Anger and loathing in Boston

Today in Boston various union groups staged a rally in solidarity with the Teachers of Wisconsin at the State house.  The unions urged their members to show up for speeches and to show the flag.

At the same time several Tea Party groups and local radio host Michael Graham also turned up to support Scott Walker and the republicans in the state. 

Initially the Union groups remained on the statehouse side of the street while the tea party groups stood at the Shaw memorial.  Eventually groups of Union men rushed across the street using their signs to cover-up the tea party signs from view.

Although the tea party group was dwarfed by the union folk (I would estimate that about 2000-2200 people were in the area 80% or more union) the presence of the tea party groups simply incensed them.  It was not uncommon for union folk to attempt to interfere with tea party interviews while the reverse was not true.

The basic union argument was that Wisconsin was trying to bust unions.  A former nonunion ironworker who now was in the union talked about how he found himself protected by the solidarity and the contracts of the union and made a strong case for his side.

On the other side a gentleman from the former Soviet Union equated the union side to the old communist apparatchiks of his youth where the benefits were actually shared by a few.

As the day progressed the Union forces got more and more agitated particularly when Radio Host Graham handed out fake “doctor of love” notes parodying the events of Wisconsin.  His presence seemed to drive the union people wild, even stranger was the reaction to State Rep Rich Bastien (R Gardner) who mingled with the crowd to try to hear them out but was greeted by Nazi salutes by a self-proclaimed Jewish woman in between vulgar epithets.  In the final irony, when the protest was over the Union groups left the area in front of the state house a mess and a tea party member stayed to clean it up.

With national polls and time favoring the republicans the various protests may turn out to be the last gasp of a movement struggling for survival, but no matter the result it seems the unions are determined not to go quietly, but they will go angrily.