Wall Street’s three-headed butcher

What has three heads, drops bombs and destroys jobs? Cerberus, the three-headed guard-dog of Greek mythology, is the name and mascot of the Wall Street hedge fund that owns Chrysler LLC.

When the former owner, DaimlerChrysler, announced in Feb. 2007 that 12,000 jobs would be cut, workers called it the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. When Cerberus bought 80.1 percent of Chrysler later that year, CEO Stephen Feinberg promised no additional job reductions.

A total of 33,000 Chrysler jobs have been taken out of the economy since 2007. Nearly all of the remaining Chrysler workers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico are currently on temporary or indefinite layoff.

Now Cerberus is engaged in a massacre of a different type. The firm controls Israel’s second largest bank, Leumi, and collaborated with Prime Minister and former Finance Minister Ehud Olmert in the privatization of Israel’s state banking system. A 2006 photo shows Cerberus representatives holding a giant check with a smiling Ariel Sharon. The butcher Sharon was smiling because the Israeli state had just become debt-free.

When the Israeli state needs to borrow money, Leumi is there. The blood of Gaza is on Cerberus’ fangs.

In the Greek myth, capturing Cerberus was the final task for Hercules before being freed from bondage. Whether we’re fighting layoffs, sweatshop conditions or military occupation, workers all over the world can draw inspiration from the more-than-Herculean courage of the Palestinian people’s fight for freedom.