AFL-CIO’s Trumka Uses 9/11 Anniversary to Bash Talk Radio, ‘Extremists,’ Wealthy

Posted on | September 9, 2011 | 14 Comments

Big Labor’s No. 1 honcho posts a message, “Sept. 11, 2011: A Day to Commit to Activism“:

There is no time in my memory of a more proud example of what we can accomplish when we work together. Solidarity, the cornerstone of the union movement, flowed through all of us and carried us through.
But other doors opened, too — doors to hate, suspicion of “others” and self-centered greed. Our fear was twisted into something much more dangerous. . . .
Just 10 years after 9/11, despite our vows, the public servants, construction workers and others who lost their lives or still suffer with the cancerous remnants of the Twin Towers haven’t just been forgotten. They’ve been vilified. The extremist small government posse has turned them into public enemy No. 1, as though teachers and firefighters, EMTs and nurses and union construction workers ruined America’s economy.
In state after state this year — with the heroism of 9/11 less than a decade behind us — politicians targeted the paychecks, benefits and basic rights of these workers in a rabid campaign to shift government support to tax breaks for the wealthy and already profitable corporations.
Wealthy CEOs, anti-government extremist front groups and frothing talk show hosts — from the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks to the Koch brothers, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads group, Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the American Legislative Exchange Council — also pushed open the door to hate.
We’ve seen the costs of hatred in ill-thought wars, in shameful attacks on immigrants and our LGBT neighbors. We saw it in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. We saw it in the racism that has found overt and covert expression since Barack Obama began his run for office — from outright declarations of people who said out loud they would never vote for a black man to the ridiculously persistent obsession with our president’s birth certificate. Regardless of his policies or priorities, President Obama is shadowed by the drumbeat of suspicion based on his “other”-ness. And those suspicions are fed and watered constantly by forces that were threatened by his message of “hope and change.” . . .

You can read the whole rancid thing. Remember that this is the same Richard Trumka who was invited to sit with First Lady Michelle Obama during the president’s speech last night.

As far as “extremist front groups” and “shameful attacks” are concerned, Michelle Malkin reminds us how Trumka advocated violence — including the violence by Trumka’s UMW goons who shot and killed Eddie York during a 1993 West Virginia coal strike.

And you have to roll your eyes at Trumka’s attacks on the “wealthy,” while he collects more than a quarter-million a year in salary from the AFL-CIO, one of five top officials whose combined compensation totals $1.12 million.

Category: Crime, Unions

Comments

14 Responses to “AFL-CIO’s Trumka Uses 9/11 Anniversary to Bash Talk Radio, ‘Extremists,’ Wealthy”

Adjoran
September 9th, 2011 @ 8:53 pm

I visualize those two crooks sharing a cell and a life-without-parole sentence.

A boy can dream, can’t he?
Christy Waters
September 9th, 2011 @ 9:10 pm

This pathetic Trumka tripe is even more glaring in its hypocrisy when you consider the melee that’s being perpetrated by the Longshoremen in Tacoma, WA, including taking guards hostage. Yet, while everyone’s worked up into a frenzy over the tea party, the MSM remains silent on this one… no surprise.

Do you think Uncle Janet will put the International Longshore and Warehouse Union on the list of domestic terrorist groups?…No chance in hell, because “Federal Family” is another term for “Govt Sanctioned Mafia”, which is another term for “Union”, and SCOAMF needs those votes.
TC_LeatherPenguin
September 9th, 2011 @ 9:18 pm

This is who they are; this is what they do; this is all they know…
Anonymous
September 9th, 2011 @ 9:31 pm

So Obama has wholeheartedly agreed with Trumka to “take these sons of bitches out” and embraced the hypocrisy of the “new tone of civility.” But we knew this already. It’s just entertaining in a perverse way to see the facts validated via Obama’s intimate invitation of a lead thug immediately after the violent rhetoric.

The zebra cannot change his stripes. And zoo patrons can spot him a mile away.
Droidist
September 9th, 2011 @ 10:21 pm

IIs it my imagination or does Bumm-ka bear a very strong resemblance to a dull-witted, dishonest, and sadistic Oliver Hardy?

I’ve always enjoyed Laurel & Hardy. They both had comedic talent, and I’ve read that while Stan Laurel was the creative genius, Hardy was the businessman. Alsl that both were good eggs, and alot of Hardy’s money went to establish retirement homes for actors. Apparently a good man.

Bumm-ka is none of those. That moistness you can see is the evil oozing out of his pores, not sweat!
TC_LeatherPenguin
September 9th, 2011 @ 10:24 pm

No, “take these sons of bitches out” was the other union thug, SonnyBoy Hoffa

Tomato, tamahto….
Anonymous
September 9th, 2011 @ 10:32 pm

My mistake. Thanks for the correction.

The zebra still isn’t changing his stripes though.
Anonymous
September 9th, 2011 @ 11:15 pm

This is why we need more adobe walls.
McGehee
September 10th, 2011 @ 1:12 am

And those good rifles that can take out a Comanche chief from half a mile away.
LD
September 10th, 2011 @ 2:09 am

Communist thugs trying to stir genocide of Americans by raging communists. Despicable. Should be stripped of US citizenship and sent to Cuba.
ThePaganTemple
September 10th, 2011 @ 3:45 am

I think its pretty clear who would be the bitch.
Kevin in ABQ
September 10th, 2011 @ 4:15 am

Shorter Trumka: I’m suspicious of Limbaugh, Beck, the Koch brothers, and all the usual conservative boogeymen. Their suspicion of the motives of The One are obviously raaaaacist.
JDFlanagan
September 10th, 2011 @ 4:31 am

Droidist: Not Oliver Hardy, Alex Karras. Now just picture the President as Webster in a Very Special Episode.
Droidist
September 10th, 2011 @ 5:52 am

I don’t know, JD… to me he still looks like a cheap knock-off of Hardy. And after your mentioning the inclusion of Prez.Stinky™ I begin to see Stinky as a 0-IQ version of Stan Laurel*¹. Maybe its my age and that I just don’t follow the new (post 1970s) actors/comedians. I simply didn’t see any talent. That I haven’t any idea who Le DeCapro is (and don’t really care) drives my wife nuts.

It was Red Skelton who said that it took no talent to get laughter from a “blue joke”: people laugh out of embarrassment. And is there any non-“adult situations” comedy on TV any more? Very little, which is why they keep remaking the old shows — but in vain. They “make it pop, make it hot” and sexualize it because without talent those old shows about common situations carried to absurdity are flat and lifeless.

*¹: How to tell a 0-IQ version of Mr. Laurel from the standard issue low-grade moron type? It is behind the eyes. A 0-IQ Stan Laurel, when looking into his eyes, gives the impression of a head stuffed-to-overflowing with cattail down.

You know, that was what they stuffed the heads of puppets with until modern times, so I suppose it is appropos.