BY: WC WINDBAG

To answer the question above, I guess it depends on your definition of “a crowd of supporters who have dirt under their fingernails and know how to win battles in the workplace” is. The scene HuffPost columnist Joseph A. Palermo describes is one before a general election debate for Senator between incumbent Edward “Ted” Kennedy, and Mitt Romney in 1994.

Apparently, Romney supporters were dominating the ground outside, peacefully but loudly supporting their candidate. This was too much retrospectively for Palermo, who described these peaceful supporters as “unruly” (meaning “impossible to discipline, control, or rule”). At the same time, Kennedy was speaking down the street at a union hall to local carpenters’ union. Ted’s solution to Romney’s popular support was to request the “very pushy, very big, and very noisy members of a local carpenters’ union” to come down to the debate and take care of the situation.

It may not be what you think is the American way, but it is the Kennedy way, just like it is the Chicago way.

So what happened?

Kennedy had given a fiery speech at a union hall just prior to the debate where he reminded the workers about what he and his brothers had done for labor over the course of their political careers. At the end of his speech, he urged the entire union local to pick up Kennedy signs and head down to Fanueil Hall to show their support, which they did with vim and vigor. By the time the workers assembled the Romney people had been literally pushed outside the view of the TV cameras and the landscape looked like a huge Kennedy rally. I could hear a few Romney supporters complaining about the “rudeness” of the carpenters.

This was then, but Palermo would not be advocating violence, would he?

So there’s a simple solution to these Republican astro-turf goon squads that are currently disrupting Democratic town hall meetings on health care. Do what Kennedy did. Speak before a crowd of supporters who have dirt under their fingernails and know how to win battles in the workplace. The fight over health care is no different from the fight over the eight-hour day or the minimum wage. At root is whether we as a nation are going to view health care as a human right or will we allow it to remain a privilege.

Democratic politicians facing town hall disruptions should seek the help of their working-class supporters. Make sure large numbers of people from the local unions come to these events. Then we’ll see if the Tea Bagger thugs can continue their bullying tactics on behalf of corporations seeking to block progress on health care.

So, the peaceful protestors are teabagging “thugs”, although they advocate peaceful protests and the democratic process, but Dems advocating or sending burly, union members out to beat people up are progressives?

A call for violence. Welcome to our upside down world.

UPDATE:

Michelle covers this well in her column at Townhall.

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