Watch out! Dude in the Suit's got a picketsign!

left: Dick Armey: sans molotov
Yesterday the San Francisco Rapid Transit drivers went to work and several hundred thousand commuters breathed a sigh of relief. A couple of young lads at the local coffee shop, who know me, asked me if I would have supported their strike. "Most definitely,' I told them. They were a bit shocked at my boldness and a bit relieved too. "We would have too!" they almost sheepishly admitted, one adding, "look at how inflation has killed the minimum wage" (a reference to the wage cut and four year freeze the train drivers were offered - and may have got.)
The San Francisco Chronicle has had its own campaign against the workers, regularly bashing them. And today they boasted that their pressure and the hundreds who went on line to complain at their website helped convince the drivers not to strike. Anybody can send 10 emails to the Chronicle. My feeling was people weren't that mad at the prospect of a strike. One fool I know FaceBooked a status update complaining about strikers and of his 131 friends, no-one sent his status update a "like." So much for online organizing against union workers.
Saturday's Financial Times shared a leaked document that showed how the PetroChemical industry was poised to organize its own "grassroots" protest movement on politicians against climate change legislation. Apparently many of the Energy companies were not on board, because, I imagine, they have investments in renewable energy that they're hoping to get subsidized by the Federal Government. Point being, this is another situation where the corporations can't get people out to protest, so they hire them.
This summer's Town Hall protests by Freedom Works and the Tea Party Patriots are somewhat similar to the current trend of manufactured protest. Who was behind them? The drug companies, the insurance companies?
Bristol Myers Squibb, the multi-billion Pharm company pays for the services of DLA Piper the Washington lobbyists who also "own" Dick Armey. Dick Armey is the establishmentest of the most established. He was the Republican Majority leader during the Clinton era. He is monetarily vastly overweight, but like all ex-politicians he is up for hire at the right price. And he heads Freedom Works. He loves the tactics of the 1960's anarchist, Saul Alinsky, he admitted to the Financial Times on Monday. Of course, he said he doesn't recommend to his people shouting down others.
There is a saying that Nature abhors a Vacuum. If we're not out there organizing and protesting, then Corporate America will organize their own paid-for protests. The leaked memo on Saturday is a sign that this is what they do. They're just defending their interests. We need to defend ours.