AIM Column | By Cliff Kincaid | June 2, 2009
In discussing the Veneceremos Brigade, Nussbaum told the interviewer
that it was "a way to demonstrate solidarity with Cubans and against the
U.S. policy…"
A top official of the AFL-CIO is stonewalling questions about her
participation in an illegal 1970 trip to Communist Cuba organized by
Weather Underground terrorist Bernardine Dohrn.
Karen Nussbaum, the executive director of Working America, the community
affiliate of the AFL-CIO, was asked about her visit to Cuba after
speaking at a panel at a "progressive" public policy conference in
Washington, D.C. on Monday. Nussbaum was apparently stunned by the fact
that someone had uncovered an aspect of her background that has been
carefully omitted from her official biography. She refused to answer and
walked away. Obviously embarrassed, she also pretended that she didn't
hear the follow-up questions about her trip as a young radical to the
communist-controlled island.
But according to one account of her trip, she declared that she "learned
about revolution in Cuba" and praised Castro for providing "free health
and educational care to every person in society..." She also declared,
"I was part of the Black Panther Support Committee" and said she was a
member of the "Draft resistance movement" opposing the Vietnam War.
Nussbaum's "Working America" AFL-CIO affiliate claims to represent "10
million union men and women and millions of workers without the benefit
of a workplace union..." One of its current campaigns is congressional
passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, in order to make it easier for
the AFL-CIO to obtain members.
Nussbaum was Director of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of
Labor under President Clinton and is a contributor to the Huffington
Post. Her trip to Cuba was sponsored by the Venceremos Brigade, a group
run by the Cuban intelligence service, the DGI, which included several
members of the communist terrorist Weather Underground. Young people on
the trips were indoctrinated in the communist philosophy and given
training in terrorism.
"We were in Cuba for a couple of months," she said.
According to declassified intelligence information, the Venceremos
Brigades (VB) were created in 1968 by Cuban Communist officials to bring
members of the New Left to Cuba ostensibly to cut sugar cane but
actually for training and brainwashing. "The arrangements for the VB
were made by future Weathermen Julie Nichamin and Bernardine Dohrn who
had numerous contacts with officials at the CMUN [Cuban Mission to the
United Nations], including officials who were suspected members of the
DGI," one government document says.
Nussbaum founded the organization, 9 to 5: The National Association of
Women Office Workers, which led to Jane Fonda, also known as "Hanoi
Jane" because of her support of the Communist Vietnamese, making the
film "9 to 5." Fonda's website features a photo of Fonda, Nussbaum and
her husband, a former official of a group called Citizen Action who
became a public relations executive in such firms as Fenton
Communications. Citizen Action was implicated in a fundraising scandal
in 1997 and was forced to close.
Nussbaum had just completed a speech on a panel at the "America's Future
Now!" conference which on Tuesday night will honor her boss, AFL-CIO
President John Sweeney, as one of several "Progressive Champions."
Another award winner is Rep. Barbara Lee, herself a recent visitor to
Cuba and apologist for the Castro regime.
In 2002, however, Sweeney signed a letter to Castro protesting the
regime's interference with labor union activists on the island. Another
such letter was sent by Sweeney in 2003. According to the 2008 State
Department human rights report, Cuba is a "totalitarian state" that
features "severe restrictions on worker rights, including the right to
form independent unions..."
A panelist on the subject of "A New and Enduring Progressive Majority?,"
Nussbaum talked about her efforts to get conservative union members to
vote for "progressive" candidates. She indicated this is a struggle
since many union members have conservative social views, own guns, and
go to church often. It was after her presentation that she was asked
about the Venceremos Brigades and refused to answer.
The conference, which continues through Wednesday in Washington, D.C.,
is sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future and the Institute for
America's Future. Organized labor is a major backer of the conference,
which features officials of the Obama Administration, anti-Israel
activist Naomi Klein, and several representatives of ACORN, the
controversial federally-funded group implicated in illegal voter
registration activities on behalf of the Obama presidential campaign.
On Monday afternoon, Obama Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Howard Dean
participated in a panel demanding "Affordable Health Care for All."
Nussbaum's official bio says that she has been active for four decades
in the organized labor movement, including at the Service Employees
International Union and the AFL-CIO. But another document available on
the Internet and entitled, "Voices of Feminism Oral History Project,"
includes extremely damaging information about Nussbaum's involvement in
pro-communist and anti-American groups. In the document, which is said
to be based on an interview Nussbaum gave in December 2003, Nussbaum
talks not only about her participation in the Venceremos Brigades to
Cuba but her support for the Black Panthers, a militant black power
group that attacked the police.
The document quotes her as saying that the Venceremos Brigade trip to
Cuba "was actually something that was tied into the Black Panthers who
were helping to lead these educational sessions for people who were
going. So I signed up. I quit school and decided to go to Cuba in the
winter of '70."
Asked "What was Cuba like in 1970?," Nussbaum said the dictatorship was
"thrilling, you know. It was a society that was combating racism, that
had provided free health and educational care to every person in
society, that had reduced income inequality more dramatically than any
place else on earth, that had created literacy in an illiterate country
by having middle schoolers going out and teaching adults. It was very,
very exciting. So, that was terrific-and to understand what struggle was
like."
In discussing the Veneceremos Brigade, Nussbaum told the interviewer
that it was "a way to demonstrate solidarity with Cubans and against the
U.S. policy..." Asked for more details, she explained, "There were all
kinds of political activists. There were a lot of Weathermen who were in
the Brigade, who were the left split off from the SDS and a huge array
of young leftists who were there and so we talked politics all the time."
The SDS and the Weathermen were the predecessors of the Weather
Underground organization, the group which bombed police stations and
killed police officers in the U.S. Two leaders of the Weather
Underground, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, are political associates
of President Obama and helped launch his political career in Chicago.
Nussbaum also has ties to Chicago, having studied at the University of
Chicago before quitting to go to Cuba. The Cuba trip, however, was
illegal because she had no "official clearance" to go there, she
acknowledged. Asked if the trip had "helped you solidify somehow, a more
practical application of your politics," Nussbaum replied, "Well, I just
learned a lot. I learned about revolution in Cuba."
Under AFL-CIO President Sweeney, a member of the Democratic Socialists
of America, Nussbaum and other "progressives" have flourished. "There's
been lots of change in the labor movement," she said.
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at
cliff.kincaid@aim.org
AFL-CIO Official Conceals Pro-Castro Views (2 June 2009)
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/afl-cio-official-conceals-pro-castro-views/
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