From YouTube:
On Wednesday, the day after Governor Scott Walker’s recall election victory, Occupy Milwaukee held a rally in Pere Marquette Park, A march followed, which was at times was violent. But the ugliest occurrence yesterday was the speech given by Gilbert Johnson, the president of AFSCME Local 82.
After requesting that the occupiers hug the person next to them, Johnson besmirched the Tea Party movement–and of course myself, since I am a tea partier–by referring to our rallies with the sexual epithet of tea bag.
“You never see this at a tea bag, man,” Johnson said to the crowd of about 120 people “What you have is a bunch of haters, people that tell lies, people that want to go back to the ’50s. White man rule. White man only.”
A few moments later he added, “Here in the state of Wisconsin we have people that lie. They want money and they care only about themselves. You know the statistic came out that the minority population would soon be exceeding the white population and all of the sudden we start having fear. And they started, ‘Let’s get guns!'”
And he put words in the mouths of his opponents.
“‘And you know, lets go back to the ’50s ways, where we could just kill people and hang people’ and go back to that time that we that we tried to get so far away from. That’s what we’re up against,” the union boss bellowed.
Later he declared, “We’re here because we say ‘Hell no to hate.'”
But who is the hater here? I’ve been to over a dozen Tea Party rallies and not-only are they not all-white events, I’ve never heard a racist statement uttered at one.
Clearly Johnson needs to attend a Tea Party rally.
He was more magnanimous in the second half of his address–you’ll notice that I didn’t edit anything from his speech. Perhaps Johnson’s better instincts were brought forth when a homeless man unexpectedly sat in front of him.
But Johnson also expressed his wishes that Walker fix the student loan debt problem. That will be tough chore for the Republican reformer–student loans are a federal program.
Occupy Milwaukee might try to disassociate themselves from the union leader’s repugnant remarks. But Johnson’s local was a sponsor of yesterday’s rally and when he turns around at the end of his speech, you’ll notice he is wearing an Occupy Milwaukee T-shirt.
