Leo Gerard – The Most Powerful Man In Obama’s America?

UM: So the name – who is the name that will tie all of this together? The labor unions, the environmental groups, Soros, President Obama…you have a single name that links all of that?

WSI: Gerard. Leo Gerard…

You want the real-deal spooky dude?  George Soros is but a caricature – Leo Gerard is the real deal.

Yesterday, following the advice of Wall Street Insider,  I quickly published a brief overview of Leo Gerard – head of the the United Steel Workers Union and Vice President of the AFL-CIO.  Those two designations alone mark Gerard as among the most influential figures within the now Progressive-dominated Democratic Party in America.  Further investigation though reveals just how deep Leo Gerard’s influence goes – well beyond the borders of the United States, and most certainly within the operational confines of the Obama White House.  Gerard is not merely “connected” – he appears to in fact be the direct link between labor unions, globalization, radical environmentalism, and the highest levels of American politics.  With millions of union members and billions of dollars at his disposal, there is perhaps no greater influence upon the current progressive political climate that permeates the world today than Leo Gerard.

In the 1980′s and 90′s Gerard quickly rose through the ranks of the USW’s Canadian operations, becoming its national director in 1991.  He had already established close ties to Canada’s New Democratic Party – a socialist organization strongly linked to organized labor and the radicalized environmental movement.  Ironically, as Canada’s voters shifted to a more conservative outlook, Gerard set his sights upon the United States and its potential to become even more politically radicalized than his home country.  By 2001, Gerard was the USW’s international president – lauded by Bob Roman of the Democratic Socialists of America as being “both militant and radical.”  In less than two years, Leo Gerard had also earned an executive position with the AFL-CIO – the largest trade union in the world with a membership of over 11 million whose president, Richard Trumka, is among the most frequent vistors to the Obama White House.  But while Trumka is the AFL-CIO president, Leo Gerard is that union’s Public Policy Chairman – and with his position as head of USW, – the largest industrial union in North America,  which though smaller in overall membership numbers than the more loosely affiliated AFL-CIO, has a far greater reach internationally, and a membership noted for a willingness to engage in overtly aggressive tactics, Gerard’s power and influence greatly exceed those of Trumka. When the AFL-CIO is involved in any kind of public protest or collective manipulation of the politica process – it is Leo Gerard pulling those strings.

Gerard, having learned the importance of utilizing labor unions to influence political outcomes during his tenure in Canada, was increasingly open and willing to join forces with the “idea groups” of the new socialist-progressive movement that was well underway in the United States in the 1990′s – often coordinating such efforts with SEIU president Andy Stern and other radicalized labor union contemporaries.  Just such an example in fact was what ultimately launched the campaign of a then largely unknown young Illinios politician by the name of Barack Obama.

In 2004, Joel Rogers, a socialist-leaning academic from Wisconsin, and founder of the “New Party”, reached out to Leo Gerard in an effort to establish a relationship with the labor union leader in order to legitimize Rogers’ hopes of transforming the country’s political system into one dominated by organized labor, environmental groups, and “social justice” concerns.  The two had already established something of a relationship years earlier when Gerard had written the forward to a book Rogers had co-written titled Working Capital: The Power of Labor’s Pension.  Rogers would provide the philosophical foundation while Gerard’s involvement would effectively contribute the political “muscle”. All that was then needed was a candidate who would be easily controlled – one whose own experience and outlook sided with both Rogers’  socialistic utopia, and Gerard’s Big Labor radicalism.  That candidate was Barack Obama. The organization became known as the Apollo Alliance. While others have documented the influence of the Apollo Alliance upon the rise of Barack Obama, that documentation has too often underscored the direct influence and control over the organizatioin exerted by Leo Gerard.  While other names linked to the Apollo Alliance – Andy Stern, Van Jones, George Soros, etc. were given high profile exposes by various conservative investigators and pundits, Gerard’s own name was often hidden from open view, or only mentioned in passing, and yet, it is Gerard who continues in his position with both USW and the AFL-CIO, as well as being an appointed adviser within the Obama administration. It is Gerard who has openly pushed for the excesses of the more recent Occupy Wall Street protests – effectively calling for riots and then seeing those riots break out three days later in Oakland.

continue at The Ulsterman Report:

http://theulstermanreport.com/2011/12/16/leo-gerard-the-most-powerful-man-in-obamas-america/

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