Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action -- makes his family fair game.
Waving signs denouncing bank "greed," hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer's steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer's teenage son Jack -- alone in the house -- locked himself in the bathroom. "When are they going to leave?" Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.
Later in the article, Easton, who is a veteran journalist, describes how this "mob" had not followed the usual practice of notifying the major media outlets. So the major goal of the exercise was purely to intimidate an executive of a major bank.
Maybe Obama can convince them to control their thuggish tactics? We'll wait and see. (Just don't hold your breath while you wait, ok?)
Full article by Nina Easton
