The Lerner Side Of Occupy

Last March audio was released of Stephen Lerner discussing a secret plan to bring down JP Morgan Chase and crash the stock market. The audio was made public almost three weeks after the Pentagon released it's 2009 report on Economic Terrorism. Lerner is/was SEIU's (Service Employees International Union) point-person on Wall Street reform and the organizer of the 2010 Bank of America protests outside the homes of senior executives. Reports vary as to whether Lerner has been ousted from his position at SEIU or if he is on "administrative leave". Prior to the 2010 protests a Stephen Lerner had visited the White House four times:

Lerner visited twice for public gatherings, once to meet with a presidential personnel officer who manages economic agencies, and once for a visit scheduled by Tara Corrigan, executive assistant to the-WH political director Patrick Gaspard. Like Lerner, Gaspard spent much of his career working as a lobbyist and executive vice president for SEIU's Local 1199 in New York one of the union's most powerful and notoriously militant chapters.


This March Lerner appears to be collaborating in tandem with activist, professor and honorary chair member of the Democratic Socialists of America Francis Fox Piven. Piven is most notably known for formulating the Cloward-Piven strategy that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system. This strategy would lead to the eventual bankrupting of the Federal Government. In doing so the current US system would be spent into oblivion and eventually collapse.  Interestingly, the current US debt load is closing in on 16 trillion dollars. 

Lerner and Piven are calling for the Occupy movement to adopt the following six strategic steps into their list of tactics:

1. LOCALIZE: Move Protest into neighborhoods and schools.

“What people have been figuring out how to do is to move the protest into the neighborhoods, into the workplaces, into the schools.” ~Piven

2. OCCUPY FORECLOSED HOMES AND FACTORIES: Broaden agenda to those most affected by the economic collapse.

“I think, in the end, it may turn out that evicting the occupations was the precipitant of expanding the movement, because the movement’s agenda has broadened, and they’re now experimenting with reoccupying foreclosed homes, for example, with ways of rallying to the defense of workers who are locked out or on strike.”~Piven

3. RECRUIT YOUTH: Use the Universities and Professors as spearheads of Recruitment to broaden movement.

“And with the spring, I think there’s going to be a lot of protest in the universities and the colleges.  Young people are very responsive to the appeals of Occupy, to their cultural style.”~Piven

4. ORGANIZE WITH LABOR: Further integration between Occupy and the traditional Unions, teamsters and community organizing, leftist organizations.

“And I think it’s part of how we think about combining the horizontal energy and vision and passion of Occupy with the more vertical traditional community- and labor-based groups. And when the two of them meet, we’ll get the combustion of saying Wall Street is drowning the country, and they’re doing it in neighborhoods and communities all over.”~Lerner

5. OCCUPY DEMOCRATS: Specifically target the DNC convention, being held at Bank Of America Arena, to make a point that this is not a partisan movement. In spite of the fact that scores of Democrats have praised the Occupy movement, including President Obama.

“And occupiers and community groups and environmentalists and people from all over the country are going to be coming to Charlotte. And in a way, I think we can think about it as the first convention.”~Lerner 

6. BUY STOCK: An example is given by Learner of “a lot of people” buying shares of Bank Of America and taking their shares to the annual shareholders meetings in San Francisco to vote on new polices for the company. This is named The Confront Corporate Power Movement.

“Bank of America shares were recently down to $5, so a lot of people have bought stock and are planning to go to that meeting and try to be citizen shareholder—taxpayer shareholders, and have a say.”~Lerner

The months ahead will be a clear indicator for where the Occupy movement is actually headed.  Until now Occupy has been a predominately far left movement and the tactics proposed by Lerner and Piven suggest it's continuance to be so.  Wherever the movement goes from here two thing is clear: it's far from over and it's designers are aggressively pushing forward.  A full list of original Occupy supporters, sponsors and sympathizers can be viewed here.

With ever increasing similarities between the violent movements of the sixties and the protests of today it may be worthwhile to reflect on the words of John Lennon.  Though he agreed ideologically, Lennon's uncertainty about using destructive tactics as a means for revolution was viewed as a betrayal by those on the political left.  It may very well have been those uncertainties that lead to his death in 1980.

-Revolution

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money
For people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait

You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow


[UPDATE] ‘DEMOCRATS, SOCIALISTS AND COMMUNISTS…WE ARE ALL TOGETHER’: PIVEN DRAWS CHILLING CONNECTIONS - 3.22.12