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Miss Annie
11-04-2011, 06:13 PM
Obama adviser urges 'militancy' in nationwide Occupy protests
Boardmember of groups that crafted laws for health care, 'stimulus' says 'we've got to start a resistance movement'

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=363693




NEW YORK – Three days before an Occupy Oakland protest turned violent, United Steelworkers international president Leo Gerard, an adviser to President Obama, called for "more militancy" in Occupy movements across the U.S.

Gerard serves on the board of a number of groups funded by billionaire George Soros, including organizations that reportedly helped to craft Obama's "stimulus" and health-care laws.

In an interview with progressive radio host Ed Schultz on Monday, Gerard stated, "I think what we need is, we need more militancy."

"Red Army: The Radical Network that must be defeated to save America" exposes the extremists behind Occupy Wall Street along with the radical socialist network that seized political power in Washington over decades, shaped Obama's presidential agenda and threatens the very future of the U.S.

"I think we've got to start a resistance movement. If Wall Street occupation doesn't get the message, I think we've got to start blocking bridges and doing that kind of stuff," stated Gerard, according to a transcript provided by Newsbusters.org.

As WND was first to report, the tactic of blocking bridges, already used by Occupy Wall Street to hold up the Brooklyn Bridge last month, was institutionalized by Stephen Lerner, a controversial anti-capitalist SEIU organizer.

Lerner has visited the White House four times, while his former boss, Andy Stern, SEIU's recently retired president, was the most frequent White House visitor in 2009, according to presidential visitors logs. Obama himself once trained SEIU in the 1990s.

Read more: Obama adviser urges 'militancy' in nationwide Occupy protests http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=363693#ixzz1cmk0AjWF






Gerard has a history of direct-action protests. During the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle that turned violent, Gerard and United Steelworkers Vice President Tom Conway were caught on film dragging two large concrete planters into an intersection near the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in an attempt to help protesters block access to the WTO meetings.

A WND review of Gerard's rhetoric during the past year finds scores of statements implying an Occupy onslaught against U.S. capitalism.

In February 2010, the People's Weekly World, the official newspaper of the Communist Party USA, quoted Gerard and another United Steelworkers leader, Fred Redmond, as stating, "It's time to stand up and be heard," they said. "It's time to mobilize online and in the streets. Together, let's tweet, facebook and text. Let's rally, vote and, where necessary, sit-in."

In an August posting on the Firedoglake website, Gerard calling for an "uprising of hope and anger. There's plenty of anger out there."

He went on to quote Frances Fox Piven, writing that the radical professor "counsels in her book ... that hope is crucial, that constructive change arises from the mix of hope and anger."

Pivin, a member of the Progressives for Obama group, is co-author of the Cloward–Piven strategy, which calls for overloading the U.S. economy to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty."

Gerard, meanwhile, was appointed in September 2010 to Obama's Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations.

He also serves as a vice president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest union.

Gerard further serves as co-chairman of the BlueGreen Alliance, whose partner is the Apollo Alliance. Gerard is also an Apollo board member.

The Apollo Alliance is run by a slew of radicals, including Obama's former "green jobs" czar, Van Jones; Jeff Jones, who heads Apollo's New York branch and is a former top leader of the Weather Underground terrorist organization; and Joel Rogers, a founder of the socialist New Party.

WND previously reported Apollo helped to craft portions of Obama's "stimulus" bill.

Gerard is also on the board of two major Soros-funded groups, the Campaign for America's Future and the Economic Policy Institute.

WND reported last week Health Care for America, the centerpiece of the Economic Policy Institute's Agenda for Shared Prosperity, is the foundation for Obama's health-care plan.

With research by Brenda J. Elliott

Read more: Obama adviser urges 'militancy' in nationwide Occupy protests http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=363693#ixzz1cmjtPib3

Miss Annie
11-04-2011, 06:16 PM
Union Chief Leo Gerard: 'Resistance Movement' Needed to Seize Bridges, Banks in Case OWS Fails

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jack-coleman/2011/11/02/union-chief-leo-gerard-resistance-movement-needed-seize-bridges-banks-

United Steelworkers international president Leo Gerard has a message to the flea party whiny-whiners still camping out instead of sleeping in their parents' basements -- playtime is over.

Just in case the Occupy movement fails -- in other words, when it fails -- Gerard is urging union members to fill that gaping void with "more militancy." (audio clips after page break)

Here's a clip of Gerard making a pitch for this on Ed Schultz's radio show Monday and actually making Schultz sound reasonable by comparison (audio) --

GERARD: You're damn right Wall Street occupiers speak for us. They do in Pittsburgh, they do in Chicago, they do in Oakland, they do in San Francisco, they do all across the country. And I think what we need is, we need more militancy.

SCHULTZ: What does that mean, more militancy?

GERARD: I think we've got to start a resistance movement. If Wall Street occupation doesn't get the message, I think we've got to start blocking bridges and doing that kind of stuff. This doesn't have to be this way. The economy doesn't have to be this way. It's being put this way because the Wall Streeters are getting their way.

Gerard upped the ante minutes later, suggesting that unions go beyond "blocking bridges" (audio) --

Then we lost the House 'cause the House got blamed for what the Senate didn't do and now we got a bunch of right-wing nutjobs running the House of Representatives. And in the last period of time, what do we got now, almost two years, a year and a half, that the only thing they've done is bring forward social bills, they haven't brought forward one jobs bill, not one jobs bill, Ed, not one jobs bill and that's what they ran on.

And no wonder people are occupying. We oughta be doing more than occupying parks. We oughta start occupying bridges. We start oughta occupying the banks places themselves. I mean, I just think that this is nuts.

Yes -- "we start oughta occupying the banks places themselves," along with an exaggerated timeframe since Republicans regained the House and the oft-repeated lie of alleged GOP indifference to jobs legislation. Schultz's less than hardy endorsement in response --

SCHULTZ: Mr. Gerard, always a pleasure, keep up the fight, always enjoy visiting with you on the issues of the day and what's happening. It's, uh ...

GERARD (sensing Schultz's lack of enthusiasm): We can never give up, Ed, we can never give up 'cause we're right.

SCHULTZ: We are correct on the issues, no doubt. United Steelworkers international president Leo Gerard here on the Ed Schultz radio show, telling the truth again ...

Perhaps after union members are released on bail following their arrests for occupying bridges and banks and, in the process, harming countless working people just trying to do their jobs, they might want to consider occupying the offices of amply compensated union leaders, including Gerard.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jack-coleman/2011/11/02/union-chief-leo-gerard-resistance-movement-needed-seize-bridges-banks-#ixzz1cmkz1A5W