The bus tour was arranged by a quasi-socialist organization called Connecticut Working Families, a group with deep ties to the notorious ACORN group, the bogeyman of the Fox News bitter-cracker mob. That was all the plutocrats had to hear: a busload of commies and ACORN panthers were heading into their neighborhood, like Mugabe’s goons, to burn down their mansions. For about 36 tense hours, suburban-New York’s plutocrats felt like the Byzantine Christians in 1453, with the barbarians just hours away from slaughtering and raping anything that moved in Fairfield, Connecticut. In a panic, nine AIG execs announced that they were handing back their million-dollar bonuses to the American taxpayers. It was incredible. For the first time in living memory, “the people” were starting to win. They had the power to instill fear and claw back some of their wealth.
And all because of the Magic Class-War Bus and its Angry Pranksters. It wasn’t easy getting a seat on the bus, and if I hadn’t tracked down the cell phone number for Joe Dinkin, the communications director for the Connecticut Working Families Party which organized the bus tour, I probably wouldn’t have made it on board. “I’ve been getting all kinds of death threats and crazy calls today!” Dinkin told me, laughing nervously. “Rush Limbaugh attacked us on his show today, and that got all his crazy fans after me. They posted my cell phone number on Limbaugh’s site, and ever since then it’s just been crazy, the things these people said to me on the phone. Death threats… Man, the hatred in their voices is just crazy!”
Dinkin was laughing, but I don’t think he knew just how ferocious a monster he’d pissed off with his bus tour idea.
The next morning, I drove out to the AIG Bus Tour meeting point, which was the local ACORN office in the depressed center of Bridgeport, Connecticut–one of those decaying mid-sized cities that America quietly abandoned a few decades ago. By the time I arrived that morning, the parking lot next to the Domino’s pizza outlet was already crawling with media figures: reporters, cameramen and TV semi-celebrities. There was no way we’d all fit. So when the chartered bus pulled up across the street from the Domino’s outlet, the reporters bum-rushed it like Who concert fans.
It was an aggressively ugly bus: a belching, decrepit hulk with dented corrugated aluminum siding. The perfect Country Club Assault Vehicle for terrorizing the upper-class plutocrats we were going to visit.
Poor Joe Dinkin was put in charge of the seating arrangement — the minute he stepped off the bus, the reporters nearly tore him limb from limb. He dragged himself away from the bus door and down the street; the reporters clung to him like lions pulling down a struggling wildebeest. Joe tried to impose order as the reporters yelled out their organizations and why they had to be on the bus: New York Times, CNN, New York Post, NBC. Poor Joe trembled so badly that all he could manage was to jot down a few chicken scratches on a piece of paper. He quickly lost control, as the reporters turned back to the bus and tried storming it again. Chaos ensued, and eventually the organizers realized that it was between the protesters being on the bus, or the media being on the bus. So one by one, they started pulling protesters off the bus to make room for the media. Eventually we — the media types — we all got our seats.
Read more: ACORN, AIG, Class War, Mark Ames, Class War For Idiots
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39 Comments
Add your own1. misterfricative | April 28th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
‘I’ve been pushed around long enough. This is it. This is your moment, Arthur Pewty.’ — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrTBlV-FGbc
2. Tom | April 28th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Pathetic. Remember those fellas in the UK who simply put a brick through that Bank of Scotland executive’s window and told him he was going to die? If this mob had done the same thing without telling the media, you’d have gotten all your bonuses back.
3. ben housouer | April 28th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
where are my balls…..why didn’t I do something, show up, put my name out there and take a stand? What about the rest of you?
4. FREE BLAGO | April 28th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Why didn’t you go big then? It’s all on two black activists?
5. az | April 28th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
No one wants to be the one inciting the riot, because that’s the one person they will target first. That I think is the problem. Every single American (well figuratively speaking) is capable of violence, but they are seemingly incapable of making everyone else be on board with that. However, as being the one person everything will be pinned on is a very difficult job, they’d rather be martyrs for nothing.
That’s my opinion at least, from anti-war demonstrations where cops had no real purpose but escalating tension. Such a perspective would also explain a lot of the asocial motivations of postal shootings, that being Nat Turner takes a different kind of courage.
6. az | April 28th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
And by being the “Nat Turner” I mean (figuratively) being able to stand before the cameras and microphones and the courts and tell them what you did, why you did it, and why you won’t regret getting locked away for it. Because people like that are who the plutocrats really fear, not the “little people” as your article here just showed.
7. ha ha | April 28th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
I’m glad your niggers got schooled. Class war is bullshit anyhow. If the government wasn’t so huge and commie most of these guys would be much richer than they are now. They aren’t robbing you, you’re robbing them.
8. John Christy | April 28th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Great article. This is what will keep Exile in business
9. Baked Dr. Luny | April 28th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
The class war is over and the elite won, again. Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb. The media establishment in this country controlls public opinion better even than state-controlled media. The only people who contribute to the political discourse on a national level are elites. Democrat or Republican there are a large number of issues that the parties agree on, even if a majority of Americans don’t.
10. it's true | April 28th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
We’re robbing them? I suppose you’re planning to “go Galt” any day now. Yes, we are robbing the rich in this country aren’t we? without all the factory workers, farmers, and maintenance people, this world of ours *yours* would just be a paradise wouldn’t it?
AHEM – there is enough in this world for everyone to meet their basic needs for food, housing, medical care, and education for children, and yet, many, many people do not have these things because of these users at the very top of society who don’t even produce anything. All they do is move money made by other people around and invent fancy terms to make what they do seem important. THEY are the parasites. I’d love to see all the Plutocrats and their Limbaugh-loving brainwashed goons run off to an island somewhere where they can fantasize about ultimate individual freedom (while producing nothing) until they starve to death.
“He who doesn’t work doesn’t eat”
11. Baked Dr. Luny | April 28th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
By the way, this was no battle. This was not an organic expression of class rage. This was a media photo op organized by a group within the political mainstream. No one was going to get themselves arrested.
You really missed an opportunity here Ames, you could have gotten yourself tackled by that ninja bitch on national television and snagged a brief cameo on a cable news network or at least a newspaper interview or something. Books don’t sell themselves you know.
12. booltox | April 28th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
There is something about rich guys in America that makes everybody petrified. The only thing they we don’t allow them to do is to gloat. Its the closest thing to the tell-tale monologue of the bad guys that we are trained to look out for.
13. Leviaman | April 29th, 2009 at 4:02 am
Just set his lawn on fire.
14. tom | April 29th, 2009 at 4:28 am
Why do I fear the class war, Ames?
15. Jasen Comstock | April 29th, 2009 at 4:53 am
Well? What did you expect to happen?
16. Tommy Jefferson | April 29th, 2009 at 6:03 am
The fascist AIG pigs swat the ACORN commie pigs away from their prized suckling position Big Mommy government’s teat.
Pathetic.
17. LotoQuebecResults | April 29th, 2009 at 6:33 am
I saw this article on playboy!!
18. Jared | April 29th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Anyone else planning on moving to Canada? Seriously, there is no hope here in the States. Hell, I would even immigrate to Israel if it weren’t for the being Jewish requirement. Isn’t 80 percent of the land in Israel owned by the government? One can only lease land from the government.
Yeah, in the U.S. we can’t even get the Employee Free Choice Act to pass. Fuck this place.
19. rick | April 29th, 2009 at 8:56 am
This is gold
20. Carlito | April 29th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I think this here is a case of the blind leading the blind. How could this ever even be a class war? These people got upset about AIG bonuses, because the politicians told them to become upset about them, to get the heat off of them. They are being played and controlled by the very elite they are supposedly up in arms against. The bonuses have been a big diversion from the get-go.
The culprits at the root are the politicians and the buerocrats who gave AIG all that money. Call it a class war, when you assemble a mob to go after them in addition to the executives, but until then its just stoogery and a waste of time wether somebody chickens out or not.
It`s time people looked the truth in the eye and saw that Obama is an enabler of the oligarchs, not their victim.
21. Cal | April 29th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
A couple dozen imported Natbols would have done the job. All they needed was a dozen teenagers running rampant over the guys lawn chased by a couple of cops, one goon, and one hot Dom bitch. A few broken windows, spray painted graffiti, etc and the whole country would be petrified by the televized images of “anarchy”. Problem is, Americans by and large have zero balls. They can’t risk a criminal record, God forbid – that’s the end. Just compare U.S. labor strikes to Korea, as an example – in Korea the strikers face off with cops with homemade flamethrowers. Do that in America and you get shot real quick. The difference is in America the bums have the means to shot back, but they never will.
22. geo8rge | April 29th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Once again Ames you miss the point. It is not the Bourgeoisie that is running the show. It is the military industrial complex, and it’s mirror the welfare state. Complaining about the bourgeoisie is like a medieval peasant complaining about that peasant chick that sleeps with his royale whatever and doesn’t have to do chores anymore. We are not living in Marx’s world of the 1860s, it is more like the world of 1913 where guys like Henry Ford are completely disregarded as the world marched to war.
As to ACORN and the NY familly party, both have no idea what they are doing and are easily co-opted to injure their own constituents.
23. 1of6billionSheeple | April 29th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
The problem is too many Americans live in suburbia. They get easily frightened by the sight “chaos and riots” of a few broken windows and graffitti in the houses of the AIG ceo’s. They just watch the images on television and get frieghtened but it isn’t actually happening right outside their houses. Its a television “culture” instead of actually being there and experiencing it. Americans went from city people to suburban people. Somebody should do a study on the psychology of suburbia because this is very overlooked. As for the pig ignorant right wingers they are already slaves and they will defend their oppressers just like that one women gave the gun back to the serial killer. They’ve been slaves ever since the south was burnt down.
24. 1of6billionSheeple | April 29th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
The sight of a Jumbo Jet in the air scared the crap out of New Yorkers. Americans are very easily frieghtened.
25. John Christy | April 29th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
After reading these comments, all is clear: Exiledonline must, must, must disable its comments feature. This is rank idiocy!
26. wengler | April 29th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
The real problem is that the protesters see those mansions on the neatly trimmed rolling greens and thinks to themselves “wow, these are nice”. And instead of having the reaction of intense rage at the dispossession required to create such a fantasy life they instead escape into it themselves. They truly don’t want to see the country estates disappear. They identify our country’s success with the grand indulgences of the elite.
It’s no mistake that all our best labor leaders and political figures are long dead. They mostly came from immigrant backgrounds and were subject to the degradation of being “foreign” in America. The elite killed them after Haymarket, killed them in the mining strikes, jailed and exiled them for opposing WWI. There were moments of payback, though far too random or terroristic to matter much.
Frankly the financial leaders need to be disposessed. They fear facing the poverty system they created for others most of all. Strip them of all their possessions, their communication devices, their resumes and put them in the middle of the blight they created. Let’s see how they do without their connections and corporate perks.
27. hrm | April 29th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
It sounds like the issue is that this turned into a media circus instead of an actual event.
28. CapnMarvel | April 30th, 2009 at 6:01 am
Remember – the real revolution will not be televised. Any ‘rage bus’ or whatever that is given over to local yokel press and CNN Minitruth operatives is doomed to fail.
Now, tell me a story of riding in the back of a ’92 Suburban filled with unemployed plant workers armed with axe handles and bricks rolling incognito into Fairfield about 3 am and you have yourself a STORY.
29. Oksana | April 30th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Hi Mark
it seems class war has reared its head in Europe. Same setting you describe, man kills after losing job:
“A 38 year old man who had fallen on rough times, lost his job and was being evicted from his home today decided to target Queen Beatrix and the royal family by attempting to attack them with his car.”
http://www.inquisitr.com/23155/dutch-queen-beatrix-unharmed-as-crazed-man-slams-car-into-crowd-killing-4-p2s/
30. aleke | May 1st, 2009 at 1:45 am
Hey Mark, sweetie pie, how are we going to wage this class war when it breaks out? You don’t really think you’ll be able to help out from this website alone, it’s starting to attract attention, I think.
Maybe realize the Army’s worst fears about twitting? Or do you think that too familiar to the ruling elite?
I wish Ntaganda would teach guerrilla warfare classes.
31. Sk | May 1st, 2009 at 4:19 pm
lead by example
32. whoa hey | May 1st, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I don’t mind if some guy gets a nice house and a sports car. It’s like hey, good job. As long as there’s some spics to cut the grass and cops to keep the niggers out, what’s the big deal?
33. Eye | May 2nd, 2009 at 8:06 am
Amazing article…
It explains why in the USA the people don’t have rights that we, in Europe, enjoy since the 50’s. Like social security and universal health care.
The american dream is not a democracy, but a rich oligarchy. Not really different to Saudi Arabia.
34. duke | May 2nd, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Nice one, #11 Dr Luny !
Ames gets tackled by the Robo Bee-utch, She rests her snapper on his chin, like the blond Amazon in Police Academy. Photos twittered world-wide, instant fame for Mark, & He finally has that private beach in Hawaii !!
35. eurostalinist | May 4th, 2009 at 10:35 am
What the hell is this bitching about crackers all about? They just like the African-Americans belong to the people, the exploited workers and middle-class. If they are dumbasses for listening to Limbaugh, hey, all the people that voted for Obama, the golden boy of the financial elites, are just as fucked.
Kicking on them makes you look like a Jewish rich-boy revolutionary on a late sixties Ivy League school declaring that the American working-class are reactionaries and the new revolutionary front is an allaince of millionaire kids, queers and the Nation of Islam… You need to get a grip of the situation, and stop hating your own kind.
It’s okay to white.
36. eurostalinist | May 4th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Jared: No, the Israeli government doesn’t own a square metre of soil in so-called.
The Palestinian people owns it all.
37. svealander | May 5th, 2009 at 12:21 am
It sounds like it was the journalists’ fault. How are two lone protestors going to psyche each other up enough for a confrontation. You turned it into your very own astroturf faux event right at the start. You – the educated liberal scribblers with your sense of entitlement and self pity, desperate for someone else to do something so you can report on it. Is that vein getting hard to find?
38. joe stone | May 6th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
here’s what happens when you get Martin Luther King Jr. and Joe America on a bus filled with a bunch of straight journalists. Did you really expect them to do anything?
I’ve got a better idea. Go downtown with five buses. Fill the bus with free booze and drugs. Tell them it’s all theirs if they’re on board to take a little trip to fuck with Mr. Executive.
39. GettingOld | May 12th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Educational systems teach children loyalty to governments which have no loyalty to them. It teaches children to accept the way things are, a few living lavishly while the rest struggle to survive. It teaches children to respect and admire those in power regardless of how that power may have been obtained. Children are not taught however, a healthy mistrust of government, corporate, religious and educational institutions. Institutions that work to keep them docile, uneducated, fearful, and defenseless. Few children leave school equipped with the knowledge and courage to fight against tyranny.
That is why I am starting a school.
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