Cross-posting another of Trevor Loudon’s recent posts from his New Zeal blog – he asks the question – is top union leader Dick Trumka a covert member of Democratic Socialists of America?
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| Two leading D.S.A. associates, Barack Obama and Dick Trumka |
According to Detroit Democratic Socialists of America leader David Green.
Our goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Our immediate task is to limit the capitalist class’s prerogatives in the workplace…
We can accomplish this by promoting full employment policies, passing local living wage laws, but most of all by increasing the union movement’s power…
Certainly in the last 15 years D.S.A. and their Communist Party USA and independent Marxist allies have effectively taken complete control the U.S. labor movement. Two of the U.S.’s largest unions AFCSME and SEIU are dominated by DSAers, but what of the peak labor union body – the AFL-CIO? Is that organization, once led by anti-communists like Lane Kirkland and George Meany now under socialist leadership?
There is evidence that the top man, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is a socialist sympathizer, perhaps even a covert D.S.A. member. Consider Trumka’s record with D.S.A.;
Every year since the mid 1960s the Indiana based Eugene V. Debs Foundation has held the Eugene Debs Award Banquet in Terre Haute, to honor the late socialist leader. The 1994 honoree was Richard “Dick” Trumka. Other honorees have included Socialist Party leaders Norman Thomas, Frank Zeidler and A. Philip Randolph plus DSAers Patrick E. Gorman, Jack Sheinkman, Ed Asner, John J. Sweeney, Julian Bond, and Barbara Ehrenreich.
Central Indiana Democratic Socialists of America even sent a contingent to the November 5 Banquet to celebrate Trumka’s award.
When not accepting socialist awards, Trumka was busying himself with helping to take over the AFL-CIO.
According to D.S.A. member and journalist Harold Meyerson, the “progressive coalition” of labor unionists which ousted conservative AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland in 1994-95 and replaced him with DSAer John J. Sweeney was led by Gerald McEntee, Sweeney, George Kourpias and Trumka. Sweeney and Kourpias were D.S.A. members, while Mcentee was at the very least a D.S.A. sympathizer. The coalition selected Trumka as Sweeney’s running mate against the conservative faction’s choice, elevating their man from leadership of the Mineworkers Union into the top levels of the AFL-CIO.
In 1996 Trumka was one of the original 130 founders of the D.S.A./Institute for Policy Studies front organization, Campaign for America’s Future
Proven D.S.A. supporters in the founding group were John Atlas, Paul Berman, Norman Birnbaum, Julian Bond, Mitchell Cohen, Richard Cloward, Peter Dreier, Barbara Ehrenreich, Richard Flacks, Adam Hochschild, Michael Kazin, Charles Knight, Peter Laarman, Nelson Lichtenstein, Steve Max, Jay Mazur, Harold Meyerson, Lawrence Mishel, Frances Fox Piven, Frank Riessman, Richard Rorty, Sumner Rosen, Richard Rothstein, Theda Skocpol , Stanley Sheinbaum, Jack Sheinkman, John Sweeney, Michael Walzer, Roger Wilkins and William Julius Wilson. Dozens more were known D.S.A. affiliates.
Trumka addressed the “How Class Works” conference held at Stony Brook, New York, June 5 – 7, 2008 – alongside DSAers Bill Fletcher Jr, Manning Marable and Jack Metzgar.
For the last several years Richard Trumka has served on the Board of Directors of the Washington DC based Economic Policy Institute. Fellow E.P.I. board members include D.S.A. affiliates Barry Bluestone, Jeff Faux, Leo Gerard, Ron Gettelfinger, Robert Kuttner, Julianne Malveaux, Gerald McEntee and Bruce Raynor plus D.S.A. members Teresa Ghilarducci and E.P.I. President Larry Mishel.
Trumka also serves on the Advisory Board of “bona fide” D.S.A. front, the National Jobs For All Coalition. Fellow Board colleagues include past and present DSAers Elaine Bernard, Noreen Connell, David Gil, Staughton Lynd, Manning Marable, Larry Mishel, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Juliet Schor, Victor Sidel, Theda Skocpol, Joseph B. Uehlein, Cornel West, William Julius Wilson plus a whole host of known D.S.A. sympathizers.
Is Richard Trumka a D.S.A. member? As yet unproven, but very likely.
Is Trumka a socialist and long time D.S.A. affiliate – undoubtedly.
It is inconceivable that good power hungry Marxists like the D.S.A. leadership would have allowed their man, John Sweeney to have retired from the AFL-CIO presidency without having a reliable comrade waiting in the wings to replace him.
To paraphrase Lenin -”It is not the gaining of power that is important, it is the KEEPING of power”.
Is this guilt by association? No, it is guilt by probability. Just as another long time D.S.A. associate, Barack Obama asked us to judge him by the company he keeps, so too we should judge Dick Trumka by who he associates with.
If you talk like a socialist, hang around with socialists, and work with socialists, you probably are a socialist.
Once Rep. Peter King finishes investigating the radical Islamic threat to America, he should look for enemies of the republic in D.S.A. and the AFL-CIO. He will find much to keep him busy.
Then again, can America afford to wait that long?
