:: rawblogXport ::

:: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 ::

Free speech kept off U.S. streets By DAVID LINDORFF
When retired Pittsburgh steelworker Bill Neel learned that President George W. Bush was coming to town last year, he decided he would be on hand to protest the president's economic policies.

Neel and his sister made a hand-lettered sign — The Bush family must surely love the poor! They have made so many of us! — and headed for a road where the motorcade would pass.

But he never got to display his sign for Bush to see.

The New Unity Partnership, A Manifest Destiny for Labor By JoAnn Wypijewski
This section bears the hoofprint of the Carpenters' McCarron, who pulled out of the AFL in 2001and has feted George W. at two Labor Day picnics. A cheap date, he got a visit on Air Force One. Along with the Teamsters' president, James Hoffa, whom the NUPsters are heavily courting, he is the Republicans' favorite labor leader. At a recent fundraising dinner for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, McCarron and Hoffa both purchased tables.

[Iww-news] Bush's Labor Day Picnic posted by steve zeltzer
Fri, 06 Sep 2002
From: matejka@
Subject: Bush in Pittsburgh -- the real story

A retired asbestos worker from Pittsburgh, Bill Yund, recently sent his 'analysis' on Bush's Labor Day visit to Pittsburgh... interesting...
Mike Matejka

For those who may have heard via the national media that Dubya was in Pittsburgh getting 'Union' support, we pass on the real skinny:

Dubya was invited to a Carpenters Labor Day 'Picnic' downriver from Pittsburgh by McCarron (Carpenters union president, who has taken the union out of the AFL-CIO) and cronies. The photo-op had nothing to do with the Allegheny County Labor Day Parade.(word has it the Labor Council is censuring the carpenters, for whatever thats worth) The Photo-op was by invite only, excluding anyone who might disagree with having the most anti-labor Prez in memory at a union hall. Some protesters did appear, but were herded into a fenced-in area out of presidential camera-range. One 65 year old man with a sign saying 'the Bushes must love poor people because they created so many of them' was arrested when he peacefully protested the denial of his constitutional right to free expression. He pointed out that 'free' is inconsistent with being secured behind a fence. People with pro-Bush signs were allowed to roam free, of course. Meanwhile in Pgh, an estimated 40,000 REAL working people, uninvited to the photo-op, marched in the Parade and many later picnicked at a local union brewery (Iron City). Pro-Bush signs or sentiments were nowhere to be found. Carpenters in the parade expressed disappointment (to put it mildly) in the romance of their leadership with the Bush crowd. Obviously, it's unlikely that McCarron would survive an honest democratic election. His pal Dubya has had the same problem.

posted 7:06 AM :: reference link :: 0 comments ::

-------------------------------------------