A “story” careening around the right-wing blogosphere this morning involves complaints from Rhode Island anti-choice activists that Occupy folk are systematically disrupting RTL rallies in that state and elsewhere.
What makes the “story” a bit questionable are some of the details provided by the RTLers about the disruption of their annual event at the Rhode Island State House:
The pro-life organization’s executive director, Barth E. Bracy, told LifeSiteNews.com that, near the end of the rally, the Occupiers “strategically fanned out with military precision.”
That’s when they “started showering condoms down on some of the girls from a Catholic high school.”
They gathered around speakers at the podium, shouting them down or otherwise jostling them and members of the audience.
Bracy, who finished only a quarter of his keynote address before being drowned out by chants and catcalls, said the Occupiers – who carried a large sign reading “Occupy Providence” and wore distinguishing arm bands – physically bumped several people. “They’re touching you. They’re swarming you,” he said.
The Providence chapter openly planned its actions on its Facebook page, Bracy said.
Bracy said he was disappointed when he tried to ask a man from the national Occupy Wall Street movement, who identified himself as “Dallas,” what opposing the right to life had to do with economics. “You can’t have a reasoned conversation with these people,” he said, “They simply try to taunt you. They’re smug, snarky, arrogant. You won’t get a straight answer.”
Dallas told Bracy he was on a 13-city national tour to teach Saul Alinsky tactics to local organizers.
fanned out with military precision…openly planned its action…man from the national Occupy Wall Street Movement….national tour to teach Saul Alinsky tactics.
Not too hard to see the picture the anti-choicers are trying to paint, particularly when you understand how much these people love Nazi analogies and how desperately they want to appear persecuted instead of opposed or ignored.
Without being there, it’s hard to say what really happened at their rally. The Providence Journal report on the incident doesn’t mention the condom showering or anything else other than Occupy folk chanting slogans, and the video of the event doesn’t show much disruption. There really isn’t any national Occupy organization, and the man supposedly from there traveling the country teaching “Saul Alinsky tactics” is probably either some self-appointed Johnny Appleseed or a figment of someone’s imagination (truth is about the only people who sit around reading Alinsky are the wingnuts who believe he is Obama’s messiah).
From what little I know about “Alinsky tactics,” I’d say the Rhode Island anti-choice leaders, with their flair for drama, are the only practitioners of them in this story. But in some circles, it will add to the increasingly distorted view of the Occupy movement as a combination of every right-wing nightmare.
