In the mean time, as "We the People" continue lying to ourselves about the enormity of the situation, the oligarchs and other power players like the SEIU, are busy making moves to gain control over our future.

Listen to former SEIU official Stephen Lerner discuss destabilizing capitalism during a closed session at a Pace University just last weekend. Don't underestimate the SEIU either, they swing a big stick.

Left's Key Operator Caught on Tape Discussing Plans to Destabilize Capitalism

There are no officials from any non-government organization that visit President Obama at the White House more often than those from SEIU. The power elite, from all angles, are attempting to co-opt the dissatisfaction in the country for their own power grabs. They are all using the unhappiness with government to bring the control of government onto their platform.

In the case of Lerner, he is attempting to use the anger created by the mortgage crisis and redirect it to an anger against capitalism, i.e., anger against free markets. The mortgage crisis, as many warned in advance, was not created by free markets, but by the activities of the Federal Reserve in manipulating interest rates and the money supply.

The answer is not in politicians who promise change, or those who seek to replace government with themselves, the answer is, and always will be liberty. Learn as much as you can about it.

Liberty is the only answer my friends.

Please read "For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto."

UPDATES:

"Towards a Politics of Solidarity"

The theme of this year’s Left Forum was “Towards a Politics of Solidarity,” and among the speakers was former SEIU official Stephen Lerner.

"We need to figure out . . . through direct action . . . how we are really trying to disrupt and create uncertainty for capital, for how corporations operate," Lerner said. "There are actually extraordinary things we could do right now to start to destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement."

"We have to think about how, together, we are building something that really has the capacity to disrupt how the system operates," Lerner said, describing "a very simple strategy" for such a disruption: "How do we bring down the stock market? How do we bring down their bonuses? How do we interfere with their ability to be rich? And that means we have to politically isolate them, economically isolate them and disrupt them."

Cloward-Piven 2.0

What we’re witnessing is an organized attempt at initiating a soft coup in the United States by way of a socialist cabal.

The time for burying our heads in the sand, or playing the kind of political game that has the GOP backing candidates like Mike Castle, has long passed.

It’s put up or shut up time.

The Federal Reserve ACORN Racket

The Federal Reserve Board has been ACORN’s "partner" in this endeavor ever since 1977, when the Fed was given responsibility (along with the Comptroller of the Currency) for enforcing the CRA. For those who are not yet familiar with the CRA, which was significantly strengthened during the Clinton administration, it works like this: The ostensible purpose of the Act is to get banks to make more mortgage loans in "minority and low-income" neighborhoods. These loans have been defined by the government as "sub-prime" loans, implying that the borrowers have credit ratings just a tiny, tiny smidgen below the "prime" or highest-credit-rating borrowers. This of course is a farce, as nearly everyone now knows. The Fed keeps track of such loans, and gives each lender a CRA ranking. A poor ranking can destroy a bank’s plans for branch expansions, mergers, and other activities.

So-called "community groups" like ACORN, which is one of the biggest, are empowered by the law to "protest" proposed bank expansions or mergers. This is the main "business" that ACORN has been in for the past thirty years. They file a protest with the Fed, while demanding that the bank that is proposing the expansion or merger give it – ACORN – millions or sometimes billions of dollars, to be lent to sub-prime borrowers by ACORN, which keeps for itself some of the loot. (WaMu bank, which is now defunct, once boasted of having made $375 billion in CRA loans; the Fed gave Countrywide Bank an award after it made $600 billion in such loans. It, too, was bankrupted by the loans.)

SEIU Plan to Destablize America: Bring Down Stock Market, Redistribute Wealth

You’ll remember the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) created by Congress to force lenders to give loans without down payment and no regard for credit reports. The practice brought about the housing meltdown. People could buy homes they could have never afforded with the help of Congress. As the demand for more homes raged across America, homeowners sold their homes at prices far above market value. It was one of, if not the worst scam perpetrated on us and our economy. These creditless people eventually could not afford their payments on their hyper-valued homes and the defaults began. We were in a heap of trouble, and we are still suffering through it, and because of it, today.

In this article about the Union invasion of a Pennsylvania bank (see details below video), blame is placed on ACORN and the SEIU for forcing local banks to make unworthy loans. Neither organization could have accomplished much without the backing of Congress. ACORN and SEIU can be see as the precursor to Steve Lerner latest.

Steve Lerner’s plan is well underway, dating back to July 2009, with ACORN and SEIU the precursor. BigGovernment mentions this:

Lerner also says explicitly that, although the attack will benefit labor unions, it cannot be seen as being organized by them. It must therefore be run by community organizations.

SEIU Stephen Lerner Plans to Destabilize Capitalism is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

The Political Economy of Government Employee Unions

The main reason why so many state and local governments are bankrupt, or on the verge of bankruptcy, is the combination of government-run monopolies and government-employee unions. Government-employee unions have vastly more power than do private-sector unions because the entities they work for are typically monopolies.

When the employees of a grocery store, for example, go on strike and shut down the store, consumers can simply shop elsewhere, and the grocery-store management is perfectly free to hire replacement workers. In contrast, when a city teachers' or garbage-truck drivers' union goes on strike, there is no school and no garbage collection as long as the strike goes on. In addition, teachers' tenure (typically after two or three years in government schools) and civil-service regulations make it extremely costly if not virtually impossible to hire replacement workers.

Thus, when government bureaucrats go on strike they have the ability to completely shut down the entire "industry" they "work" in indefinitely. The taxpayers will complain bitterly about the absence of schools and garbage collection, forcing the mayor, governor, or city councillors to quickly cave in to the union's demands to avoid risking the loss of their own jobs due to voter dissatisfaction. This process is the primary reason why, in general, the expenses of state and local governments have skyrocketed year in and year out, while the "production" of government employees declines.

For decades, researchers have noted that the more money that is spent per pupil in the government schools, the worse is the performance of the students. Similar outcomes are prevalent in all other areas of government "service." As Milton Friedman once wrote, government bureaucracies — especially unionized ones — are like economic black holes where increased "inputs" lead to declining "outputs." The more that is spent on government schools, the less educated are the students. The more that is spent on welfare, the more poverty there is, and so on. This of course is the exact opposite of normal economic life in the private sector, where increased inputs lead to more products and services, not fewer.

Thirty years ago, the economist Sharon Smith was publishing research showing that government employees were paid as much as 40 percent more than comparable private-sector employees. If anything, that wage premium has likely increased.

The enormous power of government-employee unions effectively transfers the power to tax from voters to the unions. Because government-employee unions can so easily force elected officials to raise taxes to meet their "demands," it is they, not the voters, who control the rate of taxation within a political jurisdiction. They are the beneficiaries of a particular form of taxation without representation (not that taxation with representation is much better). This is why some states have laws prohibiting strikes by government-employee unions. (The unions often strike anyway.)

Politicians are caught in a political bind by government-employee unions: if they cave in to their wage demands and raise taxes to finance them, then they increase the chances of being kicked out of office themselves in the next election. The "solution" to this dilemma has been to offer government-employee unions moderate wage increases but spectacular pension promises. This allows politicians to pander to the unions but defer the costs to the future, long after the panderers are retired from politics.

As taxpayers in California, Wisconsin, Indiana, and many other states are realizing, the future has arrived. The Wall Street Journal reports that state and local governments in the United States currently have $3.5 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities. They must either raise taxes dramatically to fund these liabilities, as some have already done, or drastically cut back or eliminate government-employee pensions.

Government-employee unions are primarily interested in maximizing the profits of the union. Consequently, they use civil-service regulations as a tool to protect the job of every last government bureaucrat, no matter how incompetent or irresponsible he or she is. Fewer employed bureaucrats means fewer union dues are being paid. Thus, it is almost guaranteed that government-employee unions will challenge in court the attempted dismissal of all bureaucrats save the occasional ones who are accused of actual criminal behavior. This means that firing an incompetent government school teacher, for example, can take months, or years, of legal wrangling.

Politicians discovered long ago that the most convenient response to this dilemma is to actually reward the incompetent bureaucrat with an administrative job that he or she will gladly accept, along with its higher pay and perks. That solves the problem of parents who complain that their children's math teacher cannot do math, while eliminating the possibility of a lawsuit by the union. This is why government-school administrative offices are bloated bureaucratic monstrosities filled with teachers who can't teach and are given the responsibilities of "administering" the entire school system instead. No private-sector school could survive with such a perverse policy.

Government-employee unions are also champions of "featherbedding" — the union practice of forcing employers to hire more than the number of people necessary to do the job. If this occurs in the private sector, the higher wage costs will make the firm less competitive and less profitable. It may even go bankrupt, as the heavily unionized American steel, automobile, and textile industries learned decades ago.

No such thing happens in government, where there are no profit-and-loss statements, in an accounting sense, and most agencies are monopolies anyway. Featherbedding in the government sector is viewed as a benefit to both politicians and unions — but certainly not to taxpayers. The unions collect more union dues with more government employees, while the politicians get to hand out more patronage jobs. Each patronage job is usually worth two or more votes, since the government employee can always be counted on to get at least one family member or close friend to vote for the politician who gave him the job. This is why, in the vast literature showing the superior efficiency of private versus government enterprises, government almost always has higher labor costs for the same functions.

Every government-employee union is a political machine that lobbies relentlessly for higher taxes, increased government spending, more featherbedding, and more pension promises – while demonizing hesitant taxpayers as uncaring enemies of children, the elderly, and the poor (who are purportedly "served" by the government bureaucrats the unions represent).

It is the old socialist trick that Frédéric Bastiat wrote about in his famous essay, The Law: The unions view advocates of school privatization, not as legitimate critics of a failed system, but as haters of children. And the unions treat critics of the welfare state, not as persons concerned with the destruction of the work ethic and of the family that has been caused by the welfare state, but as enemies of the poor.

This charade is over. American taxpayers finally seem to be aware that they are the servants, not the masters, of government at all levels. Government-employee unions have played a key role in causing bankruptcy in most American states, and their pleas for more bailouts financed by endless tax increases are finally ringing hollow.

The Political Economy of Government Employee Unions

Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland and a member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute. He is the author of The Real Lincoln; Lincoln Unmasked; How Capitalism Saved America; and Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution — And What It Means for Americans Today. See Thomas J. DiLorenzo's article archives.

The Political Economy of Government Employee Unions with Olivia Wilde is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

According to the AP, the Wisconsin stalemate could drag on for months!

Wisconsin's budget stalemate over union bargaining rights shows no sign of resolution - and it could be a long wait.

The governor isn't budging. AWOL Democrats aren't planning to come back. And, despite talk of deadlines and threats of mass layoffs, the state doesn't really have to pass a budget to pay its bills until at least May. Even then, there may be other options that could extend the standoff for months.

"This is a battle to the death," said Mordecai Lee, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "Unless one party can come up with a compromise that the other party will buy, which I doubt, this really could go on indefinitely. I could see this going on until the summer."

What a blessing this is for the people of Wisconsin.

As Robert Wenzel says:

Just think, no new laws, no new regulations and no new taxes can be passed in the state of Wisconsin. If Scott Walker wins, this blissful state of being is over. Power to the jammers!

Yeah, just think ... Here in Michigan though, I can only dream.

Hooray for Wisconsin! is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

The government violates people's property rights via excessive taxation, and these taxes aren't voluntary either, but compulsory. Make no mistake about it, the government will send armed thugs to your door if you refuse to pay. The mafia's got nothin' on them. The government is a criminal enterprise.

The Wisconsin state government being what it is - an organization built on lies and funded by theft - made promises it couldn't keep and kicked the can down the road, hoping to keep their scam of government thugs buying votes from union thugs afloat. But like all Ponzi schemes, they ran out of stolen loot. So now, the government thugs are fighting the union thugs over the last remaining pennies (which were probably borrowed from communist China).

A pox on both their houses.

Public employee unions believe they have a "right" to collective bargaining over monies seized from the productive class. In other words, they want their "fair share" of the stolen loot! Nevermind that they already get paid better than the productive citizens who are forced (by gun) to pay their wages and benefits, they want more, more, more! They "need" that money you see, not just for big screen TVs, but to buy off more politicians and government bureaucrats. This is "democracy" at work - a battle over stolen loot.

A pox on both their houses.

Governor Scott Walker is no more interested in freedom than was Karl Marx. Walker is a tax-feeder through and through, who won't dare give up the crony deals he made for his favorite oligarchs. Why would he? That's just bad politics. After all, there's no public spectacle to be made by ending agriculture subsidies for example, but lots of campaign contributions to lose. Public employee unions on the other hand, who aren't afraid to take to the streets and make a spectacle of their greed ... the productive class hates 'em! With good reason. So they make good political theater.

A pox on both their houses.

I'm rooting on both sides. I hope they destroy each other.

Governor Scott Walker vs. Public Employee Union is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

Today, unions have amassed significant economic and political power into the the hands of a few union bosses who see the unions purpose as political activism. For example, Big Labor spent more money on the political process during the 2008 election cycle than did presidential candidate Sen. John McCain!

Union bosses don't ask the rank and file members how they want their money (taken through compulsory dues) spent either, the decisions are made by a handful of union bosses only. This deprives the worker of choosing to spend his/her money differently, or not spend it on politics at all. There are more important things in life than politics.

Big Labor has a monopolistic stranglehold on our economy and wields excess influence on our political process. Unions have become defacto-socialist governments within our system, lead by a handful of dictators at the top.

Teachers Unions Oppose Education Reform

Regardless of one’s view of any particular method of improving America’s struggling public schools (whether it's school choice, charter schools, or rewarding better teachers with better pay), the tactics and rhetoric that teachers unions employ to block any meaningful reform is remarkable. Their motivation is simple: maintain the status quo -- and the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars in dues. Meanwhile, union leaders’ suggestions for reform are best summarized as “more money to hire more teachers,” who are then likely to become dues-paying union members.

How Teachers’ Unions Handcuff Schools

When Tracey Bailey received the National Teacher of the Year Award from President Clinton in a festive Rose Garden ceremony in 1993, American Federation of Teachers chief Albert Shanker called to say how pleased he was that a union member had won this prestigious honor. But Bailey, a high school science teacher from Florida, is an AFT member no more. Today he believes that the big teachers' unions are a key reason for the failure of American public education, part of the problem rather than the solution. The unions, he thinks, are just "special interests protecting the status quo," pillars of "a system that too often rewards mediocrity and incompetence." Such a system, he says, "can't succeed."

Bailey is right. In the final analysis, no school reform can accomplish much if it does not focus on the quality of the basic unit of education—that human interaction between an adult and a group of children that we call teaching. The big teachers' unions, through the straitjacket of work rules that their contracts impose, inexorably subvert that fundamental encounter. These contracts structure the individual teacher's job in ways that offer him or her no incentives for excellence in the classroom—indeed, that perversely reward failure.

So as Tracey Bailey and many other dedicated teachers have learned, schools can't improve until reformers confront the deadly consequences of the power that teachers' unions wield over a monopolistic industry, not only through contracts but also through the unions' influence on the elected officials who regulate the education industry. Until then, any reform—whether more money for the schools or smaller classes or high national standards or charter schools—will get short-circuited from the very outset.

Time to Play Hardball with the Chicago Teachers Union

[T]he Chicago Public Schools faces the worst budget deficit in anyone's memory. Yet the Chicago Teachers Union is willing to sacrifice 2,700 of its members -- thereby forcing its remaining teachers to lead classes of 35 -- in order to preserve a 4 percent pay hike that comes on top of the standard step increase that teachers will receive anyway.

Chicago Public School teachers are already among the best compensated in the country. Right now, starting Chicago elementary teachers earn $45,450 for teaching a 5 hour and 45 minute instructional day, 174 days per year -- the minimum allowed under Illinois law. First-year New York elementary teachers, by comparison, earn $45,530 for teaching a 6 hour and 30 minute instructional day, 180 days per year.

Well-Funded Schools, Teachers Don't Need Bailout

It wasn't long after American Federation of Teachers' president Randi Weingarten wrote in the Wall Street Journal that public schools needed a bailout that the administration dispatched Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, to make the case for billions of new stimulus dollars to avoid public school layoffs.

Given that even clear-eyed economists tend to go weak in the knees when discussing "our commitment to our kids," it wasn't surprising that Romer's piece in the Washington Post, like Weingarten's before it, contained no actual facts about public school spending, teacher pay or student performance, but instead largely rested on clichés like, "Let's ... do what we need to do now...and prepare our students for the challenges of the future."

Is Hollywood Turning on Teachers Unions?

It's time to break the union monopolies and restore unions to their roots.

Bully in the Classroom is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog