-By Warner Todd Huston
The Washington Times has a great piece that coincides with several we’ve had here on the blog that shows that unions have become Obama’s healthcare shock troops. From the SEIU announcing its drive for Obamacare and sending one of its own to beat up citizens at townhalls, to the mountains of cash that unions have given to Obama and his efforts, to the AFL-CIO’s drive for Obamacare, unions have suddenly become the president’s shock troops filling audiences at townhalls and beating the streets for his policies.
Members of the nation’s labor unions have made up a hefty segment of the audiences that flocked to town halls Mr. Obama held in the past week, and they have played an even larger role in a nationwide campaign for an insurance overhaul. Financially, and with boots on the ground, unions have become the backbone of the president’s effort.
Of course, this hadn’t happened until that last week. In previous weeks, Obamacare opponents had held sway over the news cycle by protesting Obama’s healthcare ideas at townhalls across the country. But now the unions have kicked into gear.
The Obama administration decried the opposition movement as a cynical, fake grass-roots campaign manufactured by the insurance industry to undermine his effort. To respond meant galvanizing a movement of his own. That began to take shape, at least visibly, when AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney sent an Aug. 6 memo to union officers across the country to mobilize.
It is amusing to me that the Obamaites have spent the last three weeks dismissing Obamacare opponents as but “organized efforts.” And to counter them what does the White House do but set up its own “organized efforts” and with the most organized of organized groups, unions.
While the left has no real proof of shadowy groups behind the anti-Obamacare folks to credit these supposedly organized Republicans to it is quite easy to pinpoint the organized efforts by Obama’s supporters. In fact, they pinpoint themselves with all sorts of emails and websites urging their membership to organize in support of the presidents socialist healthcare policies.
But, isn’t it one of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals to accuse your enemy of doing precisely what you are doing already?
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as NewsBusters.org, RightWingNews.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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