On October 6, 2011, Medea Benjamin, head of radical anti-war group Code Pink, told MRCTV’s Joe Schoffstall at ‘Occupy DC’ in Freedom Plaza that unions are not behind the formation of the recent demonstrations, despite the SEIU’s Stephen Lerner being one of the people behind the initial ‘Day of Rage’.
On August 19, The Blaze reported the following on Lerner:
“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.”
When asked about the SEIU organizer, Benjamin- whose organization is supporting the demonstrations- said he was not part of it and the likes of Van Jones and Stephen Lerner did not want to even touch it, despite Van Jones promising an ‘October Offensive’ and progressive uprising. Jones held a rally outside of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. on October 5, 2011.
She also didn’t see a problem with unions being involved in the ‘Occupy’ protests which ask for Wall Street money to be taken out of politics. Barack Obama was the single biggest recipient of Wall Street cash ever, and unions are very,very generous donors to Obama – those same unions now involved in the demonstrations in New York City.
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