Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Tea Party has moved into its next phase, opposition to immigration reform legislation soon to be introduced in the Congress. This past weekend, the nativist right-wingers at ALIPAC and the National Policy Institute organized a series of "Tea Parties Against Amnesty.
Things didn't go quite as the teabaggers planned at their rally at the state capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota. Tea partiers punk’d into supporting removal of white people from US | Raw Story
A crowd of some 40 people showed up to the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol on Saturday to protest proposed reform of US immigration law… as well as 30 pro-immigration reform counter-protesters, according to FightBackNews in Minneapolis.
One of those protesters, going by the alias "Robert Erickson," got a speaking spot at the rally and used it to argue for the eviction of all descendants of European immigrants — in other words, that contingent of white Americans who these days see themselves as "real" Americans.
But some of the demonstrators didn't seem to notice that the angry speech was targeted at them.
"In Minneapolis where I'm from, we have a huge immigrant population that has been causing a number of problems," Erickson began. "With the economy in recession and so many people laid off and unable to find work, immigrants should not be competing for the few jobs that are open. It's just not fair to the folks who have a claim to this country and have a right to be here."
That was met with with applause, but soon it became clear that "Erickson" had a different notion from the Tea-partiers as to who actually has "a claim to this country."
"Let's send these European immigrants back where they came from," he said to wild cheers. "We need to send every one of them back home. … They stole this land through genocide and ethnic cleansing."
Even after that comment, some of the anti-immigration protesters didn't seem to notice that "Erickson" was standing up for the right of Native Americans to reclaim their land from the Caucasian population — even though, as FightBackNews noted, the pro-immigration reform crowd had joined in the cheering.
"Erickson" walked off the stage leading the crowd in a loud chant of "Columbus go home! Columbus go home!"
The following video was filmed Saturday, November 14, 2009, and uploaded to YouTube by FightBackNews.
Crooksandliars.com has what happened next Teabaggers punk'd by anti-racists who get them to cheer rant against European-American immigrants
Not surprisingly, the organizers were pissed. Sally Jo Sorensen at BlueStemPrairie was there to watch, and she reported that some of the nativists started getting violent:
Most of the MINN-SIR supporters were slow to catch the satire, and so the cheering from that side of the crowd took a while to subside. As they realized they'd been punked, they stood in a cold, stunned silence, while the 30 or so counter-protesters urged Columbus to go home.
Unfortunately, some of the pro-MINN-SIR audience made up for what they lacked in humor through the use of violence. Both Danielson and I saw middle-aged men attack young protesters, knocking one off a bike before he started throwing punches at the young man.
Just as shocking was the reaction of the state police working the rally, who pushed back those being attacked, rather than those attacking the counter protesters.
Neither of us have ever witnessed violence at rallies and events we've attended in the past. The attacks formed a sharp counterpoint to Hendrycks' shrieked claims from the podium that MINN-SIR "patriots" had "respect" while the young protesters were rude.
I've been warning for awhile that there is a violent element already involved in the immigration debate, and when they become empowered by the "tea party" types, it's going to get ugly. Looks like the debate hasn't even started yet, and it already is.
If you thought the town-hall teabaggers went nuts over health-care reform, just wait.