By: Trevor Loudon
New Zeal

Damon Silvers

Damon Silvers

Damon A. Silvers is the Director of Policy and Special Counsel for the AFL-CIO, which he joined as Associate General Counsel in 1997.

Mr. Silvers serves on a pro bono basis as a Special Assistant Attorney General for the state of New York. He is is also a member of the Investor Advisory Committee of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department’s Financial Research Advisory Committee, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s Standing Advisory Group and its Investor Advisory Group.

Between 2006 and 2008, Mr. Silvers served as the Chair of the Competition Subcommittee of the United States Treasury Department Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession and as a member of the United States Treasury Department Investor’s Practice Committee of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets.

He is a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Standing Advisory Group, the Financial Accounting Standards Board User Advisory Council and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Corporate Governance Task Force

In 2008, Damon Silvers was appointed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the majority leader of the Senate Harry Reid, to serve as the Deputy Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP where he stayed until 2011.

A great deal of influence, one would say, for a semi-closet Marxist.

Back at Harvard, in the mid-1980s, Silver was the leader of the campus Democratic Socialists of America group – the country’s largest Marxist organization.

DSA always worked inside the Democratic Party to move it left. As Silvers told the Harvard Crimson at the time… “We see ourselves as the left-wing caucus of the Democratic Party…”

But Silvers has moved on from all that, right? He’s matured. He couldn’t possibly still be a socialist, after holding all those important positions, could he?

Well it seems he still is.

The Party of European Socialists organized a conference on a Financial Transaction Tax on March 15, 2010:

European Socialists said that the EU could gain €200 billion a year if a financial transaction tax of 0.05% were to be implemented on all products by 2011.

The estimate, drawn up by the Party of European Socialists (PES) and launched on 15 March, would be levied on all spot (simple currency) transactions, exchange-traded and over-the-counter (privately traded) derivatives to prevent speculative bubbles from bursting again.

The 14.00 – 16.00: Panel I: “Putting the global financial transaction tax on the global political agenda. How and why?” featured Damon Silvers, AFL-CIO, Member of the U.S. Congressional Oversight Panel, USA.

Silvers at the FTT conference

Silvers at the FTT Conference

The Party of European Socialists is made up of European leftist parties affiliated with the Socialist International. They have been pushing the Financial Transactions Tax for several years through a front group called Europeans for Financial Reform. Its American counterpart is called, surprisingly, Americans for Financial Reform, and is a front for Democratic Socialists of America, the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International.

Americans for Financial Reform is led by lifelong DSA supporter Heather Booth, a key Democratic Party operative and important backer of freshman Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Americans for Financial Reform, also surprisingly, backs the Financial Transaction Tax.

“It’s really profoundly immoral to talk about things like cutting Medicare when this policy measure sits in front of us,” AFL-CIO Director of Policy, Damon Silvers told an audience of Congressional staffers and others at a November 30, 2012 briefing on the Financial Transaction Tax. Lisa Donner, Executive Director of Americans for Financial Reform, moderated the event, which took place against a “backdrop of intense debate” over the so-called “fiscal cliff.” With federal tax rates at a half-century low and Washington hunting for revenue, a financial transaction tax needs to be “part of the conversation and on the table,” Donner said.

So, its clear that Silvers is quite willing to use his position and credibility to push socialist policies into the U.S. Congress.

In 2012, Silvers helped the cause by holding a fundraiser for Elizabeth Warren at the Takoma Park, Maryland home he shares with Elissa McBride, who is Director of Education and Leadership Training with AFSCME.

Elissa McBride was Democratic Socialists of America Youth Organizer from 1987 to 1989.

The event was organized by Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin, a DSA supporter and the son of Marcus Raskin, founder of the far left Institute for Policy Studies.

Said Raskin of the event:

District 20 is the progressive Democratic heartland of Maryland so it makes sense that the sensational progressive Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, is coming to visit us here tomorrow! Please join me and true-blue Democrats from all over our community and state in giving Elizabeth Warren a rousing Maryland welcome tomorrow, Saturday, April 21, between 2:00 and 3:30 pm at the home of my friend Damon Silvers, a key force in the labor and consumer movement, in Takoma Park. We have the opportunity to give a big financial boost to Elizabeth’s campaign, which is essential to holding the U.S. Senate and taking back Congress in November. ..

mcbride

Incidentally, Jamie Raskin’s wife Sarah Bloom Raskin, is another high level progressive operative.

On Thursday April 29, 2010, Maryland’s top financial regulator… was nominated by President Barack Obama, to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Sarah Bloom Raskin, Maryland’s commissioner of financial regulation, was tapped by Obama to fill one of three vacancies on the seven-member board that sets federal monetary policy.

Any doubt at all regarding Silvers’ ongoing socialist sympathies was ended on December 12, 2012, when the DSA controlled, Saul Alinsky based Midwest Academy, held its annual award ceremony at the Eatonville Restaurant in Washington, D.C.

Long-time DSA member Julian Bond was given a “Lifetime Achievement Award,” while another one time DSAer, Mike Lux, another key Democratic Party operative, was given a “Progressive Leadership Award.”

Damon Silvers was also given a Progressive Leadership Award.

Damon Silvers, Heather Booth

Damon Silvers, Heather Booth

Heather Booth of Americans for Financial Reform MC’d much of the event and Elizabeth Warren was Keynote speaker.

Such are those who rule America in the Obama era.