Fedora. This is the way to report/describe the leftist protest groups and leaders.
I wonder if the United Working Families is an affiliate of the Marxist, New York state based “Working Families Party”, an offshoot of various Marxists (old SDSers/Weathermen), DSAers, Progressives for Obama/Progressives for America political movements.
Anyone with knowledge of the WFP please comment here. The more we know who these groups are, their leaders, programs/ideology, and funding, plus national network contacts, the more we can help expose them since the mainstream media will never do that.
Meet Rahm Emanuel’s Other Election Day Challenger
hen the polls close in Chicago later this evening, residents of the country’s third largest city will at last know the answer to a question that has riveted their town for six manic weeks: whether Mayor Rahm Emanuel will win enough votes to stay in power for four more years, or whether his challenger, Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, will succeed in knocking him out of City Hall. . .One of the primary vehicles for this new politics has been United Working Families, a coalition spearheaded by the Chicago Teachers Union, SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana and a passel of other unions and grassroots community groups. The groups came together last year not only to back progressive candidates like Garcia, but also to attempt to forge a new pole for progressive politics in Chicago. . .“This isn’t just about calculating how we can win the maximum number of races, or finding the least-bad candidate,” says Matthew Luskin, a Chicago Teachers Union organizer who serves on the UWF’s board. . .The 2012 teachers strike, helmed by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), is rightly seen as a watershed moment in Chicago politics. But the genesis of United Working Families stretches back further, says Amisha Patel, executive director of Grassroots Illinois Action, the political arm of a union-community coalition and one of the major players in the city’s progressive politics. Patel traces the UWF’s history back to 2006, under former Mayor Richard M. Daley, when the coalition led a fight over a living wage ordinance in the city council for “big box” stores moving into the city. . .CTU organizer Matthew Luskin remembers the conversation beginning informally, with an invitation from an SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana staffer inviting CTU to a discussion about independent politics. HCII is one of the city’s most progressive union locals and a close partner with the CTU. Discussion of the possibility that CTU President Karen Lewis might run for mayor had begun circulating, and organizers were beginning to contemplate wading into the electoral thicket. Soon, the CTU, HCII, the Grassroots Illinois Action, and the community group Action Now entered into regular discussions about the possibility of creating a political organization. . . .Representatives from the four groups established a basic platform and dues structure, creating a budget and hiring staff, including Kristen Crowell who had headed labor’s attempted recall of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin in 2011, as executive director. . .There aren’t many similar efforts by which to measure UWF, but the most obvious comparison is the Working Families Party. The two groups have a similar organizational makeup (unions and grassroots community groups), and both say they aim to push Democrats to the left. Even the names of the two groups are similar. While the groups have no formal affiliation, the two are working closely together: the WFP has supported UWF since its inception, and members of UWF have participated in the WFP’s national advisory committee. Jon Green, the WFP’s deputy director, says the two groups are “cut from the same cloth.” . . .Green has almost nothing but praise for what he’s seen in Chicago. “We see this race as a high water mark for independent progressive politics in the country,” he says. He came to the city along with 18 other WFP staff to work on various campaigns through UWF; the WFP also recently hosted Garcia in New York for a fundraiser. . .WFP leaders in other states have also been impressed by the impact UWF has had in less than a year, and the kind of uncompromisingly progressive politics it has pushed, Green says. “UWF is embracing a bigger and bolder approach to politics. They’re pushing the envelope in ways that progressives across the country will want to emulate.” . . .“If [UWF] pushes the Democrats to the left, that’s great,” says Katelyn Johnson, executive director of Action Now, one of the UWF founding organizations. “If it produces a third party, that’s great, too.”. . .