Last night in St. Louis, a Reverend and SEIU member was assaulted at a town hall dedicated to discussing our national healthcare crisis. The incident is being spun by GOP operatives as SEIU thug violence--which couldn't be further from the truth.
The SEIU Missouri State Council released a statement from Executive Director Brandon Davis today:
[...] The Reverend, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter, and others who attended in hopes of a peaceful dialogue about our nation's healthcare crisis, endured the latest attempt by right-wing fringe groups to hijack the democratic process through violence if necessary. Last night, the Teabaggers' violent tactics broke and dislocated the shoulder of the Reverend.Read the full statement here. Watch the video with footage from these events here."Let's be clear: These groups, backed by insurance companies and corporate front groups, want nothing more than to preserve the status quo system of rationing, where HMOs choose doctors, and insurance companies deny us the care we need. Their dearest hope is that by resorting to outrageous charges of Nazism and euthanasia, they can make the American public too afraid to support real reform.
"But SEIU and hardworking women and men all over this country are standing up to their bullying tactics. We deserve a national conversation about how we will fix our failing healthcare system and help make this an economy that works for everyone."
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You guys show up at First Amendment Free Speech rallys as goons, and low life thugs.
Your violence lets us see clearly who President Obama supports and hangs with . . . goons and low life thugs.
You disgust me.
Wow, Brandon Davis sounds like a regular Ernst Roehm.
The behavior of the SEIU thugs in St. Louis is reminiscent of other shameful displays of your leadership's lack of respect for freedom (freedom means being free to choose, in case you've forgotten). Many remember Michigan in 2008.
I'm a pretty good student of history. The last time I remember this type of political-party-supporting behavior was... let me think... oh, yes, 1930's Germany. I also remember that when the big man in power there and then had no further use of Ernst Roehm and his ilk, he did away with them. Watch your back! And if you chose to look at the ordinary, law-abiding, hard-working people in this country (whom you are attacking) to be the ones coming after you, think again; it will be your "friends" in D.C. who will blind-side you when you're deemed no-longer useful.
It is really sad that the rack-and-file of the SEIU don't have the backbone to kick out their thugish leadership. I want to believe so much that the majority of your members are ashamed of this behavior; and statements and articles like the one written by Ms. Thomas that attempt to excuse it by casting blame on the victims!
Thank you for standing up for the rights of working people and the middle class. The people who are disrupting these town halls are either already on a government run health care program (Medicare) or would seemingly benefit from real health care reform. Unfortunately, they listen to right wing talk radio/TV hosts who are making millions of dollars a year to tell mostly poor, white men that all of their problems are due to unions and the Democrats.
I am grateful to your members for their efforts to elect President Obama last year and for your efforts to ensure that the right wing and corporate America do not wreck any opportunity we might have for health care reform. If something isn't done, none of us will be able to afford insurance. Again, please stay safe and tell your members that more Americans than not are thankful for their efforts.
You people are a disgace to all of america.You beat up old people cause they dont agree.I am encourageing all people to boycott all products with union made tag on it.Hire only non union.If your a member dont pay dues.You thugs dont represent all of america and i hope that your are prosecuted and sued to the fulliest extent of the law.You looked like maffia thugs beating up on old people shame on you shame.
You people are probably the biggest bunch of liars I have ever encountered in my life shame on your members for beating up Kenneth Gladney and calling him racist names. The SEIU and it's members are a disgrace to our community I will make it a point to boycott the service of any group that condones violence.
The administration couldn't make it any clearer if they drew a map.
Barack Obama is personally responsible for any violence that breaks out at these meetings. If he wasn't president and suggested that Democrats hit back "twice as hard," he would be held legally responsible for the violence that broke out in St, Louis and Tampa. But this is politics - the way the Democrats play it.
It couldn't be any clearer that the goal of the labor thugs at SEIU is to intimidate people from coming to these town hall meetings unless they are supporters of the president. Obama's labor brown shirts will continue these tactics unless the president himself calls them off.
And given the perilous condition of his health care reform bill, there isn't much chance of that happening.
I am neither poor nor white. I am a well educated Mexican American who listens to talk radio. I am here to tell you that I oppose what Obama is doing to this country. You can't shut me up. I'll be at every town hall meeting to protest this abomination of a bill and if I, an SEIU member Local 1000, runs the risk of a confrontation with goons from my own union, they had better be prepared to match up against a martial arts expert, too.
It's sad that liberals can't handle an opposing viewpoint. They have to resort to Chicago style thuggery to do the talking. I'm ready for the intellectual fight, but if you want to take it to the level YOU took it in St. Louis, I'm ready for that, too. And I thought I left behind that life in East San Jose many years ago.
Let's be clear......
Who got arrested?
I have looked all over the net and the overwhelming evidence shows:
SEIU members were present in union t-shirts and were the instigators of violence.
Stop trying to "spin" the incident. I'll be at my local RecessRally and I haven't been paid or sent.
I want some SEIU punk a** bit**s to try to push me around!
I would LOVE it! It'll be "on like Donkey Kong."
You damn people are all the same...you can't prevail in the arena of ideas (the facts aren't on your side and you aren't smart enough to wage a debate anyway), so you resort to violence.
This isn't a third world banana republic. This crap won't stand...
And eventually you will take on a MAN who is able and willing to defend himself...then you'll see what's up.
Obviously what is going on here is that as the country's largest union of health care workers, your group hopes to cash in on a new gargantuan health care bureaucracy. The National Health Service in Britain is the world's third largest employer behind the Red Chinese army and Indian Rail. My, my the dues that you all would collect in the more populous USA! Your union would of course, in return, help those politicians to maintain and expand the bureaucracy to increase your membership and profits, er, dues.
It doesn't matter that our cancer survival rates would plummet and we'd be told take ibuprofen for a heart attack as recently happened in Scotland as a mother died after begging for help from their public option health system.
I come from a union family... my dad has his 60 year pin from Operating Engineers' Local #649, Peoria, IL. Literally all of our union friends oppose Obama's unconstitutional intrusion into our lives - especially health care.
Union leadership is in bed with the same bastards who sent our jobs overseas via NAFTA, GATT, etc. Just like Obama, they need to be thrown out on their asses. Didn't Obama promise that he would reverse NAFTA? No, he is too busy making it a law for the working man to pay for the health care of the illegal immigrants who come here to steal our jobs. And there SEIU members are... promoting their own demise. It makes me sick.
SEIU is acting like nothing more than Obama, the Pimp's whore. SEIU gives organized labor a bad name.
Perhaps some brave SEIU brothers will be as brave as my father was. He helped throw out the corrupt mob-sucking leadership in his union some 35 years ago. They shot at him but were surprised when he shot back.... and he was a better shot. Does SEIU have any members with balls like my dad's???
Well, Dan, I hope it doesn't come to that, but I AM a good shot and I most certainly AM voicing my opinion against my union's tactics at these town hall meetings. So sad that our union has regressed 35 years to your father's time. Your dad is a hero.
Edgar Macias Acosta
Local 1000
Wow..unbelievable...there is clear and compelling evidence via video of the reckless and criminal behavior of SEIU. Now it takes a set that is very large indeed to deny what my eyes and the eyes of countless others see. SEIU went to the forum in St Louis, hellbent on confrontation and sought it out. The video shows SEIU thugs moving in to confront a black man selling items that clearly must have offended them. They beat and kicked him and were arrested. Where are the arrests that took place of non SEIU persons? None were there? Sort of shoots your arguments down if the evidence of video does not. Give it up...you had thugs there who evidenced thuggish behavior. You give all honest union members a bad name.
So you union thugs choose to be on the side of anti-Americans, anti-Capitalists, and anti-Constitutionalists. So be it. Your ignorance and traitorous behaviour is beyond the pale.
My advice. Find a non-leftist non-revisionist professor of US history and get the true story of who and what we are and where we came from.
Meanwhile we Americans that WORK for a living, we small businesses that hire 70-80% of the workers in this country, will FIGHT to save America from the socialists and wanna be dictators like Obama.
Thanks Dan for serving and for fighting against these union thugs. I fyou want to save unions and turn around their image, you must depose their leaders.
To All SEIU Members:
Ethics: The basic principles of right action
Intimidation: The use of violence or threats to influence the conduct of another
Moral: Pertaining to the character and behavior from the point of view of right and wrong, and obligation of duty; pertaining to rightness and duty in conduct.
We as a society have the right to speak freely. We base our views on ethics and morals. We as a people refuse to be intimidated.
There are approximately 1.8 million SEIU members, but there are 658 million non-members and we will unite under no flag, under no organization, under no influence, to guard and protect our rights. I pray that I get the opportunity to attend a town hall on health care. I hope someone from SEIU tries to impinge on my rights, they will learn what grass roots community organizing is when we come to each others defense.
I have been through earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados and wars, don't even THINK, that I will allow someone else to intimidate me or anyone in my field of view.
See you at the meeting ;-)
Hey SEIU thugs:
Speaking of violent tactics:
"The hastily scheduled townhall with (Democrat U.S. Rep ) Kathy Castor ended badly, as predicted, because of SEIU thugs.
The event was conveniently held in a forum where only 250 people could fit. 1000 people showed up. SEIU members were given reserved seating that took up at least half of the 250 seats. As people came in who visibly oppose the Democrats healthcare plan, SEIU members barred access to the room.
Some say they were barred because they are against President Barack Obama’s agenda to change the current health insurance system.
Democrat event organizers slammed one senior citizen into the wall as he and his wife tried to enter. The couple were opposed to Obamacare and made it known."
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/08/06/kathy-castor-event-in-tampa-ends-with-seiu-pushing-out-voters/
And your little foray at the St. Louis protest proved just how much you respect free speech:
"Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started."
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/08/tea-party-protesters-attacked-1-man.html
SEIU is the new Sturm Abteilung.
We are protesting against a socialist jack-booted regime hellbent on superceding our Constitution and Bill of Rights. These town hall meetings were meant as a platform for the Democrats to dictate policy; not as an open debate. That’s why they’re cancelling meetings, locking their doors, and closing the curtains when we confront them on their hypocrisy and rubberstamping the policies of a dangerous socialist megalomaniac.
We don't want socialism or government intrusion into our health care. We will not tolerate Obama’s regime, union thugs, and leftwing media hacks cracking down on our freedom of speech.
Newsflash: The more you and your ilk spew bile at fed-up taxpayers, the more we will fight back.
SEIU is closely tied to ACORN and we all know that Obama is their poster-boy. The SEIU organization has obviously been promised a large ‘stimulus’ monies through the healthcare bill and is currently using their pathetic strong-arm tactics on the common law-abiding citizens. Those fat sissy-boy skinheads from the pipefitters union you bussed to the meeting for Rep. Kathy Castor can sure hold their own against a cancer patient but all four of them together could not hold back one small woman. If a Union job turns men into wobbly stooges like that, it is no wonder SEIU needs Obama’s blood-sucking ‘redistribution’ of wealth to keep them alive. They just need to remember that the senior citizens they choose to rough-up have sons and grandsons who love them and would be wise to keep the debate verbal. Kate Thomas has got to be one dumb biach to think anyone is going to believe her taint-licking boss about an innocent ‘Reverend’ or even knowing what a real American’s deepest hopes are.
I took a look at the “Event Central” page and didn’t see anything for Louisiana. I wouldn’t advise you idiots to come down and try those violent tactics on us country boys. Better bring a lot of bandages and sulfa powder with you on the bus.
Voicing Political opinions is the American way and it is our privilege and duty to do so. Sometimes we can only agree to disagree. Fortunately, Legislators are understanding that choosing Obama’s ideology over the will of their constituents will only lead to and early political retirement.
Cannot add any more that has already been written...
SEIU is a mob based, ignorant, lying organization and they prey on poor employed blacks. You notice the majority of the leadership of this organization is white. And they call the right wing racists.
I am disappointed in the SEIU for their stand in this health care bill. This bill his NOT for the human rights of the citizens of this nation.
The SEIU is suppose to stand for and support the people.
These heavy handed tactics will work against you and us in the future.This will only further prove that the Unions are thugs. Not a place we want to be.
Better get with the People and stop working against.
Thank you
I was a member of a union for thirty years. Never did we practice what the SEIU does.
On 9/12 I was in DC with my former friends from Vietnam. Where were the SEIU thugs?
Here is a message for the SEIU thugs. Load your ass up and come on up to North GA and try and pull some of the crap you have been pulling on old folks and women.
Just keep on and you will eventually hit pay dirt.