Republican State Senator Bob Hedlund commented on the Occupy Wall Street protests on his radio show thusly:
“Making your voice heard is only meaningful if the voice says something intelligent and a lot of these kids don’t know why they’re protesting,” Hedlund said during his radio show this week on WATD-FM.
Hedlund said his view of the protesters was informed by a video put together by Adam Kokesh, an unsuccessful candidate for Congress that Hedlund described as a “media figure” who had put together a documentary. “It was horrifying how ignorant some of these kids that are out protesting are,” Hedlund said.
Now, I don’t know anything about this Adam Kokesh fellow, but I’m guessing he’s not super sympathetic to the protesters. And I’m also guessing that it would be pretty darn easy to put together a selection of quotes from, say, tea partiers that would be deeply embarrassing. Oh gosh, look – a bunch of people have already done that. So unless Senator Hedlund thinks videos like those are a fair representation of what the tea party is about, maybe he should be a bit more circumspect.
Come on, Senator. If you want to find out why the protesters are doing what they’re doing, why don’t you go down to Dewey Square and ask them. Don’t rely on some “media figure,” who probably has an agenda, to do your work for you. Otherwise, someone might say that you were horrifyingly ignorant of what the protests are actually about.
chrismatth says
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dylNoeOiJE
David says
I hadn’t seen that one. Here’s an embed, to save you a trip to YouTube.
chrismatth says
If only we had the video of Hedlund INTRODUCING BREITBART last month…
wakeupamerica says
I think this is the video Hedlund is talking about. It seems that some of these people really don’t know what they’re talking about.
wakeupamerica says
bobhedlund says
David, Glad I could provide a diversion from Scott Brown diaries and comments for you if only briefly. No, I do not form an opinion solely from video snippets (unlike some posters on this site evidently). Nor did I speak in a blanket fashion.
How do you know I have not visited the protest site? In fact I have. I actually agreed with many of the sentiments expressed on signs there, like; Audit the Fed (we should), End corporate bail outs (agreed- no exceptions), End corporate dictators (ok, i dont care for dictators) And if you listen to my show rather than snippets from State House News Service you know I am down with the anti war signage that i saw. I also saw some nonsensical signs. The Kokesh video was interesting and some of his subjects did come off ignorant. Ok glad I could clear that up for you, now we can go back to some real issues now like how Senate candidates paid for college.
David says
Very glad to hear that you’ve been to visit the protests, and that you agree with some of what the protesters have to say. I hope you’ll make that point on your radio show. I confess I did rely on the State House News report rather than digging around for the audio of your show – I have generally found SHNS to do reliable reporting. Perhaps you should take your objection to them?
As for “real issues like how Senate candidates paid for college,” if you didn’t like that question you should direct your complaint to Scott Conway, the Republican activist and head of the Melrose Republican City Committee, who asked the question. I imagine you have his contact info, but if not, I’ll happily pass it along.
Anyway, speaking of videos, here is an excellent one by Garrett Quinn and SHNS’s Mike Deehan which I suspect is a better representation of Occupy Boston than the one you saw. Thanks for stopping by – I hope we’ll see more of you!