Tea Party Calls for Armed Counter Protesters at Atlanta Labor Rally

For an SEIU-sponsored labor rally scheduled for today in Atlanta to support public employees, Tea Party supporters sent out an alert via the right-wing website Freerepublic.com asking for armed protesters to show up in response. Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal Constitution broke the story:

SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, is holding rallies at state capitols around the country to demonstrate solidarity with public employee unions in Wisconsin. The union has scheduled an event at the Gold Dome in Atlanta at 4 pm today.

This has been posted on the far-right Free Republic site, under the headline:
"Atlanta Tea Party and Many Other Groups, Facing Off the SEIU Thugs Wednesday"

"Members of the various Tea Party, 9/12, and other freedom-oriented folks in the Atlanta area will be assembling in the vicinity of Georgia State Capitol this coming Wednesday afternoon at 4 pm. We'll be providing balance to the ravings of the passengers aboard the SEIU Thugbus, which is scheduled to vomit forth its stooges at that same place and time...

There appears to be some regulations re armed protests on the Washington Street side of the Capitol, so attendees are requested to be flexible in your attire. We will attempt (but no promises) to get some additional clarity regarding the situation and post it here prior to the show.

Take a stand.

As Bookman points out, "The advice that 1attendees are requested to be flexible in your attire' is apparently a suggestion to keep firearms concealed. The original author goes on to claim that 'the lefties are idiots who are very good at running their mouths... and also very good at keeping their distance from an armed American.'"

The call for armed protesters -- if permitted -- comes from a wing of the Tea Party movement known as Restore the Constitution. Although not officially identified as a hate group or member of the Patriot movement by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the "Restore the Constitution" group echoes the themes of the militia-oriented groups whose ranks have swelled since Obama became president.

 

Comments

[Vanessa Callahan]

10:26 AM on 02/28/2011

I hope there is plenty of protection for the protesters.

[okaywhat]

02:05 AM on 02/28/2011

It still blows my mind how the teabaggers are fighting against their own neighbors. Why are they not fighting against the big corps, wall street, big banks, big oil that is taking the middle class hostage??? Do they not feel these $$ bags need to sacrafice too and pay taxes???

[Rebecca Linares]

12:26 AM on 02/25/2011

It's ironic that a group that calls themselves freedom fighters would oppose a the publics right to assembly.

[Grracy]

07:40 PM on 02/24/2011

The 'teaparty' is listed by experts as a hate group. Therefore, of course they will try and intimidate others with guns, while baiting people to violence prior.

[alteredstory]

03:49 PM on 02/24/2011

It's funny - you run into something similar in the "field" of backpacking. Go to forums like backpacker.com, and you'll see at least one thread devoted to what people's favorite hiking gun is. Hang around for a little while, and someone would point out that a .22 wouldn't be much use in defending against a bear, to which the reply "I carry it for the animals on two legs."

Crime in the woods is MUCH lower than that in the city, and as a large, hairy guy who spends most of his time on two legs, I am MUCH more concerned about these people who're scared enough to carry irrevocably deadly force with them wherever they go. Someone that paranoid is much more likely to shoot first and ask questions later, and they justify their armaments by insisting that they're safer with the guns, and inventing things to be afraid of.

That's not a personality type that I want carrying a gun around me...

[miraclelurker]

12:39 PM on 02/24/2011

Check this out from the same site ....
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2679380/posts

[EllaMai]

09:52 AM on 02/24/2011

Guns: not just for personal security, they can also be used to intimidate your political foes. What a great culture in the U.S. of A!

[Tim Kiehl]

03:29 AM on 02/24/2011

Isaac Asimov said it best, "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" (Salvor Hardin quote from his "Foundation" series)

[CommodoreP]

06:10 PM on 02/23/2011

So are we still having arguments about the rhetoric on the right not really being responsible for violence? I thought we had the right in this country for peacable assaembly. The Tea Party calling protesters 'thugs' and telling everyone to bring a gun conjures the feeling that the 'thugs' are dangerous. So why does the Tea Party feel the need to get into close proximity to them with guns? All about intimidation and violence. I don't like you're ideas...and I have a gun.

How is that not a threat to democracy?

[Jane]

05:59 PM on 02/23/2011

Now the shooting begins? I guess this is what the NRA has been after all along.

[CommodoreP]

06:11 PM on 02/23/2011

They'd better be careful for what they wish for. A massacre by another crazy, only there at the request of the Tea Party and NRA would do more to push for gun control rather than prevent it.

If I were in the NRA I would be telling people there is no need to take a gun to a peaceful protest!