I have long contended that the US’s largest and most militant labor organization the Service Employees International Union, is allied to, or subordinate to the country’s largest Marxist organization – Democratic Socialists of America.

Here is proof of this connection, from the latest edition of DSA’s Democratic Left, Winter 2011/2012, page 11

Of the SEIU leaders listed above Eliseo Medina and Gerry Hudson are long time DSA members, while Tom Woodruff, is a former member of the ultra radical Students for a Democratic Society, and, at the very least, a DSA affiliate. The lower ranks of SEIU shelters dozens more DSA activists and supporters.

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The US’s largest Marxist organization Democratic Socialists of America is moving to infiltrate and direct the Occupy Wall Street Movement into a more organized and socialist focused protest movement.  DSA is working hard to sustain ‘Occupy’ over the winter in readiness for a major “spring offensive” largely directed at Republican controlled state capitols as they struggle to address massive budget problems.

Writing in the latest issue of Democratic Left, DSA leader and Temple University political science professor Joseph Schwartz,   explicitly calls for DSA to launch connect occupy more to the mainstream left, in order to use their combined muscle against responsible state governments come spring.

The Occupy movement forced the media talking heads to take a break from their obsessive concern with a recession-induced budget deficit to acknowledge the devastating social effects of 30 years of rampant  growth in inequality…

But will this shift in political focus continue? Only if DSA activists and other progressives help Occupy sustain itself over the winter. Come late winter and early spring, the fight over proposed state and local budgets will reinvigorate the disastrous elite narrative that we must “cut” our way out of the recession.

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There has been some speculation that Heather Higginbottom, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, may get the top job, as her boss, Jack Lew leaves to become President  Obama’s chief of staff.

Before Ms. Higginbottom is considered for one of the key posts in the U.S. government, maybe she should be asked to explain this photo from October 30, 2001.

The photo depicts Heather Higginbottom, then working for Massachusetts Senator John Kerry addressing a Boston  Democratic Socialists of America organized forum “Welfare, Children and Families: The Impact of Welfare Reform”, with panelists   William Julius Wilson, Dottie Stevens, Jack Clark and Bob Haynes.

Jack Clark , at the time, was was Boston D.S.A. Chair, William Julius Wilson  was a long time D.SA. member and Bob Haynes was President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, with which D.S.A worked “frequently”.

The Boston D.S.A. logo can be seen on the wall in the center right of the picture.

Despite its relatively innocuous name, Democratic Socialists of America is a radical Marxist organization that believes, according to Democratic Left, Spring 2007, page 9

Our goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production.

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While many conservatives rightly admire Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul’s principled economic and constitutional views, they are often bamboozled, even appalled, by the Texan’s defense and foreign policy ideas.

Ron Paul

It seems, that when it comes to defense, Ron Paul is stuck in 1776. He seems not to realize that America’s enemies, real or potential, Russia and China, and Iran chief among them, have a very long reach. The continental US is only partially protected by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans . The enemy can now attack the American homeland with ICBMs, biological weapons, cyber warfare, dirty bombs smuggled across the Mexican border – any number of deadly methods of mass destruction.

Just as frontier forts would have outposts to warn of Indian attack, the US needs people all over the world to protect not just her friends and allies, but the American homeland itself.

Why then does Ron Paul, a man so supremely rational in many areas, have such a blind spot when it comes to US national security?

The answer, in my opinion, is that Ron Paul’s justified distrust at the growth of government power in many unconstitutional areas, has irrationally created an antipathy to Federal Government activity in one of its few legitimate areas – national defense.

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The United Steelworkers (USW) Marxist president Leo Gerard believes if Big Labor can’t get what it wants through the ballot box it’s time to start cracking skulls.

The Canadian-born Gerard loves a brawl. In 1999 he helped the violent anarchists protesting in Seattle block access to the World Trade Organization meetings. USW sent 1,400 goons to shut the talks down. Gerard’s agitation helped to push Algoma Steel of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, into bankruptcy in the 1990s.

As the USW president since 2001, Gerard wholeheartedly supports the labor-backed Occupy Wall Street movement and wants it to become even more violent.

“You’re damn right Wall Street occupiers speak for us,” he recently told left-wing radio host Ed Schultz. “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.”

But occupying cities isn’t enough in the view of this man who began his career in labor activism at age 11 by handing out leaflets before a strike.

Gerard explained that the left needs 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,” he said.

“And no wonder people are occupying. We ought to be doing more than occupying parks. We ought to start occupying bridges. We ought to start occupying the banks, places themselves.”

Gerard is a member of the AFL-CIO’s executive committee and chairman of its public policy committee.

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From baking brownies to providing legal, medical and organizational support, the US’s largest Marxist group Democratic Socialists of America, and its youth wing Young Democratic Socialists,  is heavily involved in “Occupation” actions  across the country.

To keep D.S.A.’s more than 6,000 members abreast of events , the organization has set up a dedicated webpage, to monitor and report  on  the “Occupy” activities of more than 30 socialist locals from Boston  to San Diego, Hawaii to Alaska.

The Occupy Wall Street protests have invigorated the American Left in a way not seen in decades, and DSA has long emphasized the important role social movements play in improving the quality of life of ordinary people. So we have urged our members to take an active, supportive role in their local occupations, something many DSAers had already begun doing as individuals, because they believe that everyday people, the 99%, shouldn’t be made to pay for a crisis set off by an out-of-control financial sector and the ethically compromised politicians who have failed to rein it in.

This page contains examples of DSA members and members of our youth section, Young Democratic Socialists, participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests, including news articles, videos, and pictures featuring DSAers and DSA honorary chairs taking part in the protests, and personal accounts and analyses from DSAers themselves.

In Atlanta Georgia, several DSAers have been active in Occupy protests, while comrade Elizabeth Henry serves on the occupation’s medical committee. DSA aligned Georgia State Senator  Nan Orrock has been very vocal in support of the local protestors (which include her son), while anther DSA connected State Senator Vincent Fort was arrested during  an  Occupy protest on October 25.

In Colorado, Boulder DSA comrade Dave Anderson is involved in the movement, while Denver DSAer  Charles Nadler is using his position in the once Communist Party led National Lawyers Guild to provide legal support for the protesters.

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“… freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice… Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.”

~ Mikhail Bakunin

There is more to the disheveled crowd that has been entertaining Americans for the past three weeks than meets the eye. Don’t let looks fool you. Sure it’s hard to overlook the general lack of hygiene and proper grooming. Some may go without bras while others sleep on sidewalks. So are we to somehow be convinced that a bunch of dirty children can produce this much attention?

The protesters have railed against food corporations because they believe their products are altering their DNA. They want free education so they don’t have to work or join the military to payoff student loans. They have called for a living wage. They take pride in disrupting the lives of working Americans because they do not share the same work ethic. Furthermore, they want to end wealth in America and replace capitalism with a system of sharing that gives out really cool stuff. These are but just a few of the mob’s demands. Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian author of the quote in the heading, was considered the author of violent social anarchism. Bakunin advocated atheism and violence as well as terrorism, revolution and destruction. Is it coincidental that the Wall Street Protestors have been heard shouting death threats against cops, Jews, and the wealthy?

“We must demand that the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal achievement, and shall be content to realize his activity  of the many.”

~ Jane Adams

So how does a group of unkempt undergraduates built upon such empty and disjointed demands carry this effort on scrawny shoulders and sunken chests? Please read further.

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The Working Families Party, an infamous ACORN front group notorious for corruption, was instrumental in organizing the Occupy Wall Street protests, according to radical journalist Laura Flanders of Free Speech TV.

The protests, which have spread to several other large U.S. cities, are part of what ACORN’s neo-communist founder Wade Rathke calls an “anti-banking jihad.”

Working Families Party (WFP) organizer Nelini Stamp has “been here since day one and she is part of the organizing team and the outreach team that has managed to bridge the distance between that first day and this day and between the grassroots folks here and the labor movement,” Flanders said at the protest in lower Manhattan.

We are “actually trying to change the capitalist system we have today because it’s not working for any of us,” Stamp told Flanders in an interview. Demonstrators are asking “how do we really reform and bring revolutionary changes to the states?”

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My fellow Americans–and, I suppose, Canadians:

I regret to inform you that you are not the “99 Percent.”

The 99 Percent dislikes big banks, but also dislikes big government–and big messes.

The 99 Percent does not occupy property it does not own, public or private.

The 99 Percent does not steal from local businesses, does not attack police officers, does not storm national museums, and does not defecate in public.

Flyer at #OccupyWallStreet - the address for donations is a small building in Washington, DC shared by Code Pink and other "progressive" organizations

The 99 Percent does not rank people’s views based on their skin color, gender, or socioeconomic status.

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It was supposed to be this:

On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000 people to flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.

Instead, as they say about the best laid plans, it was something entirely different. It was, frankly, a stroll through a park—Zuccotti Park, in lower Manhattan, to be exact.

A Non-Union Non-Event

Over the summer, on the heels of Arab Spring, an anti-capitalist group called adbusters established a campaign to occupy Wall Street, beginning on September 17th. Whether coincidental or not, September 17th also happened to be Constitution Day. While there had been some unfounded unfounded speculation a few weeks ago that the SEIU’s Stephen Lerner and ACORN founder Wade Rathke were behind the OccupyWallSt movement, there were never any signs that the Marxist-Anarchist protesters had any formal union backing—nor has there been anything posted on union websites about the occupation of Wall St.

This morning, protestors did, however, call for “revolution”
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We attended the 3rd candidates’ forum between Democrat Congresswoman, Jan Schakowsky, and her Republican Challenger, Joel Pollak, in their hotly contested race for Illinois’ 9th district.

There is a lot of content to process, but in the meantime, we bring you these two preview clips.

In the first clip, we ask Representative Schakowsky about recent claims on NRO that she has been an active Socialist.

Yet as I document in detail in Radical-in-Chief, the Midwest Academy’s leadership, including Jan Schakowsky, really was socialist. [emphasis added]

In the second clip, we ask Congresswoman Schakowsky if she thinks CodePink should be investigated for its role in the Hamas Flotilla.

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Below is our full-length report on last Sunday’s Candidates’ Forum with Democrat representative, Jan Schakowsky, and her challenger, Republican Joel Pollak.

As you can see from the video, Jan Schakowsky’s campaign greets our challenging questions on Health Care, Israel, and Ms. Schakowsky’s support for the Democratic Socialists of America, with evasion, derision, and borderline harassment.

Despite the fact that we were attending as credentialed media, the Schakowsky camp insisted that we were “trackers,” out to “get Joel Pollak elected.” While we are admittedly not fans of Representative Schakowsky’s positions on many issues, we were not paid to be there by any campaign or party. As challenging as it is for the Schakowsky camp to accept, we are merely citizen-journalists who are not afraid to ask the questions that the so-called mainstream media have failed to ask – questions such as where in the Constitution does Congress have the authority to force Americans to purchase a product or service? Is it inappropriate for American Progressives to take part in organizing flotillas against Israel, in support of Hamas? Who are the Democratic Socialists of America, and what is Democratic Socialism?

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Progressives and radicals decended on Washington, DC Saturday demanding more government spending as the way to fix societal ills.  Groups including the AFL-CIO, SEIU, NAACP, Democratic Socialists of America, Organizing for America, Communist Party USA, American Federation of Teachers, CodePink and National Education Association linked arms in a call for voters to keep Democrats in power.

Here’s a sampling of the sights and sounds of the day.

After milling in the crowd all day, I would estimate 80%-90% of attendees wore union-affiliated t-shirts. Some others wore ‘I Need a Job’ shirts. We talked to people who were bussed and actually flow in – the Tides Foundation spent a lot of money.

This blogger overheard an organizer shout into a cell phone that SEIU was supposed to send 695 buses but apparently didn’t.  While I did not attend the Beck rally and am not good at judging crowd size, today’s crowd was clearly smaller than Beck’s.  I walked about a third of the way towards the Washington Monument and the crowd grew thin.

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Money will make a whore out of just about anyone, apparently even unionized teachers.

The American Federation of Teachers recently passed a resolution at its annual convention which demands an immediate cessation of American activities in Afghanistan. From the Democratic Socialists of America website:

Delegates adopted a resolution that puts the giant teacher union on new ground in opposition to the war and occupation of Afghanistan, opposing any further escalation and calling for “rapid, orderly withdrawal of all armed forces and military contractors, to begin immediately.”

But what’s funny – not to mention hypocritical – is that the teachers union is also pushing the $80 billion war spending bill because it contains pork for public schools. The bill is now in the Senate where it faces likely changes or defeat altogether.

So on the one hand, the union opposes the war, but will push to continue funding it if it contains funds for its members.

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If the video clip of Bertha Lewis I posted yesterday exposed her disturbing views on the tea party and conservatives in general, as well as her support for genuine socialism, the clip I am going to post here reveals the means by which she and others on the left plan on achieving their radical goals. For all the phony accusations against the Tea Party movement for racism and fomenting violence, if there is anything which will lead to racial violence and civic unrest in this country it’s the agenda on display here – watch:

Transcript:

First of all, let me just say that any group that says “I’m young, I’m democratic, and I’m a socialist” is alright with me. [applause]

The reason that you have to build your organization, and make it as big and as powerful as you can, is because you need to get into real battles. And here’s what I think you need to do. And you need make sure that you get into this battle. The next big battle that’s coming…whether healthcare lives or dies…[break]

Immigration is the next big battle. Immigration, immigration, immigration. And the reason this is so important is, you know, here’s the secret [whispers]:

We’re getting ready to me a majority, minority country. Shhhh. [applause] We’ll be like South Africa. More black people than white people. [laughter] Don’t tell anybody.

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Apparently CEO Bertha Lewis said of ACORN yesterday “we’re on life support”. Well, I think ACORN’s remaining benefactors might be a little closer to pulling the plug once and for all after watching this bizarre rant from Ms. Lewis from just a few weeks ago. She is speaking at the Winter Conference of the Young Democratic Socialists on March 25, 2010 – watch:

As I’ve said elsewhere, I think it is unbecoming of conservatives to engage in hyperbole and personal attacks. We should allow this to remain the primary tool of our opponents. Lewis is clearly a bit unhinged here, but the underlying debate is an important one for the future of America. Frankly, I wish more “progressives” would express their views so openly. The debate between socialist values of collectivism and government control, and traditional American values of individual liberty and free enterprise is one we should relish.

The White House recently rescinded the ban on federal funding for ACORN after a court order, as reported by Matthew Vadum here yesterday. While the Justice Department is vigorously appealing in an attempt to re-instate this ban, it is a little late for the President, key Democrats, and certain members of the progressive media to distance themselves from Lewis and ACORN now. As much as they might like to.

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SEIU heavy Andy Stern has often been quoted saying, “Workers of the world unite – it’s not just a slogan anymore.  It’s the way we’re gonna have to do our work.”

According to the latest LM-2 financial report filed with the federal Department of Labor, Stern’s 2009 compensation totaled $306,388.  By comparison, the “Executive Secretary to the President,” Doris Butler, received a paltry $48,666.

Another strong proponent of Marxist principles – in fact, the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America – SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina took home a cool $242,286.  Fellow frequent White House visitor and SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger? $252,724.

Perhaps SEIU’s new motto should be: “Socialism For Thee, Not Me.”

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Blogger Andrew Marcus has a timely piece over at his Founding Bloggers blog:

Founding Bloggers can exclusively confirm that as of 2000, ACORN listed the Working Families Party as an affiliate of ACORN. They also listed the New Party as an affiliate.

Click here or the image below to view full size:

To drive the relationship home for you, ACORN and Project Vote shared office space with Working Families Party and the New Party in NYC, Arkansas, and Illinois!

Are people supposed to believe that ACORN shared office space with Project Vote and these political parties, and they never talked or shared resources or funding? What are the odds that these arrangements led to an unhealthy, if not illegal, mix of federal tax dollars and political organizing?

Read the whole piece here.