Comments

1
Instead of plowing through the crowd with whips on camels and horses-- expect them to brandish old country buffet coupons whilst astride Hoverounds and tennis ball cushioned walkers.
2
Hundreds, eh? Way to set your bar low, guys!
3
I'll do a head count tomorrow and report back! (Will two hands be enough?)
4
The tens of thousands standing up for unions is very inspiring. Wisconsin this week puts the tea party into perspective. Not only are progressives out numbering the tiny tea party rallies of the past two years we also see the Koch family who started funded the teabaggers are behind the union busting in Wisconsin. http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/0…
5
If my gubmint education has taught me anything, its that tens of thousands is far less than hundreds.
6
Maybe they'll have to put "100's" in big-ass font to make it look like LARGE numbers.

OTOH, the bagger types can turn out large numbers - recall Hillary's Seattle appearance - and the mix could be volatile.
7
@3,
Find out how many of them are former government employees who are now receiving pensions.

(I'm just sorta assuming it's only going to be old retired people).
8
I don't think that all tea partiers are anti-union, and they certainly don't all realize that the unions have offered to pay more for benefits with collective bargaining off the table. That should be the compromise. Union issues are not front and center for the tea party/GOP agenda. Governor Walker should realize that and give up the hatchet job on collective bargaining.
9
We need a solidarity rally in the Seattle area this weekend.
Former Republican (to my shame)
10
@8: "Union issues are not front and center for the tea party/GOP agenda"

not buying it at all. sorry, but I feel they know they need to crush the unions, in any way possible to see their agenda through.
11
If it is old retired people, then I so very hope they suffer in the most horrible, painful, and awful way. What of course would make it better is if I could look right in their face and say--"Told ya so." Then yawn and walk away as they die laying in the gutter. Bye bye.
12
@11 yeah, to darn heck with those crazy ass old people. booyah and/or diggity !:.
13
@8,
Union issues are not front and center for the tea party/GOP agenda.
The hell they're not!

Unions, and unions alone, are the ONLY remaining big-money donors to the democrat party. The republican/baggers want them destroyed for purely political ends: To starve the democrat campaign funds of cash.

The republican teabaggers have no qualms about making hundreds of thousands suffer for the sole purpose of getting a little bit higher on the starting line in upcoming elections.
14
Hey, Goldy, why do you work for the scab rag? Are you are a principled progressive or a pussy? When are you going to call Yoko down at the Guild and seek help to organize this scab rag?
15
@8

You must be around a certain few Teabaggers. I've been called a communist and anti american for being part of SEIU, then they can't even support their outlandish claims about my union.
This is simply a test. If they succeed in stripping the bargaining rights then every union in the country will be at risk.
16
This is a pretty standard result in public choice theory. If a proposed policy is likely to result in a ~$5000 cut to your income (i.e. you are a public employee in WI), it is rational for you to expend a great deal of effort to oppose it. If the same policy is likely to result in a ~$200 increase in your income (i.e. you are a typical WI taxpayer looking forward to paying public employees less), it is not rational for you to expend a great deal of effort to support it.
17
We're finally gonna hear from the only people that the politicians and the media care about.
18
Mother Vel-DuRay (daughter of an IBEW Lineman, herself a participant in the 1948 telephone strike) has a dreadful old acquaintace who always tries to bait her on labor issues. The old bat listens to Limbaugh and then calls up mother with the latest right-wing talking points. Mom always points out to her that she -the old bat - is living on a union pension, and that shuts her up.

That old bat - who used to be a lot of fun before her husband died, she fpund Limbaugh, and her children became Republicans - has three children, who are all fairly well-off, yet they won't even buy her a chairlift for her stairs. She lives in an old house that she refuses to move from (she's lived there since she was seven. She's now 92) with her bedroom and bathroom upstairs, and her living room and kitchen downstairs, and a winding, two landing staircase between (it's really a beautiful house. Would probably go for 600k here. Maybe $150k there)

Anyway, to get up and down, she sits down and either scoots herself down the stairs, or lifts herself up, step by step. A prime example of Real Republican Values.

When Mother Vel-DuRay got old, unemployed societal leach Sister Vel-DuRay, and greedy unionized I pitched in and bought her a chairlift so she can get to the laundry room and the garage, so she's not stuck at home.
19
does the tea bag agenda have a front and center?
20
do not feed the troll @8, 14, 16 - the same troll, btw
21
Hundreds? Is that all the Koch brothers could afford to bus in?
22
@10, 13, & 15: I'm not saying its not on their agenda, but it's not been the among the top three issues: Stopping Obamacare, cutting taxes, cutting back big government spending and regulation. That's what sparked the tea party movement. You didn't hear Palin, Bohner, Bachmann and others going on the Sunday talk shows saying that we got to cut back on union's collective bargaining as a main talking point - although you will start hearing that now. That's the distinction I was trying, but failed, to make.
23
@20: Yes, one of us maintains three or more email accounts for the sole purpose of maintaining such a menagerie on Slog. That means different passwords, avatars, and writing with varying degrees of political disposition, articulation, clarity, profundity, sarcasm, and humor to keep it from being detected as sock puppetry by Stranger staffers. Can you guess which one? Good luck!
24
A second handcount of tea party ralliers puts their numbers at about 350.

Aerial and ground estimates put the citizens and workers at about 90,000.
25
It still amazes me the way the Government and the Media took the focus off Wall Street's million dollar bonus's with tax payer money and very effectively placed the economic colapse blame on blue collar workers that won't earn a million dollars in thier lifetime. "The union workers and thier outragous wages and pensions will bring America to finanical ruin" was thier talking points and it worked, middle class Americans turned on middle class Americans.
26
@18:

That family sounds like they're putting good, old-fashioned Republican values to work: I gots mine, you-all get your own, but I'm not going to lift a finger to help you get it, because that would mean you get something at my expense.

Meanwhile the Vel-DuRays are clearly Godless Commie Socialists because they don't make their lazy, freeloading elders fend for themselves, which is the natural order of things.
27
@16,
Just one issue with your comment: This isn't about money. The unions offered to agree to all the cuts in exchange for keeping their collective bargaining rights and Walker flatly refused. Walker wants to get rid of the unions in order to help the republican party (i.e., campaign financing... unions are the only big players for the democrats). Period. The wages and benefits of the public workers has absolutely ZERO to do with this battle anymore. It's about collective bargaining and the existence of the unions and that's it.

The public workers are coming out to support their rights and their future, not their paycheck and benefits. The reason there so little protest in support of Walker is that they don't really care enough to come out.

You're right about the theory being the reason behind this, but not the variables.
28
@23, you flatter yourself, overestimating your writing ability while underestimating the indifference of Slog staffers to your incessant trolling and sock puppetry.

While you may arguably be pathological, you do not appear to have moe than a single, tedious personality that is singularly focused on certain Slog subject matter.
29
@28, okay dear - whatever you say.
30
I was there in Madison, WI on Saturday. Three thoughts:
1. The public workers outnumbered the Tea-baggers 20 -1. There were 60,000 people there and no arrests.
2. I noticed that on Friday night, when entering the WI capitol building, the doors were sign free. Saturday, with the tea-bagger infiltration there were signs reminding people that firearms were not allowed on the premises.
3. Tea-baggers have less clever signs than public workers. And more mis-spellings.

Please wait...

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