UNITED NATIONS, May 13 -- First Avenue in front of the UN was lined with metal police barricades on Thursday. Nor for a protest of Libya getting a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, but as the route for Barack Obama's DCCC fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.
There, couples were charged $50,000 to meet Obama and attend a private reception. The minimum charge was $15,000, for an individual. For this they got lobster in something called yuzu dressing, and "truffle gift box potato." Many of the attendees from from Wall Street; some politicians stayed away. Nevertheless fully 21 of New York State's 26 Democratic Party members of Congress were slated to attend.
There were protests, right on time at 6 o'clock. By seven pm after twenty-some arrests, they were gone. What were the politicians afraid of? Being spotting by the media?
Business-backed Kathryn Wilde of the Partnership for NYC made an implicit threat: "New York's future as a place to raise money hangs in the balance!" If you regulate too hard, we won't keep paying you.
In the protest's aftermath, when Fifth Avenue was filled with Obama fans and gawkers, Inner City Press asked Jeff "Bootstraps" Fisher why the protesters left so quickly. "If you had an M-16 pointed at you, you'd leave too," he said."Google me," he added, noting that four blocks away at Carnegie Hall, Lady Gaga was playing, "there are more people there than here."
Over at Carnegie Hall, the concert of Lady Lady and Elton John and Sting, produced by Trudy Styler, was to benefit the Rainforest Fund. At the St. Regis, it was to benefit a political party, with money from Wall Street. A foreign correspondent marveled, "Lady Gaga has more soul?" For this night at least.
