Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka On Occupy Wall Street(FLASHBACK)

Occupy Wall Street has captured the imagination and passion of millions of Americans who have lost hope that our nation's policymakers are speaking for them. We support the protesters in their determination to hold Wall Street accountable and create good jobs. We are proud that today on Wall Street, bus drivers, painters, nurses and utility workers are joining students and homeowners, the unemployed and the underemployed to call for fundamental change. Across America, working people are turning out with their friends and neighbors in parks, congregations and union halls to express their frustration – and anger -- about our country's staggering wealth gap, the lack of work for people who want to work and the corrupting of our politics by business and financial elites. The people who do the work to keep our great country running are being robbed not only of income, but of a voice. It is time for all of us—the 99 percent—to be heard.

As we did when we marched on Wall Street last year, working people call on corporations, big banks, and the financial industry to do their part to create good jobs, stop foreclosures and pay their fair share of taxes.

· Wall Street and corporate America must invest in America: Big corporations should invest some of the $2 trillion in cash they have on hand, and use it to create good jobs. And the banks themselves should be making credit more accessible to small businesses, instead of parking almost $1 trillion at the Federal Reserve.

· Stop foreclosures: Banks should write down the 14 million mortgages that are underwater and stop the more than 10 million pending foreclosures to stop the downward spiral of our housing markets and inject more than $70 billion into our economy.

· Fund education and jobs by taxing financial speculation: A tiny tax on financial transactions could raise hundreds of billions in revenue that could fund education and create jobs rebuilding our country. And it would discourage speculation and encourage long term investment.

We will open our union halls and community centers as well as our arms and our hearts to those with the courage to stand up and demand a better America.

Someone in the labor movement should be courageous enough to tell Trumka that Labor Day is the day to celebrate American labor and workers, and that May Day is for communists to do their thing. The timing of this statement speaks volumes as to where the AFL-CIO's politics are.

BTW, the number one target bank of the Occupy movement is Bank of America, whose top executives just happen to be big Democrats and Obama contributors. (That may have something to do with the Democrat National Convention being held in Charlotte, where B of A's headquarters are located.) So there seems to be a family feud here within the 'Rat ranks.

Trumpka knows exactly what its all about.

"Workers of all lands, unite — to smash the rule of English capitalism! You young upward-striving nations of the earth, combine to annihilate the old English dragon who blocks the treasures of the earth and withholds from you the riches of the world.

-Robert Ley, German Labor Front leader (Hitler's Trumpka)

"Gold is not neccesary. I have no interest in gold. We will build a solid state, without an ounce of gold behind it. Anyone who sells above the set prices, let him be marched off to a concentration camp. That's the bastion of money."

- Hitler

"Society's needs come before the individual's needs.

-Hitler

think that I have already answered the first question adequately. In the present state of affairs I am convinced that we cannot possibly dispense with the trades unions. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions in the economic life of the nation. Not only are they important in the sphere of social policy but also, and even more so, in the national political sphere. For when the great masses of a nation see their vital needs satisfied through a just trade unionist movement the stamina of the whole nation in its struggle for existence will be enormously reinforced thereby.

Before everything else, the trades unions are necessary as building stones for the future economic parliament, which will be made up of chambers representing the various professions and occupations.

Hitler

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