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News & ArtsThursday, March 1, 2012
2012 Over a Hundred Protesters Gather Outside a Mitt Romney Fundraiser in Bellevue
Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 7:16 PM
- This Constitution was the second-biggest sign at the protest. Click to enlarge.
The protest began with a march that functioned as a kind of walking tour of Bellevue's worst corporate tax offenders. As a trombonist and flautist played jaunty Sousa-style march music, a speaker identified the Paccar Building, home of a Bellevue company that made billions of dollars last year (PDF) and paid negative taxes. The route took us past the FedEx building—the speaker informed us that FedEx paid one percent in taxes last year—and into the Bravern, which we were told was "the shopping center for the 1%." (Full disclosure: I bought a cupcake at the Bravern Trophy Cupcakes a couple years ago, which makes my allegiances questionable.) Finally, the protesters set up camp on the sidewalk in front of two entrances to the Meydenbauer Center and set up their signs and props. As soon as they rolled out their "human red carpet" for the 1% to walk on as they entered the Center, a limousine pulled up and three men—including one who bore an uncanny resemblance to Tom Cruise—stepped out in expensive suits and sunglasses. They cheerfully waved to the protesters and entered the building, but they declined to walk on the human red carpet.
- The human red carpet.
- "There! On the side of the building! It's the Romney Signal! To the Cash Cave, with Rubio the Boy Wonder!" (Click to enlarge.)
(Find a slide show of my photos from the protest right here.)
1
...in which Paul Constant learns that the Statlers and Waldorfs in SLOG's box seats won't wake up from their naps if the word "occupy" isn't in the title.
4
@2 Phoebe I know this is your first dabble in political goings-on, so I'll remind you this is the standard kind of large-group fundraiser Obama also had (in Bellevue, no less) when he was here a couple of weeks ago. A thousand dollars a head was Obama's entry fee too, with some discounts for students and such. The super high price you are talking about is a for a small lunch at a supporter's house earlier that day. I'm sure Romney's people thought about trying to arrange a high-ticket private fundraiser at a supporter's house too - they must not feel confident he has enough support around here to make it worth trying.
8
@6, Occupy doesn't think much more of Obama. Two weeks ago Occupy and others did protest Obama's similar, $1000 a person public fundraiser in Bellevue. They mounted an inexpensive-food Occupy picnic in a nearby park, with a theme of "why spend money to support Obama's reelection, come eat our homemade burritos instead".
9
Well, Occupy is just as out of touch from the average American as are the people at the top they protest.
$1000 is not out of reach especially for many households in a rich area like Puget Sound. Some of those people are just middle class who go to the Bel-Square mall and drop $1000 on shopping every month.
I almost am starting to think that the Occupants are not really representing the Common Man so much as a bunch of Rip Van Winkles who thought they could get by slumming and riding bicycles and now suddenly woke up and said, hey, we're like 57 years old and we can afford to do this any more!
11
@8 - The point wasn't that the fine people of Occupy love Obama, it was that the fine people of Medina picked him over McCain.
I don't seem to recall an anarchist on the ballot, but in Medina they probably got the special rich-people ballots, so I suppose it's possible Medinites secretly had the option to vote for someone who Occupy Seattle would have been less vehement about refusing to endorse than Obama.
That should clear things up.
I don't seem to recall an anarchist on the ballot, but in Medina they probably got the special rich-people ballots, so I suppose it's possible Medinites secretly had the option to vote for someone who Occupy Seattle would have been less vehement about refusing to endorse than Obama.
That should clear things up.
14
The image of the suit shouting that the protesters wanted "welfare and food stamps" in response to their shouts for "jobs now" seems like a pretty representative snapshot of the entire Occupy dialog.
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