least during the horrible, horrible Bush years, said that they had a right to protest and that ‘Dissent is Patriotic’. Its funny then, all these years (okay, months later) that if you oppose Health Insurance Reform, or the Obama Agenda in general, you are a threat to National Security(1) .
With the recent protests and disruptions at local Congressional Town Hall Meetings, those opposed to HCR(2) are posited by the Democratic Party to be a ‘Mob’ and funded by Corporate America.
From the Huffington Post article ‘Unions To Take On Conservative Groups Health Care Town Halls‘ – we have AFL-CIO President John Sweeney telling his members -
“The principal battleground in the campaign will be town hall meetings and other gatherings with members of Congress in their home districts,” reads the memo. “We want your help to organize 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. …
While AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka sends out a memo stating, among other rants, -
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.
Being a Union member, thank GOD its not the AFL-CIO, and a dissenter I am appalled. A UNION actively ORGANIZING to COUNTER people speaking their mind. I, for one, will be at the next Town Hall Meeting I can find – voicing my concerns. I’ve not been given any “playbook” or “guidance” by anyone on what to do and say.
Start Footnotes
- See news reports here and here about the FBI identifying participants at Tea Party rally’s. [↩]
- Health Care Reform [↩]
End Footnotes.
Popularity: unranked [?]
