There are two ways to approach looking at these numbers around the country, and both perspectives can offer some insight to US political views.

On the one hand it lends some vague sense of [...]]]> New Orleans  The Times ran a story that tried to put a face on the 1% and encourage us to embrace our inner percentage.

There are two ways to approach looking at these numbers around the country, and both perspectives can offer some insight to US political views.

On the one hand it lends some vague sense of understanding of why such whacky percentages of Americans sometimes respond that they are richer than anyone factually might believe them to be or in other words why so many modest income American families still identify with the rich.  There are some people who might look at the household income figures in their communities where $200000 or $300000 or even $400000 might indicate the upper elite of the 1%, and say to themselves and to others like pollsters and Republican politicians, “hey, I can get there too with some luck or a break or two.”

On the other hand people like me are amazed that that the real meaning of such numbers proves how widespread relative poverty is in these same communities.  If you can be a one-percenter in Laredo at hardly $200,000, since it is a percentage that means people on the whole are desperately poor in Laredo and something should be done about it!  In my New Orleans $362,000 puts you there, and that’s a lot of money, and I’m not sure how folks would be making that here.  Little Rock is only a bit over $300,000, similar to Billings, Montana or Albuquerque or Boise or Panama City, all of which speaks a bit to the slightly more populist nature of some (much?) of the South and West.

The real story is not in the shading of the percentages but in the gap as the Times story indicates, as well as advantages that come from both chance (birth) and structural rigidity (access to job networks):

The top 1 percent of earners in a given year receives just under a fifth of the country’s pretax income, about double their share 30 years ago. They pay just over a fourth of all federal taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center. In 2007, they accounted for about 30 percent of philanthropic giving, according to Federal Reserve data. They received 22 percent of their income from capital gains, compared with 2 percent for everybody else.   Most 1 percenters were born with socioeconomic advantages, which helps explain why the 1 percent is more likely than other Americans to have jobs, according to census data. They work longer hours, being three times more likely than the 99 percent to work more than 50 hours a week, and are more likely to be self-employed. Married 1 percenters are just as likely as other couples to have two incomes, but men are the big breadwinners, earning 75 percent of the money, compared with 64 percent of the income in other households.

As interesting to me was playing with the formula that allowed a family to find their “place in the percentage.”   For example $100,000 family income puts a family in the top 21%, and if that family were fortunate enough to be living in New Mexico, where I have long thought about living such a family could be in the top 12% or in Montana, where we like to camp and wet a line, you would be in the top 14%.  Of course you still have to figure out how to bring $100,000 into your family, but I’m just saying…

When I left ACORN in 2008, starting wages were about $26,500 for a field organizer, which even today in 2012 would put an organizer ahead of the bottom 25%.  If they were living with another organizer or bunking in and sharing household costs, boom, they would have been in the top 50%!  We always would hear about how low our wages were, but mostly we were hearing from funders who lived in places like New York, where more than a half-million puts you in the 1%, or San Francisco where that starting wage would have put you in the bottom 17%, or Boston in the bottom 20%.

I can remember starting ACORN in Arkansas and finding that 70% of the people made less than $7500 in 1970.   Now to get to that 70% for household income, you would be knocking on the doors of families making about $100,000 around the USA.  A lot has changed in 40 years, and it’s not just inflation.

As I say, embracing your “percentage,” really depends on where you stand and how far up or down you gap is huge and growing, and the distribution is way out of plumb.

Ps.  Want to figure your place in the percentage?  Here’s the link to the calculator.

No better example can be found in the automatic increases in [...]]]>             New Orleans               ACORN was a great organization and some of the gifts from its membership to their neighbors and co-workers keep on giving, despite the fact that the organization shut its doors 13 months ago in the United States.

No better example can be found in the automatic increases in a number of state minimum wage programs that are triggered by automatic inflation escalators at the beginning of each year.  The New York Times noted that this was coming in another week in eight states:  Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.  In the largest of these states Ohio and Florida, ACORN was the driving force in organizing the ballot initiatives that won the change.  ACORN members did the same in Arizona and Colorado.  Of the more than 1.4 million workers that will directly or indirectly receive wage increases, probably more than 1 million of these come from the ACORN initiatives.

The National Employment Law Project (a great outfit!) estimated the increases would range between $0.28 and $0.37 per hour which for a full-time worker (if there are any still out there?) would mean a boost from $582 to $770 per year.  Let’s low ball it and say that the increases for the ACORN-million will only be $400 per year.  This is simple math but that adds up to $400,000,000 in additional wages that lower wage workers would get from ACORN’s work this year alone.  But, let’s not quibble, whether it’s a quarter of a billion dollars or half a billion, it’s a whole lot of money that employers (not the government!) will pay hard working, lower wage workers in one of the few ongoing programs increasing citizen wealth for the 99%.

NELP told the Times that labor was planning on doing this again in some other states in 2012.  That’s welcome news that I had not heard, and, truthfully, I don’t want to Grinch it, but I’m almost doubtful that it’s true.  These are big efforts and much needed, but they take deep commitments, huge organization, and not insubstantial resources.  Without ACORN around to put some of these pieces together, organizers may find this is an even more difficult task this time around.  Furthermore, employers in a weak economy will be crying “foul!” every chance they get and high unemployment may confuse some workers who otherwise might go to the polls to “vote themselves a raise” as the employers used to argue in our campaigns.   Add to that the strenuous efforts of the Republicans to restrict access to the voting booth with new identification procedures and other voter suppression methods that ACORN used to fight, but few others have stepped up to stop, and the road could be tough.

Speaking for lower wage workers, such efforts in many other states would be a Christmas present that would keep on giving just has it has in these states!

Detroit             The ACORN Canada staff finished an excellent Year End / Year Begin meeting in “southern Canada” across the river from Windsor in Detroit, where 15 of the team discussed campaigns, results of last year’s work, and goals for the coming year.  In order to get a [...]]]>

John and Amy get an ACORN Canada calendar

Detroit             The ACORN Canada staff finished an excellent Year End / Year Begin meeting in “southern Canada” across the river from Windsor in Detroit, where 15 of the team discussed campaigns, results of last year’s work, and goals for the coming year.  In order to get a sense of other organizing while they were in Detroit, they took advantage of the opportunity to meet with some other organizers on the community, political, and labor fronts.

Kim Hodge, executive director of Michigan Time Banking, and a great former ACORN and Local 100 organizer, visited with the crew and detailed how people can do “deep” community organizing by creating time bank exchanges where various skills and tasks are traded with other neighbors in the community.  The sharing involves an array of things from rides to yard work, child care, cooking, gardening, and whatever you might be able to do that someone else might need.  The ACORN Canada organizers were particularly interested in the “political” or “organizational” exchanges for attending meetings and actions or getting involved in voter registration.  One could see the wheels turning, and given Kim’s history with the ACORN model, she knew how to work it!

In a similar fashion John Freeman, who also had worked with both ACORN in Dallas, Sioux Falls, and Albuquerque and Local 100 in Baton Rouge, was able to bridge the very different politics of America with the Canadian experience.  Amy Chapman joined him in discussing the mechanics of US political work now as well as her perspectives having run the Obama campaign in 2008 in Michigan and closely observing what the coming 2012 campaign might portend.  John detailed his work with a new organization, Know Your Care, which is running an educational effort to explain and build support for Obama-care before the 2012 vote.  Questions were flying about databases and voter “modeling.”  Getting a feel for the size and scale of the field operation in 2008 and what already exists in places like Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania for the re-election campaign was interesting and disturbing.   If Michigan is a tossup for Obama, this is going to be a nail biter of an election.

The recent Teamsters election won by Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. over a couple of candidates including Teamsters’ for a Democratic Union (TDU) supported (and old friend) Sandy Pope was the opposite of a nail bitter from the story told the staff by TDU’s long time sparkplug, Ken Paff who has led the oldest labor reform movement in US labor for more than 30 years.  The stories of the convention were harrowing.  The resistance to democratic practice in unions is longstanding and controversial, so that doesn’t separate the Teamsters as much as the extreme and aberrant degree they take intolerance to dissent.  Ken had kept his sense of humor and vision alive and that was invaluable for the ACORN Canada crew.

Add all of this to ambitious membership goals for 2012, excellent planning for the Remittance Justice Campaign embraced by all of ACORN International, and the camaraderie of the staff, and it made for a great meeting.

Jill O'Reilly from Ottawa picking up an award

People Before Profits

Ken Paff of TDU talks to staff

By Michael Volpe

10:56 PM 11/24/2011

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) founder and Service Employees International Union organizer Wade Rathke acknowledged that the [...]]]> ** Below is an article taken from The Daily Caller, a right wing news site & blog of an exclusive “interview” with Wade **

By Michael Volpe

10:56 PM 11/24/2011

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) founder and Service Employees International Union organizer Wade Rathke acknowledged that the tea party movement has been more effective than Occupy Wall Street in influencing American politics.

Rathke was unequivocal about the Occupy movement, telling TheDC that “in no way has it had the political impact that the tea party movement has.” Yet because Occupy organizing is “still in its embryonic stages” while tea partiers have been organizing for more than two years, he cautions that “comparing the tea party movement to OWS is apples and oranges.”

While watching ACORN implode in the United States, Rathke has thrived in his new role as community organizer to the world by remaking ACORN International, known as Community Organization International in the U.S., into a worldwide community organization with near-global reach and power. And former ACORN board members say Rathke’s remarkable global turnaround is proof that most observers completely missed ACORN’s bigger picture and its broader goals.

Rathke generally had positive things to say about both the tea party and Occupy movements. “They are substantially mobilizing individuals around a set of principles,” he added. “It’s fascinating that they’re both appealing to many of the same people.”

That’s a point on which Matthew Vadum, a conservative investigative reporter whose book-length deconstruction of ACORN hit stores in May, disagrees. His book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers, opens with the provocative question, “How many dead Republicans does it take to satisfy the bloodlust of ACORN founder Wade Rathke?” referring to his contention that Rathke’s “progressive comrades-in arms” planned “to kill delegates and police” at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minnesota, before a turncoat helped law-enforcement dismantle the plot.*

Vadum sees a world of difference between right-wing tea partiers and left-wing occupiers. “The only point upon which both agree is their hate of bailouts,” he told TheDC. “But that’s it. Zuccotti Park is a small park … The tea party attracted thousands and tens of thousands to their rallies; OWS attracts tens and maybe hundreds. When the tea party rally was over, the tea party left. OWS refuses to leave.”

Rathke said scenes of tea party activists shouting down politicians at town hall events reflected poorly on their movement. But he also acknowledged that scenes of public defecation, drug use, fighting and other violence also left an indelible impression.

“You never let anger get in the way of your tactical position. Anger is a tactic. When you don’t control the anger, you don’t control the tactic … Out of control anger leads to some of the things you mentioned.”

Rathke offered this piece of advice to occupiers and tea partiers alike: “Make sure that the issues you represent are laid out clearly to the public.”

That’s advice the Occupy powers-that-be may want to take to heart. A Gallup poll released Tuesday morning showed that 56 percent of Americans are generally indifferent to OWS protesters and their activities.

T.V. Reed, a Washington State University professor and author of a book on the culture of progressive social movements, told USA Today that Americans find it difficult to understand the Occupy movement since it lacks a cadre of leaders who can consistently articulate their objectives.

Rathke said he was closely following the Occupy movement, and is sympathetic to many of its ideals, but dismissed the idea that he had a hand in making it go.

“Some people think I’m organizing the OWS movement,” he told The DC, “but we know better than that.”

While Rathke hasn’t been tied directly to the occupiers, his former organization has. A Fox News investigation in October found that New York Communities for Change, basically New York’s ACORN contingent operating under a new name, hired around 100 ACORN workers from other cities and paid some as much as $100 per day to attend and support Occupy Wall Street protests.

New York Communities for Change is run by John and Steve Kest, brothers who served as two of Rathke’s chief ACORN deputies. Rathke says he has nothing to do with any ACORN campaigns or day-to-day operations now.

Name changes in the ACORN universe are common now, since its brand is now so toxic. Rathke himself conveniently changed ACORN International — domestically, at least — to Community Organizations International.

ACORN isn’t nearly as well known internationally, and certainly not in the countries where Rathke is gaining a foothold. It’s not very likely the average poor person living in a Nairobi slum has any idea that ACORN has been implicated in criminal activity in the United States.

Rather than retreating quietly into the world of left-wing philanthropy and union organizing that forms the rest of his professional identity — the Tides Foundation and SEIU’s New Orleans local, both of which he founded — he has quietly built a growing worldwide community organization. Its potential seems nearly limitless.

ACORN International already has a presence in twelve countries across five continents. Rathke is just as likely to be tooling around his native New Orleans as camped out in the slums of Nairobi, roaming the streets of Mumbai, or making the rounds in Dominican villages.

Rathke’s resurgence, say multiple critics, is proof American conservatives won the domestic ACORN battle but lost the global war.

“We tried valiantly to tell people three years ago,” former ACORN board member Marcel Reid told The DC about Rathke. “People should have focused on his organizing efforts inside and outside the U.S.” Instead, says Reid, most observers limited themselves to dissecting a host of voter-fraud allegations.

“People let him get away,” Reid said, “and now that man has taken over the world.”

In the fall of 2008, Reid and seven other ACORN directors became whistleblowers against corruption by obtaining a court order forcing their organization to open its financial books to its board members. The rest of the board pushed back with delays and postponements, and eventually removed all eight from their positions.

They formed a counter-insurgency of sorts, the “ACORN 8,” to caution politicians, labor organizers, and members of the media that ACORN’s size, the scope of its activities, its chameleon-like nature, and its almost certain involvement in criminal activity made working with the organization a risky proposition.

That caution extends to ACORN’s global expansion.

“We see all of this as extension of what ACORN and Wade Rathke always intended,” ACORN 8 spokesman Michael McCray told TheDC.

Rathke retained control of ACORN International, at the time just a rag tag bunch of disparate organizing groups sprinkled throughout the world. But three years later, with Rathke’s organizing focus directed toward his global federation, that group’s growth is no less than astonishing.

Rathke is no longer focused on organizing low-income urban Americans and registering them to vote. Instead, he’s pressuring foreign governments to better fund education in Africa’s slums, pressing for microfinance reforms in the Third World, and organizing Indians to respond when big retailers set up shop in neighborhoods accustomed to conducting commerce with street merchants.

He’s deeply involved in international remittance, the process by which expatriates send money back to their home countries. Community Organizations International operates in many countries with weak banking laws, crooked governments, and little oversight. This, say his critics, is a recipe for graft and corruption.

“Of course we should worry about that,” said Reid. She was part of the original three-person investigative committee that unearthed what she called widespread commingling of funds among now-famous ACORN affiliates like Project Vote and ACORN Housing Corporation. It’s those financial crimes that she says Rathke and those around him are likely to repeat.

With its global reach and in-your-face tactics, the Occupy movement has grown largely by using the same tactics that made Rathke successful, Reid told The DC. Comparing the ACORN founder to Saul Alinsky and his “Rules for Radicals” tactics, she added that “the tea party practiced Alinskyism of organizing while OWS is practicing Wadeism.”

Both McCray and Reid said they participated in campaigns where hundreds of volunteers camped out front of the homes of corporate CEOs who were unwilling to play ball with ACORN. Hundreds of ACORN activists, they recalled, were sent to home addresses to intimidate ACORN targets.

During their time with ACORN, they said, the community-organizing giant redefined and perfected many of Alinsky’s tactics — with a far more aggressive edge.

ACORN’s downfall coincided roughly with Rathke’s reinvention, and it began with guerilla tactics of a different sort, practiced by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe. His series of 2009 videos showing ACORN employees and volunteers attempting to facilitate prostitution and human-smuggling proposals from walk-in members of urban communities — in fact, O’Keefe himself and his cohort Hannah Giles. Shortly thereafter, Congress froze ACORN’s federal funding. The IRS and the U.S. Census Bureau later terminated their ACORN contracts.

McCray, who was booted from ACORN’s board months earlier, tipped his hat to the young agitator. “There’s no better practicer of Alinsky tactics than James O’Keefe,” he told The DC.

*An earlier version of this report incorrectly cited Matthew Vadum as having contended that “ACORN leaders” sought to “kill delegates and police” at the 2008 Republican National Convention. “[ACORN founder Wade] Rathke had nothing to do with the bomb plot. He did, however, express disgust that a fellow community organizer had foiled the plot by alerting the FBI,” notes Mr. Vadum in a blog post citing the mistake. We regret the error.
Original article at: http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/24/left-wing-organizing-kingpin-tea-partiers-out-organized-occupy-wall-street/#ixzz1fE31lHE3

Palermo    The Movimenti Civici di Sicilia or Civic Movement of Sicily had called together 40 of its key leaders and activists from throughout Sicily to participate in a workshop with me about strategy and tactics in building a more substantial movement for change city by city in [...]]]>

Finding Transcendent Issues in Sicily and Occupy NOLa

Palermo    The Movimenti Civici di Sicilia or Civic Movement of Sicily had called together 40 of its key leaders and activists from throughout Sicily to participate in a workshop with me about strategy and tactics in building a more substantial movement for change city by city in Sicily.  I drove with one of the leaders the 170 or so kilometers from Palermo to central Sicily in the picturesque town of San Cataldo.  After a gracious lunch and the chance to see old friends from my visit to years ago in Catania, we were soon right to business.  They wanted to know how ACORN and ACORN International had been built, how the campaigns worked, and the pieces were put together.  Four hours passed without their interest flagging only jolted by one short shot of expresso from a mini-machine they assembled in the lobby (what a great idea!).

It quickly became clear that they had a base in many communities that was quite active, largely among middle income citizens determined that there needed to be more citizen participation.  They were all volunteers with excellent leadership, facing an array of issues, often very effectively.  One leader from Enna (which turned out to be a gorgeous, small town perched around a castle as perhaps the highest town in Sicily) described his organization as “very like ACORN,” and detailed a campaign and their follow-up, which had be applauding.  Another leader from Caltanissetta, who had been slinging thoughtful, penetrating questions at me throughout the session, argued passionately for the need for action in a way that had me ready to march, regardless of the language.

Two things became clear in their analysis.  One was that they needed real capacity.  They wanted to engage the issue of dues collection, hiring and training organizers, and how to create the resources to take their movement to the next step.  The other conclusion that one speaker after another raised was the need to find a way to more tightly join all of their disparate and autonomous city federations into a coherent whole that could act in a transcendent fashion throughout Sicily, rather than simply talking about it.  We ended up having a very interesting dialogue about how to identify issues that “raised the roof” for the organization and triggered a larger commitment and plan to step up to bigger and bigger goals.  We talked about how political campaigns and initiative procedures can do that and how issues like living wages and the response to huge developments can fill that need for organizational growth.

All of which also made me read the emails and articles on the Occupy “movement” in the USA more closely.  At one level I was proud to read that people were taking up the banner to create an Occupy New Orleans, so that we are part of the action and attack.  On the other level the Steven Greenhouse piece in the New York Times looking at the injection of labor support not only in the Wall Street march, where I heard good reviews from participants, but also the unanimous vote of the AFL-CIO’s executive council to support the movement and the fact that individual unions like the Steelworkers, SEIU, and others are stepping in, showed some institutional recognition that despite many efforts to “manufacture a movement” that even the old bulls were ready to run when they smelled something in the air that seemed like spring.  Denise Mitchell of the AFL-CIO nailed it by recognizing that if there was a “spark” then labor needed to help bring forward the kindling to build the fire.

None of this makes a movement of course.  Nonetheless after 3 years of hoping for a change this is a signal to the right, left, and the middle, that finally we are looking for transcendent issues that can unite all of he forces, trump the conservativeness of foundations, funders, and Beltway seers, and how the power and passion of Americans desperate for change and willing to fight to get it.  This could be a transfusion!

In Sicily my new friends continued to talk about having the passion without the plan.  In the USA it seems recently we have been drowning in plans, but not finding the passion.  If Occupy can remind us that the two belong together, whether under this flag or another, then we can get America moving again from the streets to the structure.

Wall Street Protest

New Orleans        I admit that I check the Google alerts everyday to see how the alternative universe is doing where this other “wade rathke” lives, who is often unrecognizable to me.  The most recent episode in his “life,” was some kind of “days of rage” planned for Wall Street, which was [...]]]>

Wall Street Protest

New Orleans        I admit that I check the Google alerts everyday to see how the alternative universe is doing where this other “wade rathke” lives, who is often unrecognizable to me.  The most recent episode in his “life,” was some kind of “days of rage” planned for Wall Street, which was quite the buzz on Glenn Beck’s “news” website, Blaze.com.  On the right they took all of this fantasy so seriously that I actually had to turndown interview requests from various Fox News outlets wanting to know more details on what I was supposedly planning for this unknown event.  Most often I was linked to Stephen Lerner, my colleague from the SEIU years, who was attracting some of the right wing love out there.
I guess the “days” happened this last weekend with not 20,000 but perhaps 1000 folks in some part in New York City, none of which is surprising.  In NYC more than a 1000 folks would gather for almost anything.  The real shock was to read Andrew Brietbart’s Big Government report where they conceded that all of the reports of Lerner and “Rathke’s” wild and revolutionary doings here were in fact “unfounded,” and to add a cherry on top, they even zinged Beck and Blaze for the fabulous fiction.

#OccupyWallSt: Just a Saturday Stroll Through the Park…
by LaborUnionReport
It was supposed to be this:

On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000 people to flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.
Instead, as they say about the best laid plans, it was something entirely different. It was, frankly, a stroll through a park—Zuccotti Park, in lower Manhattan, to be exact.
A Non-Union Non-Event

Over the summer, on the heels of Arab Spring, an anti-capitalist group called adbusters established a campaign to occupy Wall Street, beginning on September 17th. Whether coincidental or not, September 17th also happened to be Constitution Day. While there had been some unfounded unfounded speculation a few weeks ago that the SEIU’s Stephen Lerner and ACORN founder Wade Rathke were behind the OccupyWallSt movement, there were never any signs that the Marxist-Anarchist protesters had any formal union backing—nor has there been anything posted on union websites about the occupation of Wall St.
This morning, protestors did, however, call for “revolution”.

Big Government then linked back to the Blaze below.
The alternative universe of the right is a scary, scary place though.  The original Blaze article may not have gone viral, but it did get traction.  More than 6000 righters had “liked” it and moved it to their Facebook walls.  The story had been tweeted 513 times and there were 739 comments most of which would have stripped paint off of cars.

And for all of the good work that Color of Change and others had done to get advertisers to boycott Beck during his Fox News time with Rupert Murdoch’s empire, it was disconcerting to see ads on the Blaze story from Orvis, where I’ve bought more than one fly rod and reel, and Green Mountain coffee promoting fair trade coffee, which will leave me head scratching a good part of the day.  What’s up with these guys?
US Who Is Behind the ‘US Day of Rage’ to ‘Occupy’ Wall Street this September 17th?

What, exactly, is a “US Day of Rage?” Well, on September 17th we may find out for certain, but until then, The Blaze is revealing what information does exist about this very nefarious-sounding campaign.

A US Day of Rage is the title given to a day of ostensibly “non-violent” civil disobedience orchestrated by a group of radicals — that reportedly include SEIU’s Stephen Lerner and ACORN founder Wade Rathke (who, coincidentally, formerly served as president of SEIU’s local New Orleans branch) — targeting Wall Street and U.S. capitalism. It’s worth noting that the title of the movement — if its intentions are indeed non-violent in nature — appears to contradict itself slightly.

But what is perhaps even more interesting than its title is who is allegedly behind the movement.

You may recall that back in March The Blaze exposed Lerner for stating his aspirations to destroy JP Morgan Chase and cause the collapse of the entire stock market.
Now, the US Day of Rage protests, staged by a collective of activist groups allegedly in conjunction with Lerner and Rathke, are planning the actual “occupation” of Wall Street September 17, complete with a tent city set smack-dab in the middle of Manhattan’s financial district.  Similar protests are purportedly set to take place across the nation — and even world — at the same time. Some Day of Rage organizers are even calling on activists to squat in Manhattan’s financial district for months at a time.
The Blaze’s report on Lerner, who serves on SEIU’s International Executive Board, caught the union agitator stating:

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, 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.

Then, like clockwork, some 400 activists brought Lerner’s dream to fruition and converged on JP Morgan Chase’s annual shareholders’ meeting in May — this time in Columbus, Ohio rather than New York. The group that staged this particular protest, the National People’s Action, reportedly confirmed it was there as part of its “Showdown in America” campaign against the big banks. Since the location of JP Morgan Chase’s meeting was surrounded by a moat, the activists, who likened themselves to Robin Hood, even brought a collapsible bridge to “storm the castle.”

It is also perhaps worth noting that in March, The Blaze reported Rathke and Lerner called for “days of rage in ten cities around JP Morgan Chase.” Rathke mentioned some of Lerner’s key assertions:

While labeling Lerner an ex-SEIU official who was signaling that unions and community organizations were “dead,” also reported hook-line-and-sinker that in May, according to Lerner, there would be days of rage in ten cities around JP Morgan Chase signally the beginning of the anti-banking jihad.

So it might add up now that Klein Online reported Rathke’s efforts are being organized by Lerner, who, as part of his planned protests, called for “a week of civil disobedience, direct action all over the city:”

The planned Sept. 17 day of rage seems to be the culmination of Rathke’s efforts.
Those efforts are being organized by Stephen Lerner, an SEIU board member who reportedly visited the Obama White House at least four times.

The aim, according to Lerner, is to “destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement.”

“How do we bring down the stock market? How do we bring down their bonuses? How do we interfere with their ability to, to be rich?” Lerner asked rhetorically in March.
So, it appears, Columbus could have been one of the ten U.S. cities en route to New York for the “big day.”