Column: UAW troops will man class war

Now we know how United Auto Workers President Bob King will repay Barack Obama for holding the union harmless from the Detroit automakers' bankruptcy: He'll provide the ground troops for the president's class war.

The Daily Caller blog says it found evidence that King and the UAW are behind the "99 Percent Spring," which aims to train and deploy 100,000 Americans for "non-violent direct action" in the months leading up to November's presidential election. The Daily Caller says files on the group's website, which have since disappeared, indicate the UAW is providing the organizational support for protests designed to support the president's narrative that America is divided into two camps — the wealthy 1 percent and the struggling 99 percent.

"99 Percent Spring" will replace the Democrat's previous grassroots charade, the tainted Occupy movement, with its filthy camps and allegations of violence and rapes that gave it no chance of resonating with mainstream voters.

This new movement will perpetuate the myth that Obama bears no responsibility for the economic suffering that has marked his tenure. It will foist the blame instead on wealthy individuals and big corporations, and mask the failure of the president's wealth transfer schemes, oppressive regulations and job-killing tax plans.

It's a perfect way for King to pay back Obama for tossing aside established bankruptcy law and moving the UAW to the top of the pecking order when Chrysler and General Motors filed for Chapter 11.

It also plays well into King's style. He's a community activist at heart, and loves nothing better than toting a sign and shouting through a megaphone. He's promised boycotts and marches to aid organizing drives of foreign automakers, and UAW locals are forming units to train members and volunteers for political activism.

King invited Obama to speak at the UAW's just finished political action conference in Washington D.C., where the president gave a blistering us-against-them speech.

It's the message UAW-trained and funded rabble-rousers will carry with them as they plop their fannies in front of corporate headquarters and harass Republican candidates on the campaign trail.

It will all be designed to look like it reflects the broad discontent of American society.

It doesn't. The country is clearly discontented, but despite the administration's efforts to build a brand out of the 1 percent nonsense, voters know that the real scoundrels are the even smaller group of elitists who control Washington.

Meanwhile, now that King has made the UAW an official adjunct of the Obama reelection team, it should have to follow the same campaign finance rules that corporations do.

Obama's campaign should report the UAW's efforts as an in-kind contribution. And the union's hard working members should know how much of their dues money is being spent on King's street gangs.

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The Detroit News.