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Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Labor Pains In Hometown Grow Louder Against Paul Ryan

JG Excerpt:
JANESVILLE — At Monday's Labor Day parade through downtown Janesville, people cheered and applauded for Janesville native and 1st District Republican Congressman Paul Ryan.

In the same article from the Janesville Gazette they wrote, "When a small group of labor supporters went by holding "Recall Scott Walker" signs, however, the cheers turned to whoops, and the applause got louder." Let's put it this way, despite Janesville being Congressman Paul Ryan's hometown, the overall tone from the labor crowd toward him was only slightly less "enthusiastic" to that shown towards Scott Walker.

Due to an embarrassing technical difficulty at the worst possible time, I do not have photos or video proof. But I walked about half the route in step behind Paul Ryan and heard plenty of boos and jeers for him and saw individual spectators holding anti-Ryan signs along the Main Street parade route. I also noticed significant areas of spectators that did not acknowledge him at all, almost as if they were respectfully giving him the cold-shoulder when he passed by. Remember this is Ryan's hometown and many of these folks know each other. So did “people cheer and applaud him?” Sure, he had pockets of diehard supporters along the route, but to imply he was widely cheered is blatantly false. The Gazette at least acknowledged that their report was covering only a city block of the parade. The parade stretched for a mile.

Speaking of Ryan, he was pushing a baby stroller during the event, which I think shows extremely poor judgment on his part if he believes in his own fearmongering rhetoric. Remember, Ryan referred to the labor protests in Madison earlier in the year as riots similar to those going on in Cairo, Egypt at the time, and a few years ago smeared union members as violent thugs similar to Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party. So why would he subject his young children to that potential for harm if that's what he really thinks of labor? Or is he just a 24/7 lying hyper-ventilator who can't pass up an opportunity to demagogue those who disagree with him at every chance he gets?

Related reading: Democurmudgeon - Ryan calls protesting citizens, "the new norm." Ah, I think they're trying to tell you something Paul?

4 comments:

Dave said...

Hey RNR,

The reason "Lyin" Paul Ryan (R-Lead Poisoning) pushed a stroller in the parade is the same reason Sean "Puffy" Duffy (R-Uncle Dad) had his kids in the Wausau Labor Day parade was to insulate them from protesters.

Once again, the repugs are hoping to protect themselves against potentially-embarrassing public protests by banking on the good manners of Wisconsinites. If it didn't work to suppress protesters, then the repugs could have squawked about how the "thugs" attacked their families, etc..

How to counter this superficial yet effective tactic? Turn protest signs into kids toys with messages. How cool would it be to have hundreds of parade spectators wearing big red noses as an anti-worker politician slithers by in their decked out limos? Or the same group wearing fake arrows on their heads? Or even people holding fishing poles using a dollar bill as bait for the GOP fish?

The possibilities are endless and possibly very media friendly.

Anonymous said...

The Janesville Gazette is a NEOCON rag and I have no hope for fair and balanced reporting from that newspaper.

Anonymous said...

It's more likely the Gazette did cover the entire parade but in order to write that people cheered and applauded Ryan, they had to throw out 90% of their notes.

Anonymous said...

Paul Ryan is a traitor to the workers union members and neighbors who put him in his elected position.The Gazette is not a "news" paper it is a propaganda rag.I am consistently disappointed by them.

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