"We're very sorry about everything," a MUNI spokesman announced today while bowing his head to the floor in a gesture of submission, "please tell the proletariat to stop the fare strike. It frightens us." One month after a refuse-to-pay campaign was launched in protest of fare hikes and service cuts, SF's transit agency has been brought utterly to its knees. As is completely obvious to anyone who's ridden a bus in the past few weeks, increasingly massive numbers of unselfish riders are declining to pay their fare, while heroic drivers are looking the other way with a rogueish laugh, their golden tresses tossing carelessly behind them in the wind of their noble chariots. That's why MUNI's been getting so much better lately, you see. And though analysts attribute MUNI's recent ridership spike to increasing gas prices, we know that it's really due to commuters' eagerness to take a moral stand every day on their way to work. Surely, we will soon all be united in brotherhood. Any minute now.

The strike was organized -- magificently, we might add -- by socialstrike.net. But we can't thank only them; according to their whois info, they received support, and this is true, from riseup.net, a Seattle-area group that provides "communication and computer resources to allies engaged in struggles against capitalism and other forms of oppression." And of course they also worked with gandi.net, a Paris-area domain registrar, not to be confused with anyone having anything to do with Gandhi, the Delhi-area agitator. Socialstrike.net also got help from mutualaid.org, a Los-Angeles-based "collective that provides technology services to the radical and progressive communities." Particularly helpful was their contact person at mutualaid.org, whose email username is "anarchistaction." Such nice kids! Is it any wonder that their cause immediately elicited the sympathies of an entire city?

As we were describing the nature of the fare strike to a friend, he looked confused. "So ... uh ... what, exactly, are they doing for us?" he asked. Well, it's obvious! ...Isn't it?