Stop Me Before I Vote Again

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/1/27/183023/081

Okay. That is not really accurate. There were many more people than 'tens of thousands'. I can tell this by comparing the crowd to a Michigan football game. Michigan alum ejmw concurs with my estimate of well over the sellout crowd at Ann Arbor.

We may have seen an early apex; we may have seen merely the beginning. The youth mod department needs to kick in fiercely, and if the raw-to-cooked ratio in the Mall yesterday was higher on raw, we may see a serious size surge at the next goaround.

I think we'll need to galvanize with a to-do while there -- maybe a real "occupation" of the mall this spring. March in March at the time of the Congress votes on Iraq funds. And how's about a homecoming beltway encampment: we ain't leaving Peace-lager 07 (pop. 1 million) till our kids over there are back here.

Noting the obvious -- amazing how seldom people bother to do that:

At left is Andy Stern, prez of the Service Employees International Union, and he's a menace to America's entire underpaid wage force.

Despite his multimillion-dollar self-promotion campaign, everyone inside the labor movement knows Mr Purple Wave -- even on his best day of the month -- is an egomaniac and slippery power freak.

And summed up as a wage-class leader -- well, ask Sal Rosselli, president of United Healthcare Workers West, a 65-000-member, California-dreamin' chunk of Stern's outfit:

"If SEIU goes in the direction that Stern is currently leading it, it will become a business union movement, a service-type organization, as opposed to where were coming from. We want to build a real movement of workers, a real social movement union, for workers, by workers, where workers are encouraged and trained to be decision-making leaders."

So is Sal fightin' back? You bet. First he resigned from Andy's national "executive committee," and now "meetings of rank-and-file leaders... are starting to happen." At the union's national convention this May, Rosselli plans on "checking the authority of the president with member democracy."

Perhaps the Brits could send a bit of this rage across to us, as they gave us the gift of the Beatles and Stones... although a comparison to The Who or Slade might be more appropriate.

Oh, yeah, c'mon feel tha noize, 'cause mama, weer all crazee now:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/23/police-civil-unrest-recession

Police are preparing for a "summer of rage" as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions, the Guardian has learned.

Britain's most senior police officer with responsibility for public order raised the spectre of a return of the riots of the 1980s, with people who have lost their jobs, homes or savings becoming "footsoldiers" in a wave of potentially violent mass protests.

Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan police's public order branch, told the Guardian that middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year.

He said that banks, particularly those that still pay large bonuses despite receiving billions in taxpayer money, had become "viable targets". So too had the headquarters of multinational companies and other financial institutions in the City which are being blamed for the financial crisis....

Hartshorn said he also expected large-scale demonstrations this year on environmental issues, with hardcore green activists "joining forces" with middle-class campaigners over issues such as airport expansion at Heathrow and Stansted. With the prospect of angry demonstrations against the economy, that could open the door to powerful coalitions.

"All you've got to do then is link in with the environmentalists, and look at the oil companies. They're seen to be turning over billions of pounds profit in issues that are seen to be against the environment."