Is this guy a terrorist? SEIU bigwig Steve Lerner

[Count Chocula]

This tape was leaked to Glenn Beck's http://www.theblaze.com so half of you may stop reading here, but here are some excerpts from Lerner's speech. Emphasis added.

W: We’re going to hear from Steve Lerner next, of SEIU, the Architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign. Currently, he’s working on partnering with unions and groups in Europe and South America, it’s building campaigns to hold financial institutions accountable.

S. Lerner: It seems to me that we’re in a moment where we need to figure out in a much more, through direct action, much more concrete way how we really are trying to disrupt and create uncertainty for capital, for how corporations operate. And it may sound like that’s a crazy thing that in a moment of weakness we could deal with it, but the thing about a boom and bust economy, it is actually incredibly fragile, because it’s not based on real way, well, it’s based on gambling and all of that. And so there are actually extraordinary things that we could do right now that would start to de, destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement.

And so the question would be, what would happen if we organized homeowners in mass to do a mortgage strike. Just say if we get, and, and, if we get half a million people to agree, we’ll all not, we’ll agree we won’t pay our mortgages, it would literally cause a new financial crisis.

And if you’re se, if we really believe that we’re in a transformative stage and what’s happening in capitalism, and we need to confront this in a serious way and develop a real ability to put a boot in the wheel [that would be sabotage], then I think we have to think not about labor community alliances. We have to think about how together we’re building something that really has the capacity to disrupt how the system operates.

So, a bunch of us around the country are thinking about who would be a really good company to hate? We decided that would be JP Morgan Chase. …. And so we’re going to roll out over the next couple of months what will hopefully be an exciting campaign about JP Morgan Chase that is really about challenge the power of Wall Street. And so what we’re looking at is in the first week of May [oh those Socialists/Communists do love their symbolism, nicht war?], we get enough people together – we’re starting now – to really have a week of action in New York with the goal of … I don’t want to go into any details because I don’t know which police agents are in the room, but the goal would be that we would roll out in New York the first week in May—

W: You were talking about why unions are so invested because of their pension plans and why ungovernability, as Frances Fox Piven and Cloward taught us, you know, poor peoples’ movements are successful when they create conditions of ungovernability. And then you win victories.

Sounds like a conspiracy to commit domestic destabilization i.e. terrorism to me. Now that the cat's out of the bag, in a manner of speaking, I expect that precisely nothing will happen come May Day. Apparently DOJ and JP Morgan Chase have transcripts of this speech already. If JPMorgan Chase attacks DO occur, and mortgage delinquencies rise and can be linked to Lerner and his allies, I'd expect Lerner to be in a heap o'trouble. He really should think twice if he thinks that the community organizer President who still has us in Iraq and Afghanistan and now involved with Libya (without Congressional approval), who still has Gitmo open for business, and is more concerned with Rio and NCAA point spreads will come to his rescue. Any May Day protests will likely get LE attention very quickly. BTW, JPMorgan Chase is one of the most SOLVENT financial institutions in the US (J correct me if I'm wrong), so Lerner's tactics seem clearly designed to bring down the biggest beast on the assumption that the rest will easily fall.

Looks like I need to put Rules for Radicals on my bookshelf next to my copy of The Communist Manifesto so I have the right playbook.


EDIT: No he's not a terrorist, because nothing's happened. If events in May unfold as he's planned, then it's a new game. I for one do NOT want to see another TARP.

[Edi]

As soon as you actually identify a criminal statute that would fit, I may consider it, but far worse things pass under first amendment. Put down the right wing Kool Aid for a moment. Because if that's the standard for terrorism these days, you could arrest and throw half of the GOP in prison on the spot for things they have said and not a few Democrats either.

[Zed]

Is the U.S. currently committing terrorism in Libya? It's certainly destabilizing the Libyan regime.


I think you should stop throwing about the word "terrorism" nilly-willy. If you want to object to a radical worker's movement, that's fine by me. Just don't apply the nastiest label you can find, even if it's irrelevant, in order to demonize your political opponents. It's just as bad as calling people fascists, Nazis, communists, etc.

[Keevan_Colton]

Interesting notion certainly, out of curiosity, would you class the management at most investment banks as terrorists for destabilising the world economy in the first place?

[Zaune]

Whatever the merits or drawbacks of the mortgage strike idea, I'm happy to hear any constructive suggestion for gaining a bit of leverage over the world's financial institutions that doesn't involve real terrorism.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Interesting notion certainly, out of curiosity, would you class the management at most investment banks as terrorists for destabilising the world economy in the first place?

Well, fuck, Kev... you already know MY answer to that.

[TheHammer]

Interesting notion certainly, out of curiosity, would you class the management at most investment banks as terrorists for destabilising the world economy in the first place?

No, even if you'd classify the event as "terrorism" I doubt you could classify them as terrorists because it was not their intent to destabalize the economy. If a pilot loses control of his aircraft and crashes we wouldn't call him a terrorist. They are probably guilty of other crimes though, and certainly guilty of gross incompetence.

I realize you're not being serious, but I think that intent is an important distinction to draw here. The person cited in the op's stated goal is to destabalize the economy, where as the bankers were just failures at their jobs. Not that I'm calling him a terrorist either, but I think that's where Chocula was going with this.

[Edi]

The bankers being just failures argument doesn't fly, because that's what they say when ALL of their actions leading up to and during the financial crisis, up to and including when they were being bailed out, point to the conclusion that they simply did not care how much damage they were doing and that they were intentionally cooking the books.

If the US had Finland style regulation of the financial sector and working enforcement of same but with US penalties, nearly everyone from middle managers up in the big banks would be getting out of jail by about the year 2200.

[Simon_Jester]

What this man is calling for is, believe it or not, a boycott- his argument being that the current economic regime in the US cannot survive customer boycotts, and will be forced to reform.

Boycotts are a well-known form of civil protest, not terrorism. They may have destabilizing economic effects does not make them terrorism. Doing anything to change a corrupt government will destabilize that government. That's not terrorism.

This is no different from people refusing to buy BP gasoline on account of the Gulf of Mexico spill, Chocula.

Terrorism has a very well defined type of goal: to spread terror by use of violence. Note the word "terror." You cannot have "terrorism" without "terror." You cannot have "terrorism" just because you have "intent to do something that someone thinks is bad for the country," because you can always find someone to think anything is bad for the country. No, there has to be intent to spread terror.

Here, there is no political intent to create terror, there is political intent to* 'starve the beast'- to reduce the power of the big financial companies in the US by reducing their customer base.

That is not terrorism. Again, this is just like people refusing to do business with BP. If a company, or an industry, insists on its right to fuck people over, there is no grounds to complain if those same people turn around and start fucking the company, or the industry over.

*To appropriate a phrase used by others in another context

[TheHammer]

The bankers being just failures argument doesn't fly, because that's what they say when ALL of their actions leading up to and during the financial crisis, up to and including when they were being bailed out, point to the conclusion that they simply did not care how much damage they were doing and that they were intentionally cooking the books.

If the US had Finland style regulation of the financial sector and working enforcement of same but with US penalties, nearly everyone from middle managers up in the big banks would be getting out of jail by about the year 2200.

Well, as I said they were certainly guilty of other crimes, negligence, recklessness etc. Just not terrorism.

[Count Chocula]

Banks (i.e. bank executives) are certainly complicit in crimes and not enough bank execs have gone to jail. They made bad loans, maybe under duress, to people that should not have had loans in the first place. Yeah, they were part of the bubble that followed the Internet Bubble. That is not what this guy's talking about except tangentially. Lerner's speech lays out a plan to destabilize and bring down the "capitalist" economy. If the May protests of JPMorgan happen and the guys in the purple shirts get violent, is that terrorism? Could be. Lerner's exhorting his allies to encourage people to stop paying their mortgages with the express purpose of causing another financial crisis.

The Pentagon is war-gaming what they call "economic terrorism." The FBI's definition of terrisom includes "force or the threat of force." Angry protesters with bats, anyone? The closest to a definition I was able to find was this:

More precisely, in 2005 the Center of Security Policy of Geneva defined economic terrorism in the following terms:

Contrary to "economic warfare" which is undertaken by states against other states, "economic terrorism" would be undertaken by transnational or non-state actors. This could entail varied, coordinated and sophisticated or massive destabilizing actions in order to disrupt the economic and financial stability of a state, a group of states or a society (such as market oriented western societies) for ideological or religious motives.
These actions, if undertaken, may be violent or not. They could have either immediate effects or carry psychological effects which in turn have economic consequences.

At the very least, Lerner's statements are subversive. To play Devil's advocate for a sec, terrorism is so broadly defined in the Patriot Act that theoretically Lerner could be "disappeared" without a warrant or hearing right now. The Big O and Congress renewed the Patriot Act so it's still in force. Heck, if he shows up to lead a "protest" and it gets violent he could be charged with inciting a riot. But, as I wrote earlier, I don't expect any protests to happen now.

EDIT: Simon, are you replying to this topic? We're talking jack and squat about boycotts or BP here. 2nd EDIT: refusing to pay your mortgage is NOT a boycott; it's reneging on a contract you willingly entered. Totally different activity.

[Lusankya]

refusing to pay your mortgage is NOT a boycott; it's reneging on a contract you willingly entered. Totally different activity.

Technically speaking, going on strike in order to seek better wages and working conditions is also reneging on a contract you willingly entered. Are all Trade Unions terror cells now?

[LaCroix]

refusing to pay your mortgage is NOT a boycott; it's reneging on a contract you willingly entered. Totally different activity.

Technically speaking, going on strike in order to seek better wages and working conditions is also reneging on a contract you willingly entered. Are all Trade Unions terror cells now?

GOP answer: Yes.

[bobalot]

Count Chocula posts something from a nutbag right-wing blog launched by Glenn Beck as evidence that a Union "bigwig" is a terrorist. Quite, a serious allegation.

With countless articles like ‘LET HIM TO SHOW HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE’: TRUMP PROPELS BIRTHER RUMORS ON ‘THE VIEW’ and commentary like:

It’s interesting that Trump continues to bring this issue up. The Left loves to paint so-called “birthers” as crazy right-wing wackos. But as a household name, Trump obviously yields a bully pulpit similar to figures like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin who try and avoid the issue.I wonder why?

Does it suggest Trump will make a run for the White House? Not necessarily, but the man’s logic is hard to argue with… unless you‘re like Goldberg and quickly dismiss the enforcement of the Constitution’s residency requirement as “BS” aimed at attacking America’s first black president.

How could anybody not consider this a reliable source of information? (BTW, if you want to be blinded by more idiocy, read the comments below the "article")

Well, at least we know where he has been getting his material for his drive-by posts.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Well, at least we know where he has been getting his material for his drive-by posts.

Then we can shoot it down as he spews it out. Why the fuck is he not banned at this point?

[Aaron]

He's what, one of two/three openly conservative posters? Who you gonna argue with if you whittle that down further?

[Bluewolf]

To be honest, what's the point of banning Chocula at this point. The forum has him, Shep, TimothyC and a couple of other people who are professed conservatives and really, the forum is pretty much a left wing circle jerk echo chamber. I don't like Chocula and I see his arguments in a very dim light but he is one of the view people who offers something different from wha everyone else says. If no one is going to ban Shep for what have been his very wing arguments, that HAVE been called out on in the past then at least apply the same consistency to Chocula. Fuck, I'd rather retain a small shred of plurality, despite inherent errors than have just different flavours of leftist politics. Trying to eek out and destroy any differing political view is also a hilariously Republican thing to do, funny that.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

To be honest, what's the point of banning Chocula at this point. The forum has him, Shep, TimothyC and a couple of other people who are professed conservatives and really, the forum is pretty much a left wing circle jerk echo chamber. I don't like Chocula and I see his arguments in a very dim light but he is one of the view people who offers something different from wha everyone else says. If no one is going to ban Shep for what have been his very wing arguments, that HAVE been called out on in the past then at least apply the same consistency to Chocula. Fuck, I'd rather retain a small shred of plurality, despite inherent errors than have just different flavours of leftist politics. Trying to eek out and destroy any differing political view is also a hilariously Republican thing to do, funny that.

Oh hi, Golden Mean Fallacy much there, champ? That's basically what you're advocating, as when we strip out the extra verbiage of your post we get the following: "There's too many leftists around here, so the right-wingers should stay solely on the merit that they provide political balance."

There's a crucial difference between Chocula and the other folks you mention. When Chocula drops by N&P he generally makes posts that are copypasta of the anal incontinence of the American far-right "blogosphere." He makes little to no effort to respond to objections brought up about them. Instead, he vanishes for a while, and then comes back and drops a completely different post about a different American far-right skid mark talking point; and then proceeds to ignore objections brought up about that post while continuing to ignore calls to answer for the assertions he made in his previous drive-bys.

Shep, on the other hand, will at least debate the finer points of his peculiar world view. And he makes far more notable contributions to other areas on the board, such as the History forum, than any ten Choculas.

[Akhlut]

He's what, one of two/three openly conservative posters? Who you gonna argue with if you whittle that down further?

I've tried to argue with Chocula, I really have. The problem is that argument/debate requires two sides; it's really hard to debate someone who doesn't engage in a dialogue.

[Bluewolf]

GrandMasterTerwynn

Well that's all well and good, Shep does contribute somewhat toward discussion. The problem I see, which is present here is that there is people feel the need to kick Chocular, Shep, etc, thus stripping the forum of any opposing views. The forum does not have to be a centerist paradise but it's divorced from reality if it's turns into some sort of leftish oasis. You'll rarely get situations where that is the case. There is an argument that's just fine if it is, in fact just all leftists but that's in the eye of the beholder.

I do however agree that Chocula needs to form arguments beyond a blog or what Glenn Beck said on TV one day. It is detrimental to him, of course and probably wont help his chances of survivability on this forum.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

GrandMasterTerwynn

Well that's all well and good, Shep does contribute somewhat toward discussion. The problem I see, which is present here is that there is people feel the need to kick Chocular, Shep, etc, thus stripping the forum of any opposing views. The forum does not have to be a centerist paradise but it's divorced from reality if it's turns into some sort of leftish oasis. You'll rarely get situations where that is the case. There is an argument that's just fine if it is, in fact just all leftists but that's in the eye of the beholder.

Again, you're clinging to that Golden Mean fallacy. It's called a fallacy for a reason. "Reality" is not precisely one-half the distance between the American far-right and the rest of the world.

Also, a causal search of N&P reveals that there are plenty of areas of contention among the inhabitants of this so-called "leftist oasis." Take the peculiar American fascination with private gun ownership, or the discussions on the finer points of the planet's energy future as examples.

[Simon_Jester]

Banks (i.e. bank executives) are certainly complicit in crimes and not enough bank execs have gone to jail. They made bad loans, maybe under duress, to people that should not have had loans in the first place. Yeah, they were part of the bubble that followed the Internet Bubble. That is not what this guy's talking about except tangentially. Lerner's speech lays out a plan to destabilize and bring down the "capitalist" economy.

In this case, his argument revolves around, 'starve the beast' logic. Which I'm sure you're familiar with. Only in this case the "beast" is Big Finance, not Big Government. At the core of his argument is the point that the American economy at the moment is subservient to Big Finance.

And I would argue that this is true, to the point where the government actively subverts even the basic error-correction mechanisms of the free market for the sake of Big Finance. Even the free market, which is a shitty excuse for checks and balances because it's got too many positive feedback loops, is too great a check on the power of Big Finance to be tolerated under the Bush and Obama administrations.

How are we supposed to change this? Neither major political party in America shows any interest: the Dems were too busy reengineering their health care bill to pay off the insurance companies, and the Republicans are too busy sticking up for DOMA to do anything about Wall Street.

At what point do we have to step outside normal channels and start looking for civil-disobedience options if we want to reform the system?

The web of contracts and agreements that make up our economy depend on certain basic assumptions- that there is something in it for the little guy, something to look forward to other than being slowly ground into poverty and watching one's children be ground deeper into poverty, while Wall Street laughs all the way to the bank. When those assumptions are proven false, no it is not terrorism to say "we will not collaborate with this system any longer, given that it is trying to destroy our position as citizens."

Remember the Roman Republic. Remember the secessio plebis. At some point, the plebs are fully justified in just walking out on a system that is blatantly designed to marginalize them and screw them over.

If the May protests of JPMorgan happen and the guys in the purple shirts get violent, is that terrorism?

Beyond your own paranoid ravings, is there any reason to expect that?

The Pentagon is war-gaming what they call "economic terrorism." The FBI's definition of terrisom includes "force or the threat of force." Angry protesters with bats, anyone? The closest to a definition I was able to find was this:

The Pentagon has a vested interest in making up terrorists where none exist, because it can use that to expand its mandate until all actions which have any chance of upsetting the established order are defined as "terrorism" and therefore something the security organs can jump up and down on with both feet.

Do you honestly not see the historical precedents for this? The process by which attempts to change the system go from being 'reform' to being 'protest' to being 'terrorism?' This is a standard trick in the playbooks of every despot or oligarch in history that had to do away with a democracy to establish themself. It's so common: the policy of driving the loyal opposition into the political outer darkness, so that questioning the basic premises of how the oligarchs run the system becomes defined as "subversion."

"Subversion." You used that exact word. Gee, I wonder why.

EDIT: Simon, are you replying to this topic? We're talking jack and squat about boycotts or BP here. 2nd EDIT: refusing to pay your mortgage is NOT a boycott; it's reneging on a contract you willingly entered. Totally different activity.

The original boycott of, well, Charles Boycott went that far. Postmen refusing to deliver his mail, for instance. Mobs throwing rocks at his agents. Violence or threats of violence.

Thing is, again, the Irish tenants of that time and place were faced with a system blatantly designed to ruin them and reduce them to poverty and powerlessness. That's where the system breaks down- where it's reasonable for you to reject it; it's already rejected you.

[open_sketchbook]

GrandMasterTerwynn

Well that's all well and good, Shep does contribute somewhat toward discussion. The problem I see, which is present here is that there is people feel the need to kick Chocular, Shep, etc, thus stripping the forum of any opposing views. The forum does not have to be a centerist paradise but it's divorced from reality if it's turns into some sort of leftish oasis. You'll rarely get situations where that is the case. There is an argument that's just fine if it is, in fact just all leftists but that's in the eye of the beholder.

I do however agree that Chocula needs to form arguments beyond a blog or what Glenn Beck said on TV one day. It is detrimental to him, of course and probably wont help his chances of survivability on this forum.

It wouldn't be banning him for being conservative, it'd be banning him for being a shitty poster who does drive-by posts meant to stir shit up with his conservative views. Sure, Shep takes the conservative side of debates, but he actually debates those views and sometimes makes decent points. Chocula just uses his views to troll those who don't share them.

Besides, who the fuck comes to Star Destroyer for debate between extreme positions anymore? It's far more useful for ironing out cohesive, logical arguements for rational talking points to use on other forums and in other debates.

[Aaron]

I've never really understood this Golden Mean and this seems a decent opportunity to ask (we all know that Count Chocula isn't coming back); I understand that a Golden Mean fallacy is stating that the middle ground between two issues is correct because it's the middle. So by my understanding what Bluewolf is arguing isn't a golden mean, if there is a fallacy for it, I'm not sure but what I get is that he (and I) wants to keep him around because we have fuck all else.

Have I misunderstood what the Golden Mean is?

I've tried to argue with Chocula, I really have. The problem is that argument/debate requires two sides; it's really hard to debate someone who doesn't engage in a dialogue.

Yeah, casting my mind back, he never backs anything up. IIRC he was supposed to get back to Duckie months ago about endemic racism in the US and hasn't said "peep"

[Akhlut]

I've tried to argue with Chocula, I really have. The problem is that argument/debate requires two sides; it's really hard to debate someone who doesn't engage in a dialogue.

Yeah, casting my mind back, he never backs anything up. IIRC he was supposed to get back to Duckie months ago about endemic racism in the US and hasn't said "peep"

I was in that same debate and offered some evidence and kept trying to figure out why some particular politician's comments were violent rheoteric in opposition to, say, Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh.