March On Wall Street Planned As Unions Try To Out-Tea Party The Tea Party

A host of union groups and community activists are planning to one-up the anti-Wall Street sentiment commonly associated with the Tea Party movement by actually organizing a massive protest on the streets of downtown Manhattan.

The AFL-CIO is set to orchestrate a 10,000-person "march on Wall Street" on April 29, designed to push for several broad and specific actions on the financial regulatory reform front.

The union conglomerate's president, Richard Trumka, in an interview with Politico, described the event as a focal point for populist angst with the financial industry's practices.

"People will be talking, yelling, chanting, and letting America -- and letting Wall Street, particularly -- know that their brand of economics, where the financial economy overshadows the real economy, is no longer acceptable, that we want them to help pay for the jobs that they destroyed," he said.

Other officials with the union group told the Huffington Post that specific demands will be made at the event -- directed both at the surrounding Wall Street crowd and lawmakers in D.C. As part of their broader push for comprehensive financial regulation, the AFL-CIO will be calling for Congress to pass a strong and independent consumer financial protection agency. Additionally, they will call for a financial transaction tax as a way to raise money and limit speculative, excessive trading. Finally, they'll demand a tax on Wall Street bonuses, similar to legislative proposals put forth by Democrats in Congress.

The goal, in the end, is to tap into the unease that many still feel with Wall Street's practices and to display the public support that exists for Congress to move forward on regulatory reform.

"There is a lot of anger out there," said AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale. "But part of what we are doing is showing that a lot of the Tea Party side is this ginned-up faux populism. The real populism, what we are showing, is a lot of people out there who are legitimately angry and that the anger is directed at the people responsible for this, the folks on Wall Street."

Comments

[Yaxchibonam]

07:09 PM on 04/16/2010

I hope someone carries a sign that says "INVESTIGATE MAGNETAR!"

http://www.propublica.org/feature/all-the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble

[Gaylord P Farqua]

09:22 AM on 04/11/2010

Good use of the Baggers. The best use would be a bus tour of the Hamptons with frequent stops at mansions bought with Wall Street profits for a little demonstration. The real aggressive protesters should ask to use the bathroom, just for fun. It would be educational for the homeowners to actually see some of the people they screwed. Great photo op. Their children would be the hit of their private schools when they show photos of Mom sending the maid out with platters of fresh fruit and brie on delicate wafers from the UK and served with chilled Pouilly Fuisse to toast the unfortunates. Best not bring up cake as it could be misunderstood.

[Wendy Davis]

01:50 PM on 04/11/2010

:) The discrepancy between the tea baggers and the outrageously rich folks they appear to be defending is profound, From the sublime to the ridiculous. How can people become so misdirected? Stupid is as stupid does, I suppose.

[Gaylord P Farqua]

08:54 AM on 04/12/2010

You are very correct in your observation. As you hint even Forest Gump's mom could snatch this strange behavior out of the mob scene. The Baggers are willing victims of the GOP mastered slogan as a replacement for facts. The Wizard from Wasilla gave them a live demonstration of this style when she opened her mouth at the convention. Tea Party folks and others who are in real or imagined distress are desperate for quick solutions based upon easy to understand reasons for their situation. Most of those screaming the loudest with worst spelling on their signs are not researchers and whatever they believe has a very short shelf life. Unfortunately those without memories of the reign of Gomer and THE DICK and an addiction to sound bite slogans if allied with GOP supporters with big bucks at stake could join together in November and turn back the clock.

[Jaspatk1701]

05:37 AM on 04/11/2010

TENAC, the Tenants' Advocacy Coalition for fair and affordable housing will be there! It is time for push back, money back and clawback -- of the ill gotten gain made from all the illegal, fraudulent "financial innovations" and "free market" magic that have only begun to ruin us! We need real reform, not a compromise me-too version of the G.O.P. that Dodd's bill contains, which will lead only to more ruin, a second crisis (perhaps final undoing) and the further destruction of the middle class. For more, see my blog, http://www.wrathofmcgrath.com

[ponderingmuch]

02:14 AM on 04/11/2010

Great! If I could be there, I would be!

The most infuriating part of all the turmoil going on in this country is that the richest get even richer on money WE give them, and the rest of us get poorer, and it does, as another person posted, lead to feelings of hopelessness.

A good old fashioned yelling, loud rabble-rousing protest rally that actually makes sense would certainly lift my spirits, even if I am only going to experience it vicariously.

YAY UNIONS!

[goodog]

11:00 PM on 04/10/2010

You go to absolutely Orwelllian lengths, this time.

teaBirthers are leading the anti-Wall Street charge?

When have you Ever seen teaBirthers marching on Wall Street?

Never, and that’s compared to the black-masked Leftst rabble beatten with batons, water cannons, and rubber bullets and routinely arrested in a cloud of tear gas at Davos, G20, G8, WTO and World Bank functions... compared to the leftists labeled in the press, literally, as terrrorists... while teaBirthers march in SUPPORT of insurance executives and are called patriots.

How did you decide the teaBirthers define anti-business, anti-corporate protest as they march in FAVOR of insurance executives and call for DE-regulation of the financial market instead of RE-regulation?

Where's teaBirther outrage at big name GOPers who voted for the bailout:

Chambliss (R-GA), Cornyn (R-TX), Ensign (R-NV), Graham (R-SC), Hatch (R-UT), Hutchison (R-TX), Kyl (R-AZ), McConnell (R-KY), Sununu (R-NH), Voinovich (R-OH), Warner (R-VA).

...just to name some, plus the ones up for reelection:

Gregg (R-NH)
Murkowski (R-AK)
McCain (R-AR)
Isakson (R-GA)
Grassley (R-IA)
Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Thune (R-SD)
Bennett (R-UT)

Where's Palin's bullseye for any of them? Find me the report of teaBirther threatsagainst ANY of them. You can't.

teaBirthers are anti-bailout... but only if you're Democrat.

They're not anti Wall Street, and you'll NEVER see them marching on Wall Street... only on DC.

[ThirdSection]

11:54 PM on 04/10/2010

...not to mention that the TeaBirthers get corporate sponsorship.

Fanned!

[goodog]

01:43 AM on 04/11/2010

Exactly.

The press... even here... is heavily invested in this narrative, this anti-government, anti-Wall Street, even an anti-GOP teaBirther-patriot brand, mentioning only curiously that Beck, Hannity, and Fox & Friends are their press secretaries, their PR agency, while Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann stand as revolutionary figure heads charging regular everyday patriots $800 a pop ($300 to get in ($500 to listen)) to listen to them rant.

There's all of them and Boehner, Cantor, and Pence waving to teaBirthers from a balcony off the House chamber, like three Evita triplets assuring them of their allegiance. This so-called grassroots movement is LADEN with the GOP corporate rapturePanic elite.

Throughout the 2000s, teaBirthers were neither averse nor opposed to massive deficit borrowing for a series of GOP boondoggles:

$Trillions to be spent on the Iraqi WMD lies
$Billions for a donut hole they sold to our grandmas
$Millions for their Faith-based public option collection plate

ALL of it chaining generations of us to compound interest-payment slavery to foreign sovereign wealth funds run by the GOP's finance partners in Saudi Arabia, China, and Singapore.

The press will tell us this so-called movement rejected ALL of this, but they (s)elected it in 2000, re-elected it in 2004... in frantic, applauding DROVES... when we ALL should have known... and they wanna do it again in 2012.

And the press will tell us they're anti-government, anti-deficit spending hawks... that they always have been.

Even here.

[Wendy Davis]

02:24 PM on 04/11/2010

HIghly competitive to the point of pathological men reach the top, like sharks, consuming everyone and everything in site, without regard for the damage done is what we have. This is why without regulation, we are doomed. The men at the top as it is now are not good for business nor the country.

[dolphin333]

08:39 PM on 04/10/2010

Wall St. / Financial reform is definitely needed. Too many people making too much $$$$$$ and the expense of the American taxpayer. GREED ! ! Time to remove the golden goose eggs and hold them accountable for gambling instead of investing with our economy.

[ldmason45]

07:15 PM on 04/10/2010

Why don't all of you guys just sit and wait on your Wall Street money. I bet these unions guys are getting paid to be there. If you are also waiting on the pres and congress to do anything to actually help the unemployment rate you may be waiting a while also. Maybe Barney and Dodd can be over Wall Street reform because they did such a bang up job of overseeing Freddie and Fannie. I can see more and more businesses leaving America in this climate. BTW, my family members are going to another TEA protest on April 15 and we all had to take the afternoon off from work. A lot of the participants are small business owners or part of the 47% that pay taxes.

[shwicksdad]

08:07 PM on 04/10/2010

I love it when you use the word "climate" when you speak of business.. You desire that business be treated as a "sacred cow" that is free to roam "protected land" and graze the resources of that land without limit or the obligation to replenish what it has consumed, and because it deficates what can be used as fertilizer, (jobs), it should be allowed to consume those resources and exist without regard for anything but itself. When the grazing lands have been used up, you expect that your status demands you be given more protected lands to graze from so that you have resources to consume and therfor continue to deficate. When the protected lands are all gone, you shed tears that you are not being taken care of like your status deserves and begin moo-ing incessently. Never mind that you have grown so fat that you can barely walk and could stand to go on a diet. You want your protecting grazing land and when there is no more you waddle off to some other country that will pamper you like you want so in exchange for deficating for them.

[Jeffrey L]

02:23 AM on 04/11/2010

What makes you think electing conservative republicans would do to change the unemployment rate?How many jobs were lost during Bush's last month in office, over 700,000? As for Freddie and Fannie - The housing market collapsed under republican leadership. Thank Republicans for the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 for that.

A lot of the Tea Party participants are retirees, people who live off of social security, people who receive Medicare or people who are receiving disability or unemployment benefits. I imagine that there are members of your family receiving some or all of these Federal Benefits.

You are a typical no memory of the last decade teabagger. Everything is Obama's fault. The bailouts are Obama's fault (even though Bush signed all of the Bailouts). It's Obama's fault the economy is in ruins, it's Obama's fault unemployment is so high, it's Obama's fault it rained today.

Maybe you should turn down Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Enjoy your Geritol, I mean Tea Party.

[givesflack]

05:25 PM on 04/10/2010

This comment is pending approval and won't be displayed until it is approved.

I am so gratified that this event is going on and I plan to attend as well. I want to hand out flyers that say "Drill Here, Drill Now" meaning the Wall Street Vaults. It's reparation time and we should get back all the money that these companies who have taken from us in the bailout. Every cent plus 80% of earnings over the last ten years by every major bank CEO. They no allegiance to our country and manipulated the government and economy for over 30 years of Milton Friedman deluge up financial wizardry. It doesn't take a wizard to take it back. The money they have taken while we have be ruined by these people are unforgivable and the only way to rectify it is by taking our money back. They got paid out with trillions while having done nothing to deserve it, having not increased anyones wealth but their own, reversed millions of peoples lives and fortunes, brag about doing Gods work and undermined our country. It time to break them up take them down, nationalize them, and end this Wall Street nightmare takeover of AMERICA.

[freespeech2]

06:54 PM on 04/10/2010

Didn't you say this already?

[just-a-mechanic]

05:12 PM on 04/10/2010

The Union mandated breaks are really going to play having on the progression of the march. I wonder how much the Union members will get paid to 'protest'.

[shwicksdad]

05:46 PM on 04/10/2010

What do you care? At least it's not a bunch of tea-baggers collecting unemployment standing out there instead of searching for a job 24/7 as if they're lives depended on it.

Slide your creeper back under the car and go back to sleep.

[freespeech2]

06:02 PM on 04/10/2010

In the spirit of union humor only, do you think the protest will break up prematurely due to a jurisdictional dispute?

[givesflack]

03:31 PM on 04/10/2010

I am so gratified that this event is going on and I plan to attend as well. I want to hand out flyers that say "Drill Here, Drill Now" meaning the Wall Street Vaults. It's reparation time and we should get back all the money that these companies who have taken from us in the bailout. Every cent plus 80% of earnings over the last ten years by every major bank CEO. They no allegiance to our country and manipulated the government and economy for over 30 years of Milton Friedman deluge up financial wizardry. It doesn't take a wizard to take it back. The money they have taken while we have be ruined by these people are unforgivable and the only way to rectify it is by taking our money back. They got paid out with trillions while having done nothing to deserve it, having not increased anyones wealth but their own, reversed millions of peoples lives and fortunes, brag about doing Gods work and undermined our country. It time to break them up take them down, nationalize them and end this nightmare.

[shwicksdad]

06:30 PM on 04/10/2010

I have repeatedly said and will say again..."Sue the Bast-rd's!"

Gee, how hard would it be to establish in a civil trial that their conduct was WONTONLY reckless and that they KNEW or SHOULD have known the level of damage that conduct could have caused millions of innocent lives? Yet they CONTINUED that conduct with utter DISREGARD in pursuit of profit and in mant cases DELIBERATELY attempted to conceal what they were doing through DECEPTIVE accounting practices? What's the excuse? I didn't know that lighting a match next to the 5,000 gallon tank of leaking propane gas would cause it to blow up? Or, the law allows me to light that same match? No, you lit the match because people were BETTING money on how many times you could light that match without getting blown up, then taking the money they were making off those bets to buy a house well out of the blast zone while selling their old house to some unsuspecting boob 100 yards from the tank at an obscene profit...I'd say that not only do the American people have a hell of a case for damaged, but a really good one for the mental anguish it caused after the tank finally exploded.

[nypapajoe]

12:51 PM on 04/10/2010

We need to demand financial reform! We were all victims of the Biggest Ponzi scam ever perpetrated on a nation! The republicans want to maintain the status quo because they serve as the lobbyist for the banking and wall st.

[Wendy Davis]

02:34 PM on 04/10/2010

Yes, and the republicans pander to the religious right and gun totters (white nuts) so get their votes all at the same time as fleecing them. Rush, Bill and Glenn are doing a great inservice to the country but not focusing on financial corruption in the government but rather ~health care reform~ which is absurdly blatant.

[shwicksdad]

05:50 PM on 04/10/2010

Why should any of them want financial reform? The market cracked 11,000 for a brief time on Friday....Don't you think that Rush, Glenn, Sean and Mike have their millions roaming around the market trying to make more millions with it? Sure they do. Make that money while the making is good....Spewing hate and lies is their business and business is VERY good.

[njgal4obama]

12:40 PM on 04/10/2010

My husband and I are planning to go. He's finally feeling energized. Four months of trying to support a family of seven on unemployment has gotten him feeling very defeated, but dispair is turning to anger, and anger is turning to action!

I hope Washington and Wall St. both get the message.

[PAposter]

12:42 PM on 04/10/2010

I hope I can go as well...glad to hear your husband is ready to turn it around...good luck with everything!

[njgal4obama]

12:48 PM on 04/10/2010

Thanks!

[Wendy Davis]

01:04 PM on 04/10/2010

It is wonderful that your husband is going. Bless his heart. Thank him for me, please.

That overwhelmed feeling is called "oppression" and that is why we must do anything and everything to reverse this now, before it is too late.

I have a vision of recapturing the assets of the thieves at Goldman Suchs and placing them into exile for being lying cheating bastards. Deregulation was, in my mind, a decision with this end in mind. Bush should be put into exile as well.

This nation is too important to fail and as it stands, in 20 years, we'll be in soup lines. Bring jobs back, get the crooks out of washington along with the corporations they are in bed with and replace the banking system with a legitimate one, that is all we want. The rest will fall into place.

[JackNasty]

02:47 AM on 04/11/2010

What do we do when both of our so-called separate political parties in bed with the banksters?

[PAposter]

12:40 PM on 04/10/2010

Okay, many of us have been to a rally...a few in our lives, but few and far between...how is it that so many Tea Baggers have so much time on their hands and why so many rallies, none of which have a discernible message?

I know who and what they hate and are against...I just can't figure out what they want or why they want it or what they stand for...we can all complain about something...that's not the same as working towards a solution.

[shwicksdad]

06:08 PM on 04/10/2010

Oh come on, PA...You haven't figured that one out, bud? They want to retreat onto their "land" and be "left alone" to make money, amass wealth and worry about nobody except themselves. To defend their "land and property" they have guns...and if you are on "mah propety, I getz to shoot you cause thats just-iz"...They do not want to be part of any kind of society and want all forms of taxation eliminated as well as any regulations on business, (so that can make maximum profits, follow no rules on how to make those profits and keep everything they make for themselves...and things such as taxes and regulations are affronts to freedom and liberty, not to mention tantamount to government control and government oppression)...They want an end to being required to contribute financially to maintaining a society and want a society that exists and provides "services" only to those that can afford whatever it is solely on their own, (Can't afford to pay for primary education? Healthcare? Food? Shelter? Clothing? Police and Fire Protection?...Tough chit, it's not my problem because I CAN afford those things for ME and that's all that matters)...In short, a society that is "free" to do whatever it wants to make money, keep that money, concern yourself only with yourself, has no obligations to anyone besides yourself and everyone else is on your own....Are you getting a better picture now?

[patricksmom]

06:27 PM on 04/10/2010

Right on the nose shwicksdad. Fanned!
One of them commented to me that he didn't care if I had health care, when I tried to point out they couldn't have it both ways complaining about having to provide health care for those without access, but then complaining when everyone is required to have health insurance.

[ldmason45]

06:57 PM on 04/10/2010

Are you 5 yrs old or just dumb?

[striderMan]

12:25 PM on 04/10/2010

I am cautiously optimistic. We separate church and state for good reason. Lets separate banking and state also. No preachers in government, no banker in government (Paulson, Geithner, Rubin, Gensler, Patterson, Volcker, etc). And these just from Goldman Sachs. The bankers tentacles are deeply imbedded in the Treasury Department, the CFTC, the SEC, and other institutions, including the MSM.

Revelations by a whistle blower at the recent CFTC meeting exposed the biggest fraud in the history of the world. Why haven't your heard about it on TV or in print? Good question!

Kudos to HuffPo for giving the story some exposure. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-lewis/its-ponzimonium-in-the-go_b_519893.html

[uniquindividual]

12:36 PM on 04/10/2010

You seem to be proposing no government oversite which historically leads to far more problems far more often than does a system with government oversite.

No system is perfect, the devil is in the details

[Wendy Davis]

01:10 PM on 04/10/2010

The main stream media's silence on this story, that the gold certificates sold have no gold behind them, is deafening. It can only be one thing - it is true.

[ShawnHanks]

12:24 PM on 04/10/2010

You do realize that 90% of these people will be paid. So much for sponteneity.

[PAposter]

12:29 PM on 04/10/2010

So, what...you're not paying them.

[PAposter]

12:32 PM on 04/10/2010

You are however paying for all those slackers at the Tea Party rallies who receive government subsidies!

[patricksmom]

06:30 PM on 04/10/2010

Daffy,
You do realize that you don't have a source for that figure of 90% paid . Please note a previous poster whose husband has been unemployed for months is going.
Financial deregulation let people pull this ponzi scheme on the nation and we all should be applauding and joining those at the protest.
Go and play with your teabagging friends. All you all worry about is who is getting what and if they deserve it or not and if they are getting yours. Quite a miserable group.