The Left won’t admit this openly, but the majority of the protesters who were in St. Louis are paid with your tax dollars.
I have never seen such a hodgepodge of Leftist “activists,” activated by taxpayer dollars.
Most of these youths are simply bands of nomads going from city to city to act like there is a movement afoot. I talked to some who admitted being on the payroll, however they wouldn’t say by whom.
Once the protest was breaking up, it was evident how segmented the groups were: no single purpose.
I videotaped (will post later) one young man from Chicago who had been to St. Louis three times to protests, and he said he was a humanist who was not here to protest Michael Brown’s death, but to protest capitalism. I got the impression he just liked getting away from Chicago. That’s certainly a long way to travel to protest the death of black teens, when you consider how many of them die in Chicago each year. He said there were 12 black teens killed by cops in Chicago, though I haven’t tried to verify that. I do know there have been significantly more deaths of black teens by other black teens.
And of course there were SEIU members present. It became clear as you watched the various groups convene, that they were not a cohesive group with a single purpose. The signs were varied, yet monolithic within groups. For a lot of beatniks, the signs sure seemed professional.
I overheard a conversation where one group leader complained at the police presence in one location, and admitted he thought the cops would overreact. He was surprised the cops seemed disinterested, and did nothing to intimidate them or provoke them.
The longer I was at the event and the more people I talked to, it became evident that most of these people had no investment in the death of Michael Brown or even any beef with the cops. This is media-genned outrage and simply a desperate ploy by the Left to get out the vote.
