William A. Jacobson
Legal Insurrection
10/4/2011
The NY Times Dealbook section takes a very sympathetic look at the Occupy Wall Street protests, On Wall Street, a Protest Matures.
The article leads with a feature on Andrew Cole, who arrived from Madison, Wisconsin (shock!) where he recently lost a job:
“I think a good deal of the bankers should be in jail.”
That is what Andrew Cole, an unemployed 24-year-old graduate of Bucknell University, told me Monday morning in Zuccotti Park, the epicenter of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Mr. Cole, an articulate young man dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt and with a blue wool beanie on his head, had just arrived by bus from Madison, Wis., where he recently lost his job.
There was nothing particularly menacing or dangerous about Mr. Cole. He said he had come to participate in Occupy Wall Street because he believed in its “anticapitalist” message. “I see Wall Street as responsible for the mess we’re in.”
The New York Times does not tell us where Cole was working prior to being laid off. Must be construction, or perhaps one of those state workers brutalized by the evil Gov. Scott Walker and the Koch Brothers. Or perhaps some heartless business which puts profits over people.
No, a simple Google search reveals that Cole is a professional progressive operative, having worked — according to his LinkedIn profile – for the past three years for the Progressive Patriots Fund, which he still lists at his employer:
September 2008 – Present (3 years 2 months)
Trained and dispatched by Senator Russ Feingold’s PAC to work in the field for Eric Massa’s congressional campaign in New York’s 29th district. Responsibilities included volunteer recruitment, voter contact, and coordinating the GOTV push for a campaign satellite office in Canandaigua, NY.
Let’s say Cole was really fired by Progressive Patriots Fund, and his LinkedIn profile is not up to date, was the firing for real or just a set up so that Cole could agitate in New York City and make sure to get interviewed by media outlets as the face of the Occupy Wall Street movement?…
Read the rest of the article at Legal Insurrection.
