Economic Terrorism’s Big Comeback

Radical activist groups associated with President Barack Obama have launched a campaign of economic terrorism and sabotage – possibly with his blessing. Mortgage and student loan strikes, crippling bank boycotts, intimidation, and who knows what else are all on the agenda.

The idea of leftists using terrorism to achieve political objectives isn’t new. Leon Trotsky supported the use of terrorism to advance so-called social justice. Decades before an ice-axe found its way into his skull, Trotsky argued in Dictatorship vs. Democracy that Communists who reject “terrorism in principle” weren’t bona fide Communists. Years before that, he justified “proletarian terrorism” because the capitalist state itself, with its “entire state apparatus with its laws, police, and army is nothing but an apparatus for capitalist terror.” In the upside-down world of Marxists, radical activists’ frightening, violent, in-your-face tactics are thought of as merely fighting fire with fire.

Since at least the 1960s, the American Left has embraced terrorism. Striking fear into the hearts of big corporations has proven to be politically useful and lucrative, as the shakedown artists of ACORN and Jesse Jackson’s Wall Street Project can attest.

While most of its practitioners conceal the true nature of what they do, others revel in their depravity. For example, Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America head Bruce Marks has proudly described himself as both a “banking terrorist” and an “urban terrorist.”

The current campaign to wreck America appears to have been in the works for a while. It’s the kind of strategem that would appeal to Obama, who promised three years ago to do the bidding of Saul Alinsky-inspired groups such as ACORN, that Gamaliel Foundation, National People’s Action, and the Center for Community Change (CCC).

Remember that 10 months before he told Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher that he planned to “spread the wealth around,” Obama made it clear to the nation’s far-left community organizers that they would be major players in his administration. At the CCC-sponsored Heartland Democratic Presidential Forum on Dec. 1, 2007, Obama promised to “be calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda … for the next presidency of the United States of America.”

He wasn’t kidding.

One of the architects of a recently uncovered subversive plan that aims to destroy the nation’s financial system is Stephen Lerner, an international board member of the radical Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Lerner, who is tremendously respected and influential in leftist organizing circles, has reportedly visited the Obama White House at least four times.

Incidentally, SEIU also happens to be Obama’s favorite union. The labor organization went into hock when it spent a staggering $85 million to promote his candidacy. SEIU even produced a documentary film called Labor Day to let Americans know how much hard work it did to get Obama where he is today.

At a Left Forum conference last month at Pace University, Lerner urged participants to do everything in their power to make the nation’s financial problems far, far worse. If leftists really believe capitalism is in a “transformative stage,” they “need to confront this in a serious way and develop a real ability to put a boot in the wheel.” Lerner opined:

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, is it’s actually incredibly fragile, because 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 destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement.

Lerner argued that a nationwide mortgage strike would cause a lot of headaches for Wall Street. He noted that 25 percent of homeowners now own a home that is worth less than they paid for it. Of those “under water” homeowners, 10 percent “are now in strategic default, meaning they’re refusing to pay but they’re staying in their homes.” The homeowners, who figured out it might take lenders a year to foreclose on their mortgages and evict them, should be urged to stay put. “If you could double that number, you would … put banks on the edge of insolvency again.”

Sociologist Abby Scher, a City University of New York colleague of small-c communist academic Frances Fox Piven, raved about the plan’s destructive potential:

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

Creating “conditions of ungovernability” was precisely what the Trotsky-inspired Piven and her late husband Cloward advocated from the 1960s forward. Their infamous call to overwhelm governments with impossible financial demands, “The Weight of the Poor,” was published in the Nation magazine in 1966. The article inspired a generation of community organizers, such as ACORN founder Wade Rathke, to hit governments and capitalists where it hurts. (Pseudo-intellectual Hugo Chavez collaborator Cornel West and Piven are planning a national online teach-in on sticking it to the system on April 5.)

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• jaythehistorian

  Lerner is a clear menace to our society. I pray he "storms" a house in which the owner is waiting for him with legally owned firearm .It would be similar to shooting a rabid dog.

• Amused

  Oh BUNK ! The Wall Street boys skipped LEGAL Avenues in transferring mortgagesin their fevered rush for fast profit , and reselling those investment packages . When did you ever buy a house , without the Bank , the Closing Company and your lawyer , crossing ALL the T's and dottinbg ALL the I 's ??
  Now after breaking all the rules , including their own ,on who is qualified and who is not, to recieve mortgage loans and refinancing , after lobbying and removing legislation which seperated Commercial and Investment Banking practices , after inflating the housing market until it all blew up in their faces , [ and everyone elses ] after fattening their portfolios and the greedy investors , [ which included the pension funds of many States as well as those of unions ] who would not see what an economics 101 student could clearly see was coming , so now the chickens come home to roost , AND YOU SINGLE OUT LERNER ???

• Amused

  So now as the Banks attempt to evict , all the " losers " in the frenzied game that was played , after all the the investment pigs fattened up at the troff , it is discovered that no one knows where the original deed proving ownership is . WHO'S FAULT IS THAT ? Oh the " losers " are not blameless either , for they allowed themselves to be lead , but their illusion was facilitated and perpetuated by the very lenders who wrote the loans . Legal Fiduciary Responsibilies were tossed out the window , the Government watchdogs , appointed SEC overseers looked the other way, as NONE would attempt to stop the feeding frenzy , and anger the powerfull lobbies , and their political facilitators, everyone was in on it from the Banks to bond raters , Insurance Companies becoming Banks , and banks becoming insurance companies , all devising insane financial products [derivitives etc.] and even those breaking all the rules of liquidity and backing by changing A WORD , in their descriptions …..sonlets put the blame on the " losers " at the bottom , the last ones out of the burning movie house . What hypocritical BULLSHEET !!!

• Amused

  " The Economic Terrorism " has already occurred , over the past decade or so . And the guilty are now named huh ? What utter TRIPE !!

• jaythehistorian

  The reason for the housing depression ,which is a major reason for the economic depression are parasites of color, their Stalinist allies, and traitors such as Bill Clinton. The 3 pieces of evidence are the community reinvestment act , Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Community Reinvestment act was one of many methods used in the looting of wealth of whites by non-whites. Banks figuratively had a loaded gun to their heads. If they didn't make housing loans according to some predetermined racial quota , they faced severe punishment from the Federal government. Non whites are burden on American society. It is not all their fault as many whites especially Democrats, RINOs, and members of Labor Unions who were very willing to ruin our country in order to gain and keep political and economic power by "paying off" non whites. One statistic tells the entire story. For the past 47 years , no democrat candidate for President has received the majority of the white male vote. For almost 50 years, the democrats and their auxillaries such as Labor Unions especially labor union thugs have been systematically robbing White males and transferring their jobs and wealth mainly to non-whites. To blame "Wall Street" as the major cause of our current economic depression, is only to deflect attention away from the real culprits.

  • ajnn

    "Non whites are burden on American society". This is not tolerable. Putting a racial spin on this is wrong; both factually and morally.

    It is not non-whites who are a burden, the problem is white people who have no knowledge or experience with being poor and thier nonsensical 'remedies' which inolve distorting our government and private enterprise beyond recognition with nonsense like the 'Community Reinvestment Act' and senators likie barney Frank wjho are corrup socialists.

  • rdb3

    Why'd you inject race into the discussion?

    • Amused

      LOL….because at it;s heart it IS A RACIAL DISCUSSION , charading as politik . And the idiots here spouting it, are under the illusion that no one can see it .

• Jim_C

  You're right jaytheracisthistorian–it's simply too much to expect ethics from the financial sector.

  If we did, we'd literally have to hang a few of them in the public square to keep them in line. And we're not savage like that. After all what's thousands and thousands of people's pensions compared to one poor Wall Street execs life?

  If anything, we're to blame, looking the other way while times are good. Meanwhile you have a revolving door between Congress and K street, or betwen the SEC and Wall Street. Laws and regulations mean nothing when there's no will to prosecute wrongdoing.

  • ajnn

    Good point, " Laws and regulations mean nothing when there's no will to prosecute wrongdoing".

    We do not need new & improved laws and regulation; we need to enforce the laws that we have now !!!!!

    • Jim_C

      Now, especially, is not the time to heavily regulate financial markets. It's all about that revolving door. If I know I can make 7 figures at your firm when I leave my government post, advising you how to work around my agency, I'm not so inclined to go after you. It's the same with Washington lobbyists/Congress. There are a lot of reasons our economy has suffered, but this collusion is the biggest single reason–because it ties directly into our electoral process.

• sflbib

  Talk about biting you nose to spite your face.

• Jim_C

  The CRA is a total macguffin for the real malfeasance.

• Rifleman

  As a matter of fact they do want to wreck this country. How does one delude themselves otherwise, when they come right out and say it?

  Cease the compulsory deduction of union members’ dues from their paychecks. It would make union commies like lerner more accountable to the people they supposedly represent, and you’d never again hear them suggest anyone not mail a check.

• Amused

  Oh what bullsheet Rigleman , uniion dues deducted from paychecks are a simple matter of accounting expense , antone in a union in a right to work state get one , in some cases TWO periods in the year to opt out of the union .Following your rationale then why should your group medical insurance be automatically deducted from your paycheck ?
  Your statement is one of ignorance, and of course embellisherd with your predisposed bias . Your "frothing -at-the-mouth " anti-unionism , causes you to parrot foolishness .

• biggershovel

  In the United States, the radical left's primary modus operandi in forcing lending institutions to make all those bad loans to unqualified individuals was the threat of prosecution for racial discrimination. This was in all probability not a threat: there were and probably remain radical, Marxist-leaning judges throughout the court system who would rule against the financial institutions despite the fact that making loans to most of these unqualified individuals was unsound at best. The aforementioned plus the later admissions of the Obama-Holder "Justice" Department should serve as testimony to the fact that anti-caucasian (aka reverse) racism forms a large proportion of the neo-Marxist agenda in the United States and that is certainly a very dangerous development we can not ignore. One could also examine the mass immigration of non-whtie ethnicities from thrid world nations over the past generation and find still more evidence(that third world immigrants receive blatantly preferential treatment through the welfare system,paid for mostly by whites who have no say at all in how their tax money is spent). As for whites never having experienced poverty, a quick trip to the backwoods of West Virgina or Mississippi will quickly dispel that delusion.

  • eyetalic

    I would LOVE to think it was the leftists 'forcing' the banks to be criminals, because there are a few people I would 'rip a new one' for. Unfortunately, the historical record shows (regardless of what they invent on FOX news) that it was the Repubs deregulating the banks that did it. Really. C'mon, unless you're rich, don't defend banks and politicians. They think of you as cattle to the slaughter. Your job on Earth is to get them richer. Research. (I can't support either side these days, btw. Both parties are out for the rich).

• Amused

  Bullsheet "bigger shovel " when have you EVER seen banks forced to do anything ? Besides that weak argument , you'rte gonna try and sell the story , that Banks weren't falling all over themselves to get in the "flip this house game " ? Where have you been forv the past 15 years ? In a Cave ? And the boys on Wall Street , completely free to break the rules Bush's "watchdogs " in the SEC were ignoring , created investment packages , and insurance devices for those packages , whilst never having the liquidity to even call themselves Insurance Companies ..lol../ who are you kidding man ? You cant be that blinded by your partisan politics not to have seen it , and atleast not to recognize the causes after the fact . But I guess all you "so caled Republican /Conservatives " give your "pavlovian response " – Acorn- Community Reinvestment -Obama …blah , blah , blah , etc. etc . Tell me genius , even supposing your culprit was"the guilty party " , do you know what percentage of the millions of Americans actually benefited from your red herring bogeyman.? I doubt it , you can't see beyond your own partisan nose .

• Amused

  Funny , When the truth is spoken around here , the "thumbs down " appear out of the woodwork , it's not what anyone wants to hear , it goes against all of the rhetoric pablum they been swallowing whole and expectorating all over the place . That's WHY it's gonna happen again …too many camels with their heads in the sand and arses in the air , for as we speak , those boys on Wall street have not been discouraged , "new financial products ", more devious than their former failed schemes, are being devised . And YOU people , are playing right into their hands , and your "patriot teabagging politicians "as well as lapping dog Dems , are afraid to do anything about it . For THEY KNOW where their campaign funds come from ….and the boys on Wall Street ? They make the money , whether you win or lose .

• Amused

  PART 2 of the housing bubble DEBACLE – FIND THE TITLE . And the foreclosure Judges aint buying the bullsheet ….NO TITLE – NO FORECLOSURE …now THAT'S AMERICA , not your lopsided partisan debased view which kisses and licks the arses of GREEDY INVESTMENT BANKERS , Insurance Companies , Derivative Brokers, Short Sellers and the rest of the dreggs on Wall Street .

• allen

  u fu$*in fascist pigs … go to hell

• Anonymous

  This hardly sounds like a proponent of terrorism as a political weapon:

  http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1911/11/t…

• eyetalic

  You must be rich. Only a rich person would defend corporations/banks which send jobs out of the country while reaping RECORD profits. That means you're trying to convince POOR people that we should accept being poor so you can get richer. And then you make it seem like it's patriotism by bringing in descriptions of communists. This is not Russia. This is America. And we are the People. It's OUR country. You are a Traitor.

  It's not Capitalism vs. Communism. It's DEMOCRACY vs. any form of rule which takes away our Constitutionally guaranteed rights.

  • Kalie Smith

    Eyetalic, you sound like a marxist. Not a word about crony capitalism as practiced by the Democraps or Democrap/RINO Government Greed.

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