Posted on 09/18/2009 8:14:05 PM PDT by markomalley
Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, has just released a statement vowing not to be "silenced" by "right wing attack dogs" targeting "progressive individuals" and "community organizations." Stern, whose union has sometimes been linked with the community organizing group ACORN, which yesterday suffered an enormous blow when the House of Representatives voted 345-45 to cut off all federal funds for the organization, said his union will not be intimidated by a right-wing "backlash" that is "fierce, ugly and anti-American." Here is the full text of Stern's statement:
This is a moment of profound change for this country—from kitchen tables to town halls to the floor of the Senate, this nation is engaged in a vigorous and heated debate about how we rebuild our economy, solve our national healthcare crisis and restore the American Dream.
As has always happened when progressive change is in the air, the backlash gets fierce, ugly and anti-American. This time is no different. Right now, there is an insidious and coordinated effort on the part of the extreme right to target individuals and grassroots community groups as a way to silence the voices of women and men who have suffered the most under 8 years of right wing policies.
These extremists will attempt to shut down and shout down anyone with a different point of view.
Let’s be clear who we are talking about—call them attack dogs, call them Teabaggers, call them Glenn Beck--these are the same folks who cheered the policies that crashed our economy. Who make up lies about death panels to try to kill healthcare reform. Who scream about democracy while denying workers a voice on the job. Who target anyone who poses a threat to a status quo that for too long has rewarded greedy CEOs while leaving people who work out in the cold.
This is not the America we believe in.
Their lies, their stunts and their smears will not silence us. Glenn Beck, FOX News and their pals have demonstrated that they don’t care about what janitors, security officers, nurses, teachers, and other hardworking Americans go through each day trying to give their kids a better future. But make no mistake—these hardworking women and men will not be the next casualty of the cruel and cheap attempts of a loud and venomous minority to silence people who want to restore the American Dream.
We are going to make sure healthcare is affordable and accessible for every man, woman and child in this country. We are going to demand transparency and accountability in the financial industry. We are going to create a fair and just path to citizenship. We are going to make sure workers get a voice on the job. And we will protect our democracy by calling out those extremists who would silence the voices of women and men who work each day.
It was years of irresponsible legislative tinkering that turned the banking system into a structure so fragile that was ready to fall with smallest jolt. It was this weakened economic structure that was not able to support the huge amount of activity in the derivatives market which amplified the impact of the faltering housing market. I see it as those who would tinker with something like the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis. It would be like replacing its one inch gusset plates with half inch plates. This design mistake is what contributed to its collapse. It was not the fault of the thirteen people killed and 145 injured that the bridge collapsed. It was not the fault of the Head of the Minnesota State Transportation Dept. It was the fault of those who live off the public money who design things (or in this case, tinker) without considering the unintended consequences.
The Obama Administration has ignored the cause of the economic failure and has used it to justify a spending spree that will cause further economic turmoil due to inflation and increased taxation. When the Democrats blame the economic collapse on the Bush Administration, tax cuts for the rich and greedy Capitalists they are purposely ignoring the true cause. All we hear is the continuous mantra that it was President Bush’s fault. However, there is a deeper fault with our economy that needs to be addressed.
It was Senator Phil Gramm who came up with his 262-page amendment called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, in December of 2000. This amendment, stuck in a government re-authorization bill, gave birth to the $62 trillion market for credit default swaps (CDSs). It was one of the last bills that President Clinton was to sign. Gramm’s amendment freed financial institutions from the risks and oversight of their CDS transactions which before they were solely responsible. This opened up the hedge fund and derivatives trade market which became the Achilles heel to our economic system. We should have known from history that it caused a similar world economic collapse in the Panic of 1907. What this tells us is that back in 1909, 100 years ago, people understood the risks and potential instability that comes from gambling on securities prices.
People who forget history repeat it. Wall Street firms like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, etc. started selling what they called derivatives, which were bets on how the market would do. Would it go up or down? One type of derivative was created which would bet on whether mortgage owners would pay on defaults. So, when the mortgage crises hit, the credit markets went upside down because there were a huge number of derivatives that bet on mortgage payments. The people who bet on mortgages would not get paid. These were people who were supposed to be paid off when a default occurred. Many of these people were banks who had huge amounts of money betting on these derivatives. But the folks who invented these derivatives had not set aside enough money to do that, and so it all came crumbling down like a house of cards.
Also, during the Clinton Administration, the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act which repealed parts of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. This bill was signed November 12, 1999 by Bill Clinton. Specifically, provisions in the 1933 Glass-Steagall act that prohibit a bank holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed. Economists Robert Ekelund and Mark Thornton have criticized the Act as contributing to the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis.
The problem with such union morons like Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, is they only economics they understand is taking money out of the pockets of hard working Americans and using it to buy politicians. Instead of putting that money to use growing more wealth for this nation, they are using it to buy power. For this stupidity, they have thrown money away in buckets you would never find in those Bucket Shops of the 1900's (hint: for your homework my fellow Freepers, study up on Bucket Shops).
LMAO, what on earth does a socialist scumbag like Stern know about America?
“As always happens when Communist change is in the air”....that’ more like it Andy!!
"[We'll be] calling out those extremists" who threaten us.
I suspect one way or another we will have escalated shooting in the streets. It almost seems unavoidable
I agree. Within the next 14 months.
Gotta disagree. Why? It is cheaper to vote ‘em out and laugh as the worthless bachelor’s children try to find a real job.
Being hired (or not) on your own merits must be difficult for ex-bureaucrats.
“Boss at ACORN-Friendly SEIU, Already a Child Molester, Found Guilty on Kiddie Porn Charges”
Everything these people want will have to be forced, at the point of a gun, on half the population. But we are the "extremists". Just think about it. To fine someone if they refuse to take insurance. What will they do if you refuse to pay the fine? These people are crazy!
The SEIU has it own dictatorship. According to this article from January I came across, the UHW says the SEIU President, Andy Stern has been centralizing power in D.C. and is using “authoritarian tactics suppressing democracy” in treatment of other union members. Trouble within their own ranks with the way SEIU conducts itself.
http://www.openleft.com/tag/union-busting
“Throw Them Out” - UHW-SEIU calls for massive resistance by members to Stern dictatorship
by: JimmyHiggins
Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 09:13
SEIU President Andy Stern has received authority from his international executive board of toadies and flunkies to impose a trusteeship on the 150,000 members United Healthcare Workers West (UHW). This is a punitive trusteeship imposed to silence dissent from Stern’s policies of centralizing power in Washington DC and doing secret backroom deals with corporate CEOs against the interests of members. Stern is sending hundreds of union-busting scabs to California (selected SEIU international union staffers) to attack and destroy UHW, despite months of massive rank and file protests by union members.
UHW is calling for massive resistance in the workplaces to Stern’s scabs.
All real trade unionists everywhere should solidarize with UHW and defend the principle of union democracy.
Stern’s crackdown comes at a horrible time - by identifying union leadership with authoritarian tactics suppressing democracy, it makes it much harder for other unions to win much needed labor law reforms in Congress. Progressives should protest to SEIU and tell them “Respect the Right of Dissent - Hands Off UHW!”
There’s More... :: (0 Comments, 287 words in story)
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Here’s a little ditty on SEIU President Stern that you might find interesting:
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“Union President Stern the Hand in Obama’s Puppet?”
Posted on June 30, 2009 by WTH .
The L.A. Times had a very interesting piece last week on the unusually close relationship between Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern and President Obama. The story revealed how Stern “enjoys unusual access to the White House,” and how often Stern is invited to attend meetings the administration holds on policy even as other union heads are left out of the loop.
The piece does cast some doubt on just how much clout Stern might have with Obama as several of the initiatives he has pushed hard for have yet to come to fruition — but it should also be remembered that this administration is only 6 months old. There is plenty of time, here.
Though it does not develop the theme, here is where the Times piece shows the danger that Andy Stern’s close connection with Obama presents to the country and its various governments, federal and state both.
The SEIU’s access to the White House also has left California officials unsettled. Earlier this year, the Obama administration invited the SEIU to take part in a conference call centering on a dispute over pay cuts to home healthcare workers represented by the union. State officials said the union’s involvement in a government-to-government conference seemed inappropriate.
Inappropriate? You bet. But Obama indulged his buddy Stern anyway.
So, where is the danger? Andy Stern’s SEIU is the biggest union in the country that represents government workers of all sorts. If Stern can translate his close relationship to the administration into cajoling and strongarming more and more government workers into his union, Stern will (and already has to a great extent) become an unelected, fourth branch of government in every state of the union as well as Congress.
Before any government budget is decided, before any responsible cut in spending is considered, government officials all across the land have to go to Andy Stern, hat in hand, to ask him if they are allowed to cut costs. This is a check on government power that the voters have absolutely no say whatever in affecting. This is a power that is illegitimately in the hands of a self-interested union thug that could not care less what “good government” means nor what is best for the tax payers. In fact, his interest is to screw the tax payers as much as possible, yet he is being handed almost total veto power on state and federal budgetary concerns. The closer to Obama he gets, the more his clout grows and the more powerful he becomes, legitimate or not.
This man is a danger to the whole country.
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Interesting, a day before the election, Stern was in Chicago meeting with Blago:
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http://www.exposeobama.com/tag/andy-stern/
“Blagojevich Calendar Confirms Suspicions”
Thursday, January 8th, 2009
By John O’Connor, Associated Press
It takes two to tango and Obama’s people should held accountable
Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s official calendar shows he met with a top union official in his Chicago office the day before Barack Obama was elected president—just as federal prosecutors say the governor was scheming to trade Obama’s Senate seat, possibly for a cushy union job.
The meeting with Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, also was attended by Tom Balanoff, president of the Illinois chapter of the union, which has been Blagojevich’s largest campaign contributor.
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And now he’s using his underhanded tactics on all of America for the benefit of Obama!
Ping
“SEIU Head Andy Stern Blasts Patriots: “Anti-American; Teab****rs; Right Wing Attack Dogs...””
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2343311/posts
They may be an IQ bracket higher than the ACORN folks but still not bright bulbs.
Maybe but, we haven't seen the last of ACORN.
Don't take this lying 'dog's' bait. He would love nothing better than to have a blood letting, but he sure won't be putting himself out in front leading any charge. He played with UNION money to get BamaKennedy elected and he expects that pay back. That is what is at the base of this health care reformation, make US pay back him back for the UNION money he 'made-off'.
Polling data must be really really bad, else the liberals would have already pass their UNION bailout. That spells trouble even with the stimulus this bunch has bankrolled for next year's election.
Republicans cannot stop any piece of legislation these Bolsheviks plan to pass.
My guess would be that they will morph and change back into the same thing...under another name.
The idiot doesn't realize these are the protesters (they're just not THE UNION).
Exactly, kcvl. Excellent post (#29).
thugs
...Let’s be clear who we are talking about—call them attack dogs, call them Teabaggers, call them Glenn Beck--these are the same folks who cheered the policies that crashed our economy. Who make up lies about death panels to try to kill healthcare reform. Who scream about democracy while denying workers a voice on the job. Who target anyone who poses a threat to a status quo that for too long has rewarded greedy CEOs while leaving people who work out in the cold.
This is not the America we believe in.
Their lies, their stunts and their smears will not silence us. Glenn Beck, FOX News and their pals have demonstrated that they don’t care about what janitors, security officers, nurses, teachers, and other hardworking Americans go through each day trying to give their kids a better future. But make no mistake—these hardworking women and men will not be the next casualty of the cruel and cheap attempts of a loud and venomous minority to silence people who want to restore the American Dream...
Also check out kcvl's excellent post in #29.
There are enormous amounts of our money involved.
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