The St. Louis Tea Party held a rally at the local Service Employees International Union office Saturday protesting the beating and hospitalization of Kenneth Gladney by SEIU goons on Thursday. The Tea Party's Bill Hennessey reported (emphasis added):
Over 300 people gathered in front of SEIU Headquarters on Pershing Saturday to thank Ken Gladney for taking punishment for our freedom. On Thursday, thugs in SEIU uniforms beat and kicked Gladney. The thugs hate black men who wander off the liberal plantation to speak their minds. That hatred put Gladney into a wheelchair. Unable to speak due to pain, medication, and heat, Gladney’s attorney, David Brown, read from a hand-written statement Gladney had prepared the night before.
According to witnesses, an African-American man wearing an SEIU uniform approached Gladney Thursday about 8:30 p.m. as Gladney showed his buttons and flags to the wife of a minister. The SEIU thug said, “Why is a n***** handing out ‘Don’t tread on me’ flags,” before punching Gladney to the ground. According to video taken at the scene by numerous witnesses, other SEIU thugs joined in to kick and beat Gladney. “Don’t tread on me,” has become a rallying cry for the Tea Party Movement.
Gladney was at the rally in a wheelchair. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an excellent 3-minute video (top left of page) that includes an interview with Gladney, followed by another black Tea Party member giving a great verbal smackdown to a leftist.
Rush Limbaugh asked the question today, "Why isn't Kenny Gladney … the new Rodney King?" The answer, of course, is that the mainstream media and the civil rights leadership don't give a rat's ass what happens to a conservative or libertarian black man.
The contempt and loathing of the left for this man is very much on display at the YouTube video of Saturday's rally, with comments like this:
TOO FUNNY… This idiot started a fight, got banged up, and guess what… HE HAS NO HEALTH INSURANCE!!!
Right folks- the moron is working to destroy a program that would have given him medical treatment — now he has to take up a collection to pay his medical bills. He's as dumb as the rest of his ignorant friends.
The SEIU guys should've put him out of his misery.
And this:
wait until the teamsters get ahold of his ass lmao
Of course, there are bad people on both sides. According to Jeralyn Merritt (TalkLeft), a "progressive" leader's car was vandalized at the Rep. Perlmutter event Saturday. But while union thugs beating and kicking a man is apparently a source of humor for many on the left, some lout breaking car mirrors evokes outrage.
Merritt wanted to know "What rock did these people crawl out from under?" — implying that such behavior is characteristic of "these people" rather than a rare exception. And at least one of her commenters, cpinva, went stark raving bonkers (and drew no criticism or censure; this comment is rated "topical") (emphasis in original):
what we have here is a junior version(s) of the infamous bier hall putsch, to be followed by a new kristalnacht against the "others". i suppose at some point, we can expect a right-wing night of the long knives as well.
I mentioned Godwin's Law the other day regarding Pelosi's "They're carrying swastikas" remark. If Godwin's Law were actually enforceable, that comment would have ended all further discussion of the subject at TalkLeft for a very long time.
UPDATE: According to Bill Hennessey, one of the people who was arrested for beating Gladney is an SEIU director, Baptist minister, and (gasp!) community organizer:
Tea Party researchers have discovered some interesting news on one of the people arrested for beating Ken Gladney.
Elston K. McCowan is a former organizer – now the Public Service Director of SEIU Local 2000 – and board member of the Walbridge Community Education Center, and is a Baptist minister, has been a community organizer for more than 23 years, and now, he is running for Mayor of the City of St. Louis under the Green Party.
McCowan accused the Mayor of setting fire to his van . . . because that’s what big city mayors do in their spare time, I guess. He also called Slay a racist. And, on election night, McCowan thanked the family who voted for him. It was quite touching, actually.
McCowan is not a rank-and-file, card-carrying union guy. He is a director with SEIU. He IS the union. He ISSUES the cards. Andy Stern himself might as well have kicked Gladney.
I guess that means McCowan has Obama's favorite book, Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, in his library.
HT: Sweetness & Light