Rent-a-Demo

Extracted from: The Wall Street Journal, Weekend Edition, Saturday/Sunday, June 24-25, 2006. Starting in col 3 on A1 and then col 1 on A5. (About half a page).

How U.S. Citizens Mysteriously March For Kremlin Causes

* * *

Russian Emigrés Pay Them To Flail Chechen Rebels As TV Moscow Films It All
-----------------------------------------------
By Alan Cullison and James Bandler
-----------------------------------------------
NEW YORK - Hoisting signs and American flags, hundreds of demonstators gathered in a park here for a noisy protest. An organizer explained the sponsors' eclectic mission:

"We are fighting against terrorism, hunger and inequality," he said. Demonstrators had a simple goal: getting paid. "Where's the moneyman?" shouted one of them, Pat Bradley.

Mr. Bradley said he and his wife, Kellie, recovering heroin addicts, had run into a rally organizer that morning outside their methadone clinic and were promised $15 each if they would ride a bus to a park in the Queens borough of New York City and chant slogans for 15 minutes. Mr. Bradley says he alternated shouts of "Stop the terrorism" with a more merchantile cry:

"Show me the money".

The rally last December was one of nearly a dozen paid-for protests organized by Russian emigrés in the U.S. in the past two years. They spent $150,000 to $200,000 in some months, accounting records indicate...
........................

Organizers said the effort was funded by private individuals they declined to name. Some former insiders of the campaign told a different story: that both its instructions and its funding came from Moscow. ...

This account was supported by emails and other documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

.....................................

(via scb)
Read the whole article here.