March 22, 2009

The U.S. Congress must be proud:

One lower-level employee at the company's Wilton offices told her friends she woke up one night this week to people knocking outside her home windows.

The Hartford Courant helpfully ran a picture of one of the employee's fancy homes on the front page of its online edition (it's been rotated off now). However, the union-backed group Working Families, which organized a bus tour to show up in front of the houses of AIG-ers in Fairfield County, got cold feet and decided to protest in a "nicer" way for fear of a backlash that might spur public sympathy for its targets (some of whom had volunteered to give back the bonuses even before the public outcry); reporters substantially outnumbered protesters on the outing. I wonder whether Cory Doctorow's commenters were disappointed. Per Rhys Southan at Business Insider:

The protesters stopped at one point in an organic grocery store and were surprised to learn that many AIG execs were shoppers there, and that according to the store's proprietor, they were actually very nice people.

The flummoxed protesters spent several minutes outside trying to figure out how such "evil" people could be nice to an organic grocer.

Earlier here and here. A further roundup, including ACORN's role: Moe Lane.