[](/sites/default/files/uploads/2013/10/AFL+CIO+President+Leads+Protest+March+Wall+D5lIop51pqKl.jpg)It starts with unions and Obamacare – but maybe at the end of the day it’s all about Marxism. Press releases reveal that the National Taxi Workers Alliance (NTWA) recently became the fifty-seventh affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Representing a portion of New York City cab drivers, this marks the first time independent contractors have become affiliated with America’s oldest labor federation.
As a result of this affiliation, the Executive Director of NTWA, Bhairavi Desai, has been elected to a seat on the AFL-CIO Executive Council. As a New Yorker, it is interesting to review who Desai is – and what is her interest. While media lauds her as a successful immigrant “organizer,” simple research shows Desai is an open and unabashed Marxist. Under Desai’s leadership, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance operated out of the radical New York Marxist School and Brecht Forum from 1998 to 2003. In 2004, The Brecht Forum and the New York Marxist School listed Bhairavi Desai as a director of the group on its annual IRS filing. (IRS Form 990 for 2004, Brecht Forum, IRS forms.) She regularly speaks and is a proud member of The Brecht Forum, an independent Marxist educational and cultural center in New York City. The AFL-CIO’s appointment of her is in furtherance of Marxism – and a continuation of encouraging the very un-American notion of class warfare.
Do immigrant cab drivers (and other union members) work many back-breaking hours to further Marxism? Is that what the American flag on hard-hats today symbolizes? Desai in interviews openly says she is “drawn to Marx” and worse. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance is poorly managed and had $3,836 in debts in its most recent filing with the IRS – yet Desai is trusted to manage America’s oldest union? Say it isn’t so. Apparently being a Marxist enables one to advance politically in today’s America.
And to add to the pain of 2013 life in Obama’s America, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission is forcing cab drivers to pay 6 cents per fare to Desai’s union to “pay for tutorials on ObamaCare” according to today’s New York Post. Six cents for immigrant, hard-working drivers – which wont even go for health insurance. David Pollack, executive director of the Committee for Taxi Safety, estimates it “will cost cabbies $10 million to $15 million annually and says it is a scam.” This, while the government is shut down and there is a $16.7 trillion debt limit. (Imagine a Russian émigré cab driver explaining this tax going to a Marxist union leader to his family – sounds like the old days in the USSR.)
But, for leaders like Bhairavi Desai, President Obama is too right-wing. She has made her opposition to deportation of immigrants apparent, saying, “immigrant workers already have earned citizenship. When people are working 60 to 70 hours a week in back-breaking conditions, nobody should have the gall, especially sitting in the fancy halls of Congress, to look at an immigrant worker and tell them that they have not earned this day.”
Ms. Desai isn’t concerned about the legalities (or obligations) of being an American. In classic class-warfare language she speaks of the “fancy halls of Congress,” and believes law makers shouldn’t be able to tell immigrants anything. She is an organizer of communist May Day Parades – and yet as an avowed Marxist will benefit with tens of millions of dollars courtesy of Obamacare.
Look no further than the Brecht Forum for an explanation of what Desai believes
“Like many of the left institutions and projects that weathered the ‘70s, the New York Marxist School represents a synthesis of traditions and impulses from the old and new lefts. In its core curriculum is classical Marxism with an emphasis on the themes and approaches elaborated by thinkers like Antonio Gramsci, Raymond Williams, Paulo Freire, and Amilcar Cabral.”
The proud America of AFL-CIO has become a new radical movement where unions and Obamacare morph into Marxism. Marxism is alive and well today in America.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.
Leave a Reply