I know, on the surface, you're like, why are these Yale-educated people going to a protest waving signs with their tailor-made clothing and manicures right?

And the buses did pick up a block from the university.

But, that gets into the part of life that used to hurt my soul.

My family member, in particular, although it was in no way exclusive to her, she just makes an easy example, was working in a nuclear branch. She had been part of the group sent to Iran to help them with their nuke program back in the day, at least if you can believe the shoddy breadcrumbs she leaves behind.

Domestically, some of her work still involved the nuclear field. (When I was read in later on, and completely confused as to WHY I was being read in, I was taught that you are an agent first and then a scientist, meaning you have to work for the general organization and maintain everything they're doing before you can even get as far as doing research).

So, some of her credentials were supposedly in the nuke field (I do have some proof she was in nuclear medicine, thanks to the trail Yalies tend to leave behind) and she was still actively working in it when we were living near campus.

I'd get to sit through the discussions and get dragged along for some of the research. I probably glow in the dark (on a serious note, I did cause radiation monitors to increase by a few clicks every time I entered a room until about 3 years ago - I'm now happy to say I'm the same level as the background radiation, although in all honesty that may only be because global background levels have been raising slowly over the decades).

The point is - she was working in the nuclear field and quite energized by it. She liked her work.

Want to know what her favorite hobby was to drag me along for so she could look like a concerned citizen parent? It was infiltrating grassroots anti-nuclear organizations on a local and regional level.

Yep. She would be the loudest of them, the most outspoken antinuclear, she would tell them that she used to work in the field but quit because it was unethical. She'd give them a line and they'd take it every time, until she'd weasel her way onto their boards and become their face. Eventually, she would become the only name recognized by the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), etc as the anti-nuclear side of an argument, and she's all over public documents because of it - as the peoples "hero" when she was, indeed, nothing but intentionally ineffective and controlled opposition for the nuclear industry posing as an activist while standing as the head of grassroots organizations that she had destroyed from the inside out as only a true psychopath can manage.

I was young. I'd sit there quietly in the boardrooms just screaming on the inside, wondering why the people in the room couldn't see behind her mask. I supported their cause. I could see why they might not want a nuclear facility near where they were raising their children. They seemed like genuine concerned citizens, and yet they couldn't see their way past one manipulative psychopath and thus they let her take over as head of their organization.

And that's what "we" do - in all grassroots organizations, in all political organizations, and most likely in the corporate world as well.

It's about control of every piece on the board, so no matter which side wins, "we" do.