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Autos show-Protests at odds with each other and amongst themselves
(Written by Correspondent Nick Carey)
Two protests outside the conference center in downtown Detroit where the auto show is being held provided an odd image.
This was not merely because the two protests — one by workers protesting for more help for workers amid the bailout of the U.S. financial sector, the other ostensibly by “tea party” activists — were rather small, barely a few dozen altogether. Though it must be said that seeing protesters outnumbered by journalists, and there are hordes of us here, is always a surreal experience.
But the oddity of the occasion manifested itself in two ways. First, the two groups of protesters were separated from each other by a one-lane road and a few from each side — and there were maybe a dozen or so more of the workers than the “tea party” people — stood at their respective street corners and stared each other down. Both groups were confined to a small patch of concrete that for 90 minutes they could call their own.
Some waved banners and chanted their slogans, but for the most part everyone was civil. Perhaps that was because the workers and the main part of the tea partiers were there to protest more or less against the same thing: bailouts. The workers were against bailouts for Wall Street bankers, while the tea partiers were against bailouts, period. So there was little for them to shout about, or maybe it was just too cold to argue.
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