Some videos have surfaced that are an interesting coda to my two previous diaries about Paul Ryan's pay-per-view Rotary Luncheon held last week in Greenfield, WI - a near suburb of Milwaukee.
The first installment of this series, "Paul Ryan Takes a Cheap Shot at an Elderly Man" can be read here.
The second, "Arrests At Ryan's Rotary Luncheon," with an interview with Tom Nielsen, a 71 year old Danish-American retired union plumber who was arrested can be read here.
Thank you for your ongoing interest in this story!
UPDATE 3: Video of Paul Ryan as he leaves the event.
Two women's voices intermingled:
Seriously, arresting people! You take 'em away in the squad cars before you get in? Is that really necessary? Shame! Shame! Really, arresting people, huh? Arresting people, at a luncheon! You guys should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame! Out of work workers… Shame!
Ooh, what an asshole! Smiling like that!
UPDATE 4: The arrested get loaded into the waiting wagons.
Two women try to converse with arrested demonstrators:
Handcuffed!? [inaudible] What!? … well, my car's over there, so…. Oh, my God! How many of you are in the truck? Okay, thank you. … can you get their handcuffs?… Yeah, he showed me the handcuffs. Todd, is there just two of you? Just two? (I'm being told that I can't yell.)
There were over 30 policemen called to the event, and two wagons waiting out back. There was a rally outside consisting of about 100 protesters asking Ryan "Where are the jobs?" and 50 pro-Ryan counter protesters called out by Americans For Prosperity. It was peaceful and civil. Inside, people in disagreement - who had paid for their place at the table - did interrupt loudly to contradict Ryan's assertions about the failing trajectory of "entitlements." Many people were ejected from the luncheon, and three were arrested.
As Tom Nielsen, the 71 year old retired plumber who was forced to the ground, said in a phone interview: "There were two paddy wagons on deck … this shows that they anticipated something. We were not trying to do this, and they manipulated it to become about arrests."
The local rightwing blogs, mirrored somewhat by local news, asserted claims such as the following: "They were so out of control when Congressman Paul Ryan was addressing the Whitnall Park Rotary Club at a luncheon that over 40 policemen were called to manage the protesters." and "Once again, the Leftists exhibit their lack of civility and thuggishness." (from "Freedom Eden") It is worth noting that the fact of an outsized police response becomes the proof of the Left's potential towards violence. This violent potential is being amplified in the rhetoric of local mainstream news. There seems a growing eagerness for fury that can in turn justify a swift and furious response.
There wasn't anything "out of control" at any part of the event except for speaking up out of turn. Yet, if "there is no turn to speak" is "speaking out of turn" justified in a democracy? This seems a legitimate question, and needs to be put forward fairly to both rightist and leftist activists in a time of rapidly intensifying unrest.
One could ask Ryan's office "why such anticipatory aggression?" regarding the out-scaling of police presence, though this is, alas, the other side of Ryan's claim of "the new normal" and the answer is perhaps self-evident.
We are concurrently in a protest state and in a police state, and the two will always be in tight tension.
Be active. Be careful. Be civil. Be peaceful.... But be heard!