positioned to greet soldiers exiting the gates on the northwest corner.
FReeper Jimmy Valentine's Brother, background,
shouts thanks to passing car honks.
To view all of [Mrs] Trooprally's photos of this FReep,
click on the photo.
Posted on 10/05/2007 10:17:51 PM PDT by Albion Wilde
WASHINGTON, DC, September 28, 2007— The DC Chapter has suspected all along that the dwindling handful of anti-war protestors outside Walter Reed are paid to show up. This week, one of their newbies came by our troop-support rally at the gates by mistake, and spilled the truth: a labor union had recruited this worker to show up at the lefties' phony "vigil." The worker's remarks clearly revealed that standing outside the Walter Reed Army Medical Center with anti-war signs wasn't a personal choice, but a workplace commitment demanded by a union representative.
Our rally must have looked a lot more attractive, even at a glance—in fact, that's what this unionized worker said. I'm going to avoid describing this person's looks or gender, to avoid making trouble. Why? Because this office worker's confusion appeared sincere, revealing that the decision to be there wasn't intentional; in fact, the person didn't really seem to know what either demonstration was about.
When we explained that we were there to support the mission, having kicked their anti-war demonstration away from the gates many months ago, the worker said, "I'd better go over there [to the leftist's area] — I've already committed. I can only be there a half-hour, though." And when we said, "Come back any time," the worker spoke with pride about a relative's service in the military.
What has been intentional, if unsuccessful, have been the failed recruitment efforts of the lefties after O.P.E.I.U. Local 2 took over the anti-war quagmire from CodePink almost a year ago. CodePink long ago abandoned the "vigil" they started — the last Walter Reed vigil report on CodePink's web site is dated December 2, 2005; and it was written by Bruce Wolf.
O.P.E.I.U., the Office and Professional Employees International Union, is a part of the AFL-CIO, one of the largest unions in the world. AFL-CIO is an umbrella organization of national and international unions, many of which have historically socialist roots, dating from the heyday of onshore domestic industrial production and overt socialist agitation. The AFL was begun in 1886, and the more radical CIO in 1932. Merged in the 50s, a history of labor union loyalty to the Democrat party and ties to international socialism are ineradicable. As a result of international socialism's long, slow takeover, today's Democrat party has thoroughly absorbed collectivist ideology, making the socialist label seem unnecessary — to them. Voters have largely slept through the first century of this "bloodless revolution."
The "Walter Reed vigil" is now led by Bruce Wolf, chair of O.P.E.I.U. Local 2's "Social Justice Committee" (this is a handy liberal code phrase meaning "able-bodied but unproductive people who feel entitled to generous, taxpayer-supported financial benefits because they choose to direct their unmet childhood dependency needs into anger at any Republican administration"). Mr. Wolf is also a participant in DC Labor for Peace & Justice/USLAW (U.S. Labor Against War).
Mr. Wolf has written numerous wistful letters to lefty sites over the last several years, claiming his demonstration is not political, trying to increase participation — alas, without credibility, nor success. As the DC Chapter's extensive documentation shows, their numbers have fallen off and stayed lower than the number of Free Republic troop supporters for years now, while DC Chapter's numbers continue to grow. It's a really hard sell, even for lefties, to protest the war in the faces of volunteer soldiers who are wounded, and Mr. Wolf is not doing well at it.
This week, in fact, the Reuters news organization ran an article headlined, "U.S. Protests Shrink While Antiwar Sentiment Grows." Anti-war organizers feud among themselves, reporter Andy Sullivan said, "and participants question the effectiveness of the street protests." Astonishingly, this mainstream media article at last pointed up the so-called "peace" movement leadership's ties to the communist Worker's World Party and its splinter, Party for Socialism and Liberation. What it doesn't mention is the dedicated counterprotest presence of FReepers, Gathering of Eagles, Protest Warriors, Vets for Victory, MoveAmericaForward and hundreds of other grassroots groups determined not to allow another war to be won on the ground but lost by the media and Congress, as had happened in the Vietnam era.
Mr. Wolf, 60, seems a pleasant enough man — he is a husband, a brother, and he doesn't start trouble on the street, preferring to exude the teddy-bear persona of a genial, bearded old hippie in a blue work shirt. He sees his vigil in heroic, lib-religious terms, comparing himself to a Christian about to be devoured by lions; yet shamelessly exploits the wounds of the soldiers on anti-war web sites. The best that can be said for his hatred of American economic freedoms and our President is that Mr. Wolf appears a true believer in socialist ideals, where the government owns the means of production and the happy "workers" have guaranteed benefits for life; war Never Happens, because "the government" not only pays everyone well regardless of output, it also totally transforms nasty, brutish human nature by funding weaponless utopias around the world. Peter Pan couldn't imagine it better.
It is a system, however, that has failed everywhere it has been tried, in spite of the millions who have died at the hands of socialist/communist reformers — millions more than for any other form of government in recorded history. It is an ideology of class envy, a repudiation of the pioneering spirit of America's traditional work ethic, a resentment of the demonstrably greater productivity and innovation made possible by entrepreneurial capitalism, and a rejection of the maturity demanded of citizens of a free society to defend itself against Islamofascist imperialists.
Anti-war activism is a lie, using the sacrifices of military families to mask the murderous history of socialism in its disingenuous pleas for the United States to surrender her strengths, relinquish knowledge and pride in her history, and deconstruct the plain meaning of her Declaration and Constitution. It is an ideology that fears competition in the marketplace of ideas, bitterly resenting John Kerry's failed presidential bid. "End Our Military Involvement in Iraq," the AFL-CIO Executive Council exhorts its members (from its spartan conference site — Las Vegas), urging them to dismiss the threat posed by worldwide Islamofascism.
As such, unionists aid and abet what Sally McNamara, senior European Affairs analyst at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, calls a "borderless war on Western values" and an "attempt to break the West's will to fight an asymmetric long war."
O.P.E.I.U. Local 2 managed to scare up around 10 moonbats this week — but who's counting any more? They lean dozens of scrawled posterboards on Walter Reed's property, which should be prosecuted — and would be, if our nation, our President and our military were the jackbooted thugs the left claims they are — and stand there dourly, pathetically, while the passing cars ignore them and shout acclamations for the cheerful, colorful and grateful DC Chapter. FR had 27 this week, down from our all-time high two weeks ago of 164 (updated total at post 74).
A woman from the midwest with tears of worry on her face for her grandchild inside Walter Reed snapped pictures on her cellphone of our banners and signs. "Why don't the newspapers ever show this?" she asked, amazed to learn that the DC Chapter has been out here with dozens of unpaid supporters every Friday for 128 weeks, while the yellow MSM fiddles.
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DC Chapter Brass Bump
DC Chapter mega-ping!
Freepmail me to be added/dropped from this once-weekly Walter Reed ping list.
Thank you Albion Wilde for the ping.
I appreciate the patriotism of our patriots.
Thank you to all those who served, and those who are supporting them at Walter Reed. I hope the soldiers there know our support for them doesn't end when they come home.
I bumped this to “breaking news”, something that I should know better than to do. But as a former vet myself, nothing I have heard recently has steamed me so much. We need to get this info out to the news media and to folks like Mark Levin, Rush and Hannity.
Albion, I hope others besides you heard this exchange and somehow it would have been great to get it on tape. But in the meantime, thanks for all you do. One of these days, I’ll make it back to DC to participate. My last FReep/rally was in Crawford across from Cindy at the Bush Ranch. But I’m with you guys in spirit.
LOL
Somehow I can’t see forcing a union member to attend a non-union related rally as being legal. I’m thinking there could be some ethics problems regarding this. It could be a violation of the Union’s Constitution or guidelines. People pay Union dues for the Union to represent them in work-related issues. It has no right to force or intimidate union members to do its bidding on political issues. And if they are doing that, then there is usually an independent commission that oversees the union’s actions, that members can file a complaint with.
This doesn’t surprise me one bit. IMHO, Unions are very anti-American. I’ve always felt that way.
Damn those thugs to h*ll ... and thank YOU ALL for all you do.
Evil hates good .. and they, their henchmen and puppets are pure evil. May Our Dear Lord neutralize and confuse our enemies, from without and WITHIN.
DC Chapter RULES !
Extend this to the fact that all Democrat political activities get these same “volunteers” as campaign workers and that all union money goes to
Democrats, including government unions, and you see just a small part of the advantage that the left has, all the while claiming they are under funded because the Republicans have “evil” Big Business” on their side.
Thanks, CedarDave, and yes, I hope other media do look into this. This should not be happening to our troops. The left has become so twisted in this country that they defend the “rights” of protestors over the health and well-being of the wounded and the pain of families at funerals. Bruce Wolf has written that their vigil is about “free speech,” as if that excuses their willingness to inflict mental distress on those brave wounded. Their heads are where the sun don’t shine.
Unbelievable!
There are all kinds of ways to influence people to do things in the workplace, short of force. The person clearly didn't seem to understand what the event was about until arriving there and seeing their protest and our rally.
According to Wikipedia, under the subheadline "Membership": "Currently, the AFL-CIO's only explicit restriction on membership excludes those labor unions whose 'policies and activities are consistently directed toward the achievement of the program or purposes of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, terrorism and other forces that suppress individual liberties and freedom of association...' (Art. II, Sec. 7)."
It's hard to see how they square their opposition to this war, or a Local's demonstration against this war, based on the above, unless they are internationalist to believe it only applies to our enemies and not to our U.S. citizens.
Buuump!
As a Navy Veteran and a former union member, all I can say right now is GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!
“In the tradition of the deposed dictator, Saddam Hussein, the US occupation and its puppet government continues the practice of making trade unions illegal and outlawing the workers’ rights to organize. These laws are enforced at the point of US guns. We cannot let our young women and men be turned into gun-toting scabs and thugs in the tradition of the company goons that were used to break up union organizing in our own country. Our people are being kept faraway from home, in constant danger and privation, for a cause that people here at home cannot condone.”
I worked in a Union shop for 35 years and I know what I am talking about. Unions have very little to do with what a person does outside the work place. No way this is true, they can't even force a Union member to attend Union mettings, let alone an event like this. I am NOT saying the person writing the article is lying, I am saying the person who told them the story was lying, trying to make himself look like a victime when in reality he was there of his own volition. Now he may be paid to be there, but it wouldn't be by the Union and being paid is a far cry from being "forced" to be there. What a crock of crap for this guy to unload.
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