CAUGHT ON TAPE: Former SEIU Official Reveals Secret Plan To Destroy JP Morgan, Crash The Stock Market, And Redistribute Wealth In America

Stephen Lerner, formerly of SEIU.

Editor's Note:  The "Corporate Media" will not waste anytime before they label Mr. Lerner a domestic terrorist.

BUSINESS INSIDER-A former official of one of the country's most-powerful unions, SEIU, has a secret plan to "destabilize" the country.

The plan is designed to destroy JP Morgan, nuke the stock market, and weaken Wall Street's grip on power, thus creating the conditions necessary for a redistribution of wealth and a change in government.

The former SEIU official, Stephen Lerner, spoke in a closed session at a Pace University forum last weekend.

The Blaze procured what appears to be a tape of Lerner's remarks. Many Americans will undoubtely sympathize with and support them. Still, the "destabilization" plan is startling in its specificity, especially coming so close on the heels of the financial crisis.

Lerner said that unions and community organizations are, for all intents and purposes, dead. The only way to achieve their goals, therefore--the redistribution of wealth and the return of "$17 trillion" stolen from the middle class by Wall Street--is to "destabilize the country."

Lerner's plan is to organize a mass, coordinated "strike" on mortgage, student loan, and local government debt payments--thus bringing the banks to the edge of insolvency and forcing them to renegotiate the terms of the loans.  This destabilization and turmoil, Lerner hopes, will also crash the stock market, isolating the banking class and allowing for a transfer of power.

Lerner's plan starts by attacking JP Morgan Chase in early May, with demonstrations on Wall Street, protests at the annual shareholder meeting, and then calls for a coordinated mortgage strike.

Lerner also says explicitly that, although the attack will benefit labor unions, it cannot be seen as being organized by them. It must therefore be run by community organizations.

Lerner was ousted from SEIU last November, reportedly for spending millions of the union's dollars trying to pursue a plan like the one he details here.  It is not clear what, if any, power and influence he currently wields. His main message--that Wall Street won the financial crisis, that inequality in this country is hitting record levels, and that there appears to be no other way to stop the trend--will almost certainly resonate.

A transcript of Lerner's full reported remarks is below, courtesy of The Blaze. We have heard the tape, but we have not independently verified that the voice is Lerner's.  You can listen to the tape here.

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Billionaires Unite! Against Public Education and Teachers

By Shamus Cooke

Global Research, September 28, 2010

In less than a week two billionaires have joined the anti-teacher "Billionaires Club": a group of ultra-wealthy individuals hell-bent on destroying public education and teachers’ unions. The newest members of the club are Oprah Winfrey and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg. Winfrey has used her show — twice in one week — as a platform against public education. She first hosted billionaire Bill Gates to discuss his "philanthropy" in education, as he promoted the new anti-public education propaganda film Waiting for Superman.  Waiting for Superman is a "documentary" focused on the types of anti-teacher school "reforms" desired by the Billionaires Club, who have used their tremendous wealth to blackmail school districts and states to institute their policies.  For example, the Facebook founder's donation of $100 million to the Newark, New Jersey school district will almost certainly require — according to The New York Times — that the school institute these reforms, much like Bill Gates' donation of $100 million to the Tampa Hillsborough County School District — and the $90 million to the Memphis school district — had the same types of strings attached.  What are the conditions for receiving this "charity" of billionaires? It's the same demands for receiving money from the federal government under Obama's badly-named Race to the Top program: creating more privately administered — or for profit — Charter schools; connecting teacher's pay with student test scores (merit pay); undermining the seniority of teachers; and other tricks to dis-empower teachers and public education.   Diane Ravitch, a former corporate-school reformer, has now dedicated her time to exposing the motives of the super-rich and their new-found interest in "reforming" public education.  In her book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Ravitch entitles a chapter “The Billionaires Boys Club.”  On the radio show Democracy Now! Ravitch summarized the chapter:   “The Billionaires Boys Club is a discussion of how we’re in a new era of the [billionaire] foundations and their relation to education. We have never in the history of the United States had foundations with the wealth of the Gates Foundation and some of the other billionaire foundations — the Walton Family Foundation, The Broad Foundation. And these three foundations — Gates, Broad and Walton — are committed now to charter schools and to evaluating teachers by test scores. And that’s now the policy of the U.S. Department of Education. We have never seen anything like this, where foundations had the ambition to direct national educational policy, and in fact are succeeding."  There are some key motives for billionaires to jump in a coalition with this singular focus, none of them well meaning.  1) There are unknown billions in profits to be made in privatizing public education, either in the private administration of schools, curriculum companies, or wholly for-profit schools.  There has been much talk in the investor world of this new "market.”  In addition, the New York Daily News reported: “Wealthy investors and major banks have been making windfall profits by using a little-known federal tax break to finance new charter-school construction. The program, the New Markets Tax Credit, is so lucrative that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years.” (May 5, 2010). http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/05/07/2010-05 2) The super-rich hate taxes. They would rather not pay taxes towards public education when they could instead invest their money in private schools and reap profits.  3) Billionaires hate unions (they didn't become billionaires by paying union wages): The biggest obstacle towards privatizing public education is the powerful teachers’ unions. Teacher unions are also the strongest segment of the labor movement, and thus the most powerful grouping in the U.S. working class, able to fight back most effectively against corporate school reform— the billionaires’ natural enemies.   The super-rich attacked first in this battle between teachers and billionaires. The teachers must defend themselves. Shamefully, certain segments of the teachers’ unions are having troubles labeling their attackers as enemies. For example, the President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Randy Weingarten, sent a friendly invitation to Bill Gates to address the AFT convention, where Gates was allowed to deceive the teachers about the intentions of his multi-billion dollar "investment" in "reforming" education.  Gates’ ideas about education — blaming teachers for everything — ignores what most teachers already know: the main predictor for a student’s success is social-economic background. Rich students outperform poor students for many different reasons: less stress, more resources, parental help, etc. Ignoring this obvious fact exposes the billionaires’ profit motive behind their fake charity.  Teachers must fight back. They cannot allow the media to frame the debate with the ideas of the corporate think tanks and foundations. Teachers cannot concede on the issues that help keep their unions powerful, such as seniority; merit pay must be defeated for the same reasons.  If the teachers’ unions combined with other public sector unions, parent associations, and the community at large to demand FULLY FUNDED PUBLIC EDUCATION by TAXING THE RICH, the billionaires would find themselves without allies.  Their money might then be put towards something useful.  Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org).  He can be reached at shamuscook@gmail.com

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article. To become a Member of Global Research The CRG grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author's copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: crgeditor@yahoo.com  www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner. For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com © Copyright Shamus Cooke, Global Research, 2010 The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21222

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British economy in 'great danger', trade unions warn

AFP

The government's programme of drastic spending cuts is putting the British economy in "great danger", the Trades Union Congress has warned ahead of its annual conference opening in Manchester on Monday.

The cuts will affect economic activity, undermine confidence and could lead to higher unemployment which is "stuck" at around two and a half million, with young people particularly badly hit, the TUC's general council said in a statement.

In next month's comprehensive spending review the Government will start to withdraw 32 billion pounds from the economy in tax rises and spending cuts from April 2011, on top of the 8.9 billion already taken out during the current financial year, the TUC leaders said.

"There is therefore scant prospect that the private sector will now create the new jobs needed," they added.

"Falling confidence suggests a stagnant labour market and at best a jobless recovery. But the prospect of further deep public spending cuts makes even this look like an optimistic scenario, as both public sector staff and employees in the many companies that depend on the public sector for orders lose their jobs.

Making hundreds of thousands of public servants redundant at a time of such cuts and with reduced redundancy pay when there is little or no chance of finding private sector employment is "callous", the union organisation said.

The TUC warned that deep cuts to public services, benefits and tax credits are bound to have more impact on those with low incomes, adding: "Women, disabled people and those from black and minority ethnic communities are likely to be among the biggest victims of the cuts and the greater inequality they will bring.

"Unlike cuts, tax increases need not bear down on those least able to afford them, and can reduce inequality across society as a whole."

The TUC also warned that major redundancies, a public sector pay freeze at a time of rising prices and large-scale reorganisations in many services, particularly the National Health Service, will "seriously damage" morale amongst public sector workers.

Echoing a warning given earlier this week by TUC general secretary Brendan Barber, the general council said: "Real terms pay cuts, privatisation and restructuring, job cuts and threats to pensions all adds up to a volatile cocktail that could give rise to difficult and damaging disputes, and the TUC stands ready to support and co-ordinate union action where members decide that industrial action is necessary to defend services and those who deliver them."

Next week's conference will hear calls for co-ordinated strikes to defend public services and jobs.

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