Last weekend the state's largest union coalition used whatever means possible to energize its members, including linking public workers' struggles to those of Hurricane Katrina victims and making libelous claims that local conservative politicians, activists and pundits are to blame for the current economic crisis.
Colorado WINS, a newly formed union coalition, held its kickoff convention in Denver on Oct. 3 and 4 to elect new leadership. At the start of the convention, participants were shown a video that compared the suffering of victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Minneapolis bridge collapse to the hardships of Colorado's public workers.
After showing heart-tugging stock news footage of the disasters, both of which occurred far outside of Colorado's border, a slide appears on the video declaring "Coloradans understand tragedy."
The video presentation also slanders KOA talk show host Mike Rosen, Independence Institute President Jon Caldara, former Gov. Bill Owens, and state Rep. Doug Bruce, accusing them of waging “a 30-year attack on public services and public employees.” It then immediately lays blame on the Bruce-led Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, a constitutional amendment requiring a vote of the people before taxes can be raised. The video also suggests that these libertarian-leaning activists are partly to blame for the ongoing sub-prime financial crisis.
“If we’re not prepared, who will take care of us?” the video asked. The government, that's who.
An old-time news reel of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal was then shown, announcing his Works Progress Administration Program. The program started the largest of all the New Deal agencies and was created by Roosevelt through a presidential order in 1935. Allowing the federal government to employ millions, the program was abolished by Congress in 1943 after the breakout of World War II.
We here at Face the State would’ve liked to interview convention participants about their opinions on the video, but as we've noted, the "all-inclusive" union organization held a very exclusive convention.