My latest for the examiner The Pauline Kaels of NPR:
“The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian – I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird evangelical kind of move,”
It appears he also missed the Twin City tea party meeting I covered in December where the panel of tea party leaders from the area said this:
The suggestion was to avoid social issues, the tea party is a movement based on fiscal responsibility and constitutional authority. The only approach to social issues if any would be constitutional insomuch as the Federal Government spending on items not authorized constitutionally or on 10th amendment grounds.
My latest for the examiner notes the silence of the Media Hounds:
Last month after the shootings in Arizona where several people were murdered and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was severely injured there was a lot of talk about civility in politics. Members of congress, the president and news organization both print and visual bemoaned the lack of civil discourse and attempted (and still attempt despite established facts) to blame the Tea Parties and Sarah Palin for inciting violence.
Over the last few days several incidents have taken place nationwide that are contrary to the media’s wish for a new spirit of civility in public discourse.
You can read the rest here. The actions of the supporters of the public sector unions is the real untold story of this issue.
I got to the State house around 5:45. At the time I got there you could see two distinct groups. On the right side of the street (the state house building) were the unions. About 1200 people appeared on that side of the street (I actually counted).
The Union side of the street
On the other side of the street was the tea party folk, mixed with union folk, there were considerably more Union folk so they spilled over but the Tea Party had flags at the Shaw memorial precariously perched on the top of an ice bank.
The police did the best to keep the side apart at first and keep the road open since there was no permit to close it:
A Boston police office works to keep the road open
After my initial count I started interviewing I began on the Union side of the street with Kat:
The next willing person to talk was from the Democratic Socialists of America, ironic:
As soon as I talked to him a union fellow came up to me to claim that the tea party was having people show up pretending to be union folk. The irony of that statement was huge. This is called “projection” and we would see more of that before the end of the day.
I then crossed the street the crowd was getting thicker as more union folk turned up (were the stewards counting?). On the Tea Party side was Susan who was pushing a priest in a wheelchair and is clearly more Catholic than me:
At this point the crowd surge was really large, I noticed Marty Lamb
(I’ve been seeing him everywhere lately) who had a bit of a tale to tell:
I didn’t see Marty Knocked down, if someone has the film I’d like to see it. I also didn’t know they were making some union guys sign in. That suggest payment but I have no direct evidence of that.
At this point the street was shut down, I went to the police to ask about it and they said it was a matter of safety, too many people were there and they could not guarantee safety of people if cars kept going though
Street was closed off
I then climbed up the ice hill and saw Roxeanne (who will talk about this Saturday on the show) and talked to Ralph who was now surrounded by union guys so his flag would not show up in the pictures
Climbing down was a bit of an adventure. I briefly chatted with one of the union guys covering the event and we agreed that the ice hill didn’t care what side anyone was on.
And of course the Axis of Fedora was represented:
Now that's a Fedora look
more than once:
As the day wore on there were more of the standard: “I show up for every protest” people along with the LaRouche cult (sans Obama Hitler mustaches signs) their suggestions were…interesting.
Shortly afterward
Michael Graham's doctor notes
Michael Graham of WTKK showed up and he was not well received by the union folk as he gave out his “Doctor Notes”
The union guys swarmed him so police had to come, ironically one of the union guys heckling him made the best case of anyone there for unions in general:
This guy should have been on the stage, if the unions were smart he would be their spokesman. Meanwhile I followed Graham as his very presence made buzz
and seemed to drive people over the edge:
To craziness and Nazi salutes. This really took State Rep Bastein (R Gardner) aback
He talked to me about it directly afterward:
We never saw this kind of nonsense in our neck of the woods. I lost track of Graham at this point but found an interesting person who had lived in the Soviet Union who had some comment:
It’s funny how people who have actually lived under oppression seem to be on the conservative side. He was the second Russian I had met today saying the same thing.
At this point (about 5:30) it looked like things were dying down
However it wasn’t as dead as I thought as this fellow started to call the Tea Party people (who were more prominent as some union people started leaving) mass murderers.
I tried to interview the union guy who tried to block the interview but he declined curtly. Even more interestingly was an actress Trudy and her friend Bob who both talked to me until my memory card filled:
It was really interesting to see really odd charges made against the tea party which are totally contrary to reality and to my own reporting over the last 14 months but I never thought to ask her, if she was an actress for all these decades with the Union to look out for her, how is it she never made it into the middle class? I guess the union movement didn’t do much for her.
Once I changed my card I talked to Edward of the tea party who I see regularly at these events and Karen who follows me on twitter (thanks)
We both bemoaned the lateness of our Koch brother checks that should be keeping us in luxury. I made it a point to stay as the union folk packed up, there was a fair amount of trash that was left in the area and I wanted to see if they would pick up after themselves, in the end pickup was done but from an unexpected source:
Yes that’s right, a tea party guy was picking up after the union, after all “janitor” was likely not in their job description.
At that point I went back to the tea and a nice fellow allowed me to put my PC on his bag as he sat allowing me to finish my Examiner article (click on it, that’s worth .75 of a cent to me).
How did it come out? Well it really will have no effect on Wisconsin but you could see that the union side was tense, they are very afraid of what is going on in Wisconsin, they were in denial about the last election, and I think they realize that it’s a question of when (not if) Gov Walker wins this fight.
The image of democrats fleeing the state and doctors giving out “sick notes” have made a very bad impression that is likely going to stick. Even worse if Walker turns Wisconsin around he will be copied and the game will be over.
My latest for Examiner.com Anger and Loathing in Boston reports on the dueling Union/Tea Party rallies in Boston: a peek:
As the day progressed the Union forces got more and more agitated particularly when Radio Host Graham handed out fake “doctor of love” notes parodying the events of Wisconsin. His presence seemed to drive the union people wild, even stranger was the reaction to State Rep Rich Bastien (R Gardner) who mingled with the crowd to try to hear them out but was greeted by Nazi salutes by a self-proclaimed Jewish woman in between vulgar epithets.
The final irony of the protest is on display here:
I’ll have a post with all my videos from the rallies up before I leave the house today.
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