To celebrate MLK Day a group of local leftists attacked the “hateful” tea party movement.
P/Oed Patriot reported on these latest local efforts to bash the tea party.
Image: From left to right, Lew Moye, Gerald Feldhaus, Yvette Anyango, Don Giljum, Willie L. Baker, Jr. Courtesy Mark Esters CWA 6355/PW
The Communist People’s World reported on the event.
Over 200 CBTU members, and their friends and allies, attended the 33rd Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Human Rights Award Banquet here on Jan. 17. The awardees were Don Giljum, business manager of International Union of Operating Engineers Local 148; Gerald T. Feldhaus, executive secretary-treasurer of the St. Louis Building and Construction Trades Council and Yvette Anyongo Goods, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1.
Giljum called Dr. King “the organizer of organizers,” adding, “the work of social justice is up to us.”
…The keynote speaker was Willie Baker, retired vice president of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Baker said, “Ordinary people doing extraordinary things – that’s what makes the difference. That’s Dr. King’s legacy.”
St. Louis board of aldermen president Lewis Reed summed up the event when he said “the growth of the tea party is driven by hate. They are trying to turn our country around. However, we won’t go back. We have to get out every day and fight.”
“Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about more than a dream,” Baker added. “. He talked about making that dream come true. He talked about making America better.”
A central theme throughout Baker’s speech was the relationship between words and policy. Baker said “words matter; policy matters more.”
“Don’t get side-tracked by verbiage. Concentrate on policy,” Baker added.
He said tea party rhetoric was dangerous because of its “political philosophy based on words of hate.” However, he continued, it is their political agenda we should really be worried about. “America would not be the America we know today. It would not be the America Dr. King dreamed of,” if the tea party gets its way.
