The Truth Goes Viral Again: Progressive Labor Leader Speaks Explicitly About Occupy Movement’s Communist Goals
Posted on | August 20, 2012 | 30 Comments
Leadership Institute intern Danielle Saul got video inside an Occupy DC meeting Sunday where union activist Mike Golash said:
“Progressive Labor is a revolutionary communist organization. Its objective is to make revolution in the United States, overthrow the capitalist system and build communism. . . . An organization has to be built which can bring down capitalism . . . a disciplined organization made up, not of a few people, but of millions and millions of people, can bring down capitalism.”
Hat tip to Danielle’s mom, Ginny Saul. How did I get scooped by Matthew Boyle of the Daily Caller on this, huh? Greedy capitalists!
UPDATE: Just interviewed Danielle Saul by phone. “There were three of us” who produced the video, Danielle said, naming Andrew McCaughey and Nicolas Tomboulides as her collaborators. Danielle explained that the Occupy DC meeting Sunday brought together various constituent groups involved in planning protests next month to mark the one-year anniversary of the Occupy movement.
Mike Golash was speaking on behalf of the Progressive Labor Party, a Maoist group which (if memory serves) was instrumental in fomenting the 1969 split in Students for a Democratic Society that led to the formation of the Weather Underground.
After Danielle sent out the video on Twitter late last night, she was contacted immediately by Boyle of the Daily Caller. When Danielle’s mom woke up early this morning, the video was already being played on Fox News, which amazed Danielle: “Who would have thought that it would have gotten on Fox News?”
Who would have thought it? A guy I used to know, that’s who.
UPDATE II: A quick glance at Wikipedia clarifies the role that Progressive Labor played in the SDS split:
[The so-called "Weatherman" manifesto] had been written by an 11-member committee that included Mark Rudd, Bernardine Dohrn and John Jacobs, and represented the position of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) wing of SDS, most of which later turned into the Weather Underground Organization. The New Left Notes issue was full of the language of the Old Left of the 1930s; and was thus impenetrable and irrelevant to the majority of SDSers.
Once it became clear that the Worker Student Alliance (WSA) faction was the largest contingent with a majority of the delegates, the convention quickly fell into disarray, as the RYM and allied groups moved to expel Progressive Labor (PL) members and the WSA faction of SDS. The Black Panther representatives attacked PL and at the same time proved itself inclined towards sexism by advocating “pussy power.” The entire convention fell into something approaching chaos, or worse, farce.
The RYM and the National Office faction, led by Bernardine Dohrn, led a breakaway meeting from which PL and WSA members were barred. This group then voted by about 500 to 100 to expel PL from SDS, and then walked out of the conference hall with that 500.
This was a necessary clarification, and also an interesting history lesson. I had remembered that Progressive Labor was involved in the collapse of SDS, but had forgotten that the Maoists were, in fact, the target of the purge led by the RYM, also known as the ”action faction,” which subsequently became the Weather Underground terrorist cell.
UPDATE III: The Progressive Labor Party is still in operation, more than 50 years after it was formed in 1961 by dissidents from the Communist Party USA who charged that CPUSA leader Gus Hall had taken “the capitalist road.” PL promoted conspiracy theories of JFK’s assassination as an “apparently well-planned execution,” and organized early protests against the Vietnam War. PLP’s Web site nowadays features headlines such as these:
Capitalism Equals Mass Racist Murder and War
Mexico: Building International
Unity and Communist Solidarity
Dark Knight Rises: Batman Spews
Anti-Communism to Save Capitalism
UPDATE IV: Linked by William J. Hoge and Walla Walla Tea Party Patriots – thanks! — and welcome, Instapundit readers!
UPDATE V: A Memeorandum thread with further commentary by Weasel Zippers, The Lonely Conservative and Gateway Pundit.

Pingback: Losing Control of the Narrative | hogewash
Pingback: Another aging Communist re-emerges still preaching Revolution | Grumpy Opinions
Pingback: Another aging Communist re-emerges still preaching Revolution | Unified Patriots
Pingback: The Part The Media Left Out: Occupy Movement’s Goal Is Communism « American Glob
Pingback: Ex-Union Boss ‘Progressive Labor Party’ Leader At Occupy DC: “Progressive Labor Is A “Revolutionary Communist Org” The “Objective: Overthrow Capitalist System, Build Communism” [Video]
Pingback: Ex-Union Boss ‘Progressive Labor Party’ Leader At Occupy DC: “Progressive Labor Is A “Revolutionary Communist Org” The “Objective: Overthrow Capitalist System, Build Communism” [Video]
Pingback: FMJRA 2.0: Stone Cold Crazy : The Other McCain