Over the past two days, BigGovernment.com has been exposing the identities of members of IBEW Local 357 who taunted, harassed, intimidated and threw eggs at peaceful Tea Party protestors in Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nevada last weekend. This could signal in important turning point in citizen journalism and the use of the internet and social media to reveal the truth about an important dynamic in American Politics.
These reports are relevant for two important reasons:
First, they highlight the incredible lack of evidence the mass media had when they loudly and unabashedly repeated the claim that Tea Party activists in Washington, D.C., hurled racial epithets at members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
When the CBC marched down the middle of the protests on the day of the health care vote in the House of Representatives, there were hundreds and hundreds of hand-held cameras and cell phones that recorded the event. Here we are, ten days after the event and not one person has produced a video or audio recording proving anyone used a racial epithet.
But, within days of the egg-throwing incident, we have seen video showing:
- An egg whizzing by Andre Breitbart’s face.
- The man holding the egg.
- The union protesters taunting and intimidating Breitbart and his fellow conservative activists.
- Protesters using a typical “Alinsky” tactic of accusing their targets of doing the exact thing they do. In this case, throwing an egg and then telling police that Breitbart had thrown it.
And, once BigGovernment.com released the footage, multitudes of readers have come forward identifying the people in the videos and providing further evidence of similar activities involving these agitators in the past.
Isn’t it a stark contrast? The mass-media proclaims and repeats the un-proven assertion that racial epithets were hurled at the CBC and produce no video to back-up the claim, and at the same time, the incidents in Searchlight are detailed, documented, proven and the identities of the perpetrators are easily acquired due to nothing more than an open and free flow of information between a news outlet (Big Government) and the public.
The second reason this is an important development in the use of new media is that for too long, these protestors and agitators have been able to show up and scream and shout the other side into silence. The intimidation techniques were perfected by the now-defunct and disgraced ACORN, and were also used most effectively by SEIU thugs last summer during town hall meetings over ObamaCare.
Now, we have a civilian army of citizen journalists armed not with guns, but with two mightier weapons: Digital cameras and the truth. Whenever these events occur, the videos will be loaded up to YouTube within minutes of their occurrence and displayed on the internet. Very soon, more information will come to light about the intimidating thugs who have been directed to show up and harass ordinary citizens who are voicing their concerns over the direction of their country. Knowing that this might happen, maybe “Joey” and “Paulie” from the Local might think twice about following the herd and shouting down their neighbors.
Is this intimidation? Perhaps. I suggest that the new ethical standard at play here is: “When they stop bullying, taunting and intimidating us, then there will be no reason to intimidate them back.”
Journalism purists might be appalled by this new approach to revealing the truth behind the Democratic Party’s bought and paid for union activists. But, before they start condemning the “outing” of these people who seem to relish their role as “tough guys” bent on scaring the other side into submission, my elite friends in the media should stop and ask themselves this:
Why do we know so much about “Joe the Plumber”? Why was his personal information illegally made available to the press and why did the pure and ethical elite media run stories on his personal life? And, what did he do to deserve it?