Shocker: Some “Occupy” Protesters Being Paid
Rob Port • October 7, 2011
Unions regularly pay non-union people to picket for them, which is something I’ve always found kind of odd. If the unions are passionate about their issues, why don’t the workers protest themselves? And it’s a bit misleading. When most of us see protesters we assume that they’re people who believe in the slogans they’re chanting and writing on signs, not people who are only carrying the signs and chanting the slogans because they’re getting paid.
It’s a sort of astroturfing. Political operatives paying to create the appearance of grassroots activism in the absence of actual grassroots activism.
Now it appears as though some of the same thing has been going on at the “Occupy” protests. At least in one instance, anyway, but it’s an egregious one. Apparently the Hispanic protesters carrying the signs couldn’t even read the signs they were carrying.
A liberal organizer told the Daily Caller on Thursday afternoon that he paid some Hispanics to attend “Occupy DC” protests happening in the nation’s capital. …
One group of about ten Hispanic protesters marched behind a Caucasian individual from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting rent control in Washington, D.C.
Asked why they were there, some Hispanic protesters holding up English protest signs could not articulate what their signs said.
Interviewed in Spanish, the protesters told conflicting stories about how their group was organized. Some said it was organized at their church, and that they were there as volunteers. Others, however, referred to the man from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition — the only Caucasian in the group — as their “boss.”
TheDC asked that organizer whether he was paying the group to attend the protest, and he conceded that some protesters “aren’t” volunteers.
I might feel differently about these protesters getting paid if they at least knew why it was they were protesting.
Of course, I’m not even very sure that the protesters at these events who aren’t getting paid know why they’re protesting beyond some vague sense of anger at “corporations” and “the rich,” etc., etc.
