by Trevor | Nov 20, 2019 | #EnemiesWithin, Blog, Commentary, Featured, Social Movements, Socialism/Communism, Socialist Opinion Shapers
By Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times*
Commentary
The international communist movement just celebrated its 100th birthday at a gathering in Turkey.
Far from using the occasion to confess their responsibility for 160 million to 200 million deaths and their legacy of torture, famine, and oppression, the assembled communists look forward to a bright future, in which Marxism-Leninism rules every corner of the globe.
The “One-Hundredth Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist International: The Fight for Peace and Socialism Continues” was held in Izmir, Turkey, on Oct. 18–20. The gathering drew at least 56 communist parties from more than 40 countries, including most of the world’s major Marxist-Leninist organizations.
The event was hosted by the Greek and Turkish communist parties, which may be significant because Turkey is increasingly also playing a leadership role in the overlapping world Islamist movement.
The Americas were represented by the communist parties of the United States, Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Almost every communist party from Western and Eastern Europe contributed, with the notable exception of the French. Three communist parties from Russia graced the stage, as did the Ukrainian party.
From Asia, the communist parties of Vietnam, Laos, Bangladesh, and Tibet all attended. The Azerbaijanis were there, as were both of India’s main communist parties. The North Koreans were there, but the Japanese were not. China, though now in practice the leader of the world communist movement, skipped the event—but did get plenty of praise from other attendees.
Almost every party from the Middle East was present, including the Lebanese, Bahrainis, Iraqis, Syrians, the Communist Party of Kurdistan, and the Tudeh Party of Iran.
Africa was represented only by the Algerians—the quasi-ruling South African Communist Party was absent.
Oceania was represented only by Australia.
Growing Confidence
Judging by conference speeches, posted online, the general mood was confident and defiant. By all accounts, the communist movement is growing and confident of overcoming its opposition, which in many countries is weak or nonexistent.
The representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation was both upbeat and combative:
“Speaking of Russia, we can say with confidence that the left movement, led by the Communist Party, is also ‘on the rise.’ Our party was successful during the elections to many local parliaments. This year was one of the most successful election campaigns for our party.
“The capital international is cracking again – Trump’s trade wars, US and EU contradictions, EU contradictions, etc. Under these conditions, it is important to develop a unified strategy for the communists of different countries in order to use the split of the imperialist international for the triumph of socialism.”
Many in the West believe that because some ruling communist parties, such as in China, Laos, and Vietnam, have adopted some market-based economic policies, they have abandoned Marxism-Leninism. Any real student of Marx will tell you that “market” economics are regarded as a temporary phase to build wealth and military power, and are completely in line with Marxist-Leninist philosophy.
The Vietnamese contribution to the conference affirmed this oft-ignored point:
“On this occasion, the Communist Party of Vietnam would like to express its sincere thanks, deep gratitude to the communist, workers’ parties, progressive forces all around the world for their valuable support, sharing and help in our past struggles for national independence, reunification, as well as in our national construction and defense today.
“We look forward to continuing to receive your feelings, support, encouragement and solidarity in the new period of the development of our Party and country. We reaffirm our close solidarity with the international communist and workers parties.”
The Venezuelans appealed for international communist solidarity in the face of U.S. pressure:
“Today, the cause of the Venezuelan people demands the greatest levels of solidarity from the world’s revolutionary forces. We trust in the enormous power of the peoples’ solidarity to contain any war adventure against Venezuela and to denounce the criminal measures that the US and the EU impose against Venezuela’s sovereignty and the rights of the Venezuelan people.”
The Iranian communists made a similar appeal:
“The Tudeh Party of Iran would like to state categorically that the people’s movement in Iran needs the support and solidarity of the international communist and workers’ parties in preventing imperialist interventions in Iran and in defense of the people’s struggle for democracy and social justice.”
The Canadian communists have long been at the forefront of pushing for Western disarmament and de-industrialization through the “global warming” scam. Communists have always promoted peace through Western disarmament and surrender. They believe there will indeed be “peace”—when there’s no longer any opposition to communism.
“The climate strike demonstrations in October brought more than 1 million people into the streets in Canada – a larger protest than at any time in the last 20 years. This is significant, and hopeful. Mass protests will continue and must be expanded to include the fight for peace and global nuclear disarmament.”
The Mexican communist party is a major part of the program to destroy the United States by promoting illegal immigration from Latin America:
“We raise our voice for the migrant question, an issue that must be addressed by the communist parties that we have to find a common intervention in that important sector of the international working class.”
Further south, the El Salvadoran comrades boasted of their efforts to coordinate the communist parties of their region:
“We want to communicate that our party, in the framework of flying the flag of proletarian internationalism, is promoting communist articulation with the sister parties in what we call: ‘Meeting of Communist Parties of Central America, Mexico and Panama’, where the Communist Party of Mexico, the Guatemalan Labor Party, the Communist Party of Honduras, the Popular Vanguard of Costa Rica, the People’s Party of Panama and the PCS converge. The VI Meeting was held in San Salvador, in the month of March, on the slopes of the historic hill of Guazapa, the guerrilla cradle of the revolutionary process that the country experienced.
“The Communist Party of El Salvador proclaims the validity of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.”
The Lebanese party confirmed that the West is indeed facing a united movement led by China and supposedly non-communist Russia:
“The US-led imperialist system, along with allies in the European Union, Japan and NATO countries, also faces serious challenges with the rapid rise of other rival international poles with conflicting interests with the dominant imperialist states… This rise, mainly of two international powers, China, led by the Communist Party of China (CPC), and its tremendous economic potential, Russia, which today regains its military and political power as well as regional powers in Asia, Latin America and Africa, is already posing a real challenge to the system of unipolar hegemony that has been dedicated for three decades.”
The Lebanese communists who played a significant role in the 2011 “Arab Spring” also condemned Israel and talked of uniting local Islamic states under the communist banner:
“We in the Lebanese Communist Party promise you that we will devote all that we can devote to achieve this crucial task by formulating our local and regional program based on confronting capitalism, imperialism and the Zionist movement through comprehensive resistance by all available means, and confronting reactionary, authoritarian and sectarian regimes, seeking to assemble leftist forces, Arab communism, to put forward a secular nationalist resistance in the path of socialism.”
The North Korean Workers party made it very clear that any concessions made to the United States or the West would only ever be temporary:
“We will always hold the initiative in the righteous struggle for peace and security of the Korean peninsula to defend our socialist system and the gains of the revolution, and never tolerate or sit idle by the sanctions imposed by the imperialists but fight against and frustrate their moves.”
The Brazilian communists emphasized their battle to overthrow President Jair Bolsonaro and the need for communists to go on the offensive both locally and internationally:
“The PCB [Brazilian Communist Party] understands that the moment calls for mobilization and struggle in the streets, accumulating forces to confront the Bolsonaro government. … In Brazil and throughout the world, it is necessary, more than ever, (for) the resumption of a counter-hegemonic offensive of socialist and communist ideals.”
The enormous Communist Party of India (Marxist) boasted of the huge numbers they were able to mobilize through their domination of the Indian labor movement:
“In India, the CPI(M) is trying its best to move in this direction of intense class struggles by mobilising workers, peasants, youth, students, marginalized sections and women. On 8-9 January 2019, a 48-hour National Strike of workers called by 10 central trade unions, in which many national confederations of workers and employees also joined hands, was a historic success. The bourgeois media had reported that over 180 million workers participated in this strike. Taking forward these struggles, trade unions have once again called for a general strike on 8th January 2020, for which preparations are afoot.”
US Contribution
Houstonian Alvaro Rodríguez, the international secretary of the Communist Party USA, addressed the assembled comrades on international resistance to U.S. imperialism and President Donald Trump:
“Efforts to beat back the achievements of the worldwide working-class struggle have reached a high point, especially since the election of Donald Trump, a racist, misogynist ‘white supremacist’ as President of my country. Imperialist interventions aimed at regime change and the imposition of the rule of voracious neoliberal capital are underway in many parts of the world. Economic sanctions have been imposed on progressive and socialist governments in Cuba, Venezuela and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. …
“But the picture is not all bleak. Neoliberal capitalism offers nothing to the working people and toiling masses of the world. Everywhere there is mounting resistance.
“The Communist Party of China, with its 90 million members, is leading the world’s second largest economic power on the road to socialism with Chinese characteristics. Socialist Cuba is holding out strongly against everything imperialism is throwing against it and continues to provide solidarity and inspiration to the world. In Argentina, the right wing Macri government has lost the elections. Elsewhere, right wing, pro-imperialist governments are on the defensive; in Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and other countries. In Mexico, a new government is giving promise of advances against old inequities.”
Rodriguez was also fulsome in his praise for a new socialist wave building inside the United States:
“In my country there is a massive youth led movement to combat climate change and global warming. Important political figures, such as Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandra Ocasio Cortez of New York have taken a leading role in proposing new environmental protection laws, called “the Green New Deal”. This effort is supported by many unions, environmentalists and other organizations.
“There are many new signs of working-class struggle. Under the slogan of fighting for a national minimum wage of $15USD per hour, super exploited and mostly minority and women workers nationwide have reached a high level of mobilization. Youth are also mobilized behind demands for an end to gun violence, to police brutality and many other things. Unionized teachers have been carrying out successful strikes aimed at rolling back neo-liberal policies in the educational field.
“The fight for the rights of immigrants with or without documents is nationwide, intense and has the support of labor unions, African Americans, other minorities and many others. The indigenous inhabitants of my country are mobilized against racism and in defense of the national environment.
“Communists in the United States are involved in all these struggles and more, as part of broadly-based coalitions. The working-class fightback was seen in the midterm legislative elections of 2018, and the likelihood that it will sweep the extreme-right regime of Trump and his allies out of power in the 2020 elections is high.”
In a sane world, an international gathering of parties sworn to the destruction of the West would probably make it to the 6 o’clock news. Most viewers would probably like to know that the world revolutionary movement is alive and well and is able to mobilize hundreds of millions of people at will.
The communists are now leading violent insurgencies in Sudan, Lebanon, Ecuador, Chile, and Catalonia/Spain.
They are heavily involved in every major trouble spot in the world. They are actively trying to depose the two most actively anti-communist world leaders: U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Yet, they gather together to openly plot the destruction of what is left of the free world, with zero mainstream media coverage.
It’s very easy for the world communist movement to be confident of victory when the vast majority of their intended victims don’t even know that the threat still exists.
Feature photo: People hold a banner picturing Communist figures including (L–R) Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong, as they gather in Bakirkoy district as part of the May Day rally in Istanbul on May 1, 2017. (AFP PHOTO / OZAN KOSE)
Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics.
Trevor offers his acclaimed movie, “ENEMIES WITHIN” DVD—BUY NOW!
*Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
by Trevor | Nov 17, 2019 | #EnemiesWithin, Asia-Pacific, Blog, Democratic Party, Featured, North America
Did a China-based American communist help flip Virginia?
Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times* | November 14, 2019 Updated: November 14, 2019
News Analysis
It’s official. The once deep-red Commonwealth of Virginia is now a blue state. As a result of the Nov. 5 election, Democrats now hold all three of the statewide constitutional offices, both U.S. Senate seats, the majority of its Congress members, and both chambers of the State House.
Laura Ingraham of Fox News says it’s because of “changing demographics.” That’s only partially true. Virginia went blue because a handful of well-organized pro-Chinese communists made it happen.
The group in question, New Virginia Majority (NVM), has exploited Virginia’s changing population and “liberal bleed out” from the Washington area to flip not just Northern Virginia but also districts across the state. Based in Alexandria and Richmond, NVM has sent hundreds of paid workers and volunteers out across the commonwealth to register and send to the polls hundreds of thousands of new voters—all under the nose of the Virginia Republican Party.
WE JUST FLIPPED VIRGINIA! 🥳🎉👏🏿
اس پر New Virginia Majority نے شائع کیا منگل، 5 نومبر، 2019
The Democrats have flipped two state Senate seats and now hold a 10-vote advantage in the Assembly. NVM endorsed and supported 23 Virginia candidates this cycle and won with 15 of them, including two state Senate races and nine Assembly victories.
The 15 who were endorsed by NVM and won are:
- Ghazala Hashmi, Virginia Senate District 10
- John Bell, Virginia Senate District 13
- Wendy Gooditis, House District 10
- Kelly Convirs-Fowler, House District 21
- Elizabeth Guzman, House District 31
- Dan Helmer, House District 40
- Kathy Tran, House District 42
- Hala Ayala, House District 51
- Schuyler VanValkenburg, House District 72
- Rodney Willett, House District 73
- Shelly Simonds, House District 94
- Steve Descano, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney
- Parisi Deghani-Tafti, Arlington County and Fall’s Church Commonwealth’s Attorney
- Buta Biberaj, Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney
- Phyllis Randall, Chair Loudoun County Board of Supervisors
None of this electoral success was down to luck or changing demographics alone.
NVM Co-Chair Tram Nguyen has already published an op-ed in The New York Times saying, “Democrats could learn a lot from what happened in Virginia.” The message? “Democrats, do what we did in Virginia—everywhere.” By going after the minority vote with mass voter registration drives, you can flip almost any state.
According to Nguyen:
“The national Democratic Party spent millions in Virginia this year, but the state wasn’t always such a priority. From its position in the South to its prominent role in America’s legacy of oppression, Virginia was long considered reliably conservative—unbreakable. As recently as six years ago, Republicans controlled the office of the governor and the General Assembly.
“Local organizations like mine understood the political potential of Virginia when we got started 12 years ago. We are winning because we recognize the power of an electorate that includes and reflects the diversity of our state. We don’t talk to voters only when campaign season rolls around. We try to reach voters of all colors, women, low-income workers and young people where they are, which has made it possible for us to develop a robust base of support along Virginia’s so-called Urban Crescent, from Northern Virginia to Hampton Roads. Long before Election Day, we registered more than 300,000 voters, knocked on more than 2.5 million doors, and organized within communities of color to help win significant policy changes like Medicaid expansion, which covered nearly 400,000 people.”
Nguyen (who was part of Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s transition team) also went on to explain the importance of the ex-convict vote.
“Virginia’s state constitution bars anyone with a felony conviction from voting until their rights have been restored by the governor. For more than nine years, we organized formerly incarcerated women and men to help them demand that their full civil rights be restored. The former governor, Terry McAuliffe, restored the voting rights of more than 173,000 Virginians during his term, more than any other governor in Virginia’s history. In 2016, of the nearly 20,000 men and women who registered to vote for the first time as a result of the restoration of their rights, a whopping 79 percent voted. They were a key voting bloc in Virginia, the only Southern state that Hillary Clinton won.”
NVM worked closely with McAuliffe to win ex-felon voting rights. The organization actually gave the governor an award at its annual dinner for his sterling work.
And the path to success lies in organizing and energizing minority voters who already lean left, but normally vote at very low rates:
“Changes in the shape of the electorate and rising enthusiasm among voters can only go so far, without campaign architecture that channels those changes into tangible political outcomes. …
“Engaging meaningfully with voters of color means talking to tens of thousands of voters to make sure they have the information they need to cast their ballots even after receiving racist Republican campaign communications. … We didn’t need to persuade voters to embrace our worldview—they were already there on the issues. They just needed to be convinced that their vote mattered. To give one example of how this works in practical terms, in precincts in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, turnout this year increased by 24 percent over 2017. …
“States don’t become battlegrounds overnight. Democrats and national progressive organizations have the resources to take their case to the people and win, but they have to start early and organize relentlessly. When they lose, they have to stay in place and keep fighting for every political inch they can get. No place is unwinnable forever.”
All this would be serious enough if NVM members were merely well-meaning “liberal Democrats,” which unfortunately isn’t the case.
NVM is a front for Liberation Road, known until April this year as Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), the United States’ most influential Maoist organization.
Maoist Groups
NVM is led by longtime FRSO/Liberation Road cadre Jon Liss of Alexandria. Several FRSO cadres have served in NVM over the years, as have many activists from two NVM satellite groups, LeftRoots and the Virginia Student Power Network.
FRSO/Liberation Road comes out of the militantly pro-China American Maoist student movement of the 1970s. While it’s more discreet about its Chinese loyalties these days, several of its leading supporters maintain close ties to the People’s Republic.
Fred Engst is a longtime FRSO supporter. Born to U.S. communist parents and raised in China, Engst was educated in the United States, where he became immersed in Maoist politics. He returned to China in 2007 and is now teaching at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.
Alex Tom, a leader of LeftRoots and the pro-Beijing San Francisco-based Chinese Progressive Association, in 2012 formed the China Education and Exposure Program to “build a deeper analysis of China for US progressives and leftists and to build relationships with the grassroots movement in China,” according to his 2013 LeftForum speaker’s bio.
John Marienthal, a San Jose-based FRSO member, has been a leader of the pro-Beijing U.S.–China Peoples Friendship Association for more than 40 years and has taught in several Chinese educational establishments since the 1980s.
Steve McClure is a former Washington resident who, in the 1970s, was active in the pro-Mao Revolutionary Student Brigade. He has close ties to FRSO and NVM. Since 2010, he has worked with the Geography Department of Wuhan University in China, and he is a research associate with the State Key Laboratory of Engineering Information in Surveying, Mapping, and Remote Sensing at the university.
McClure has used his skills in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to supply highly targeted voter identification information to NVM.
As far back as 2005, McClure was using GIS technology to identify low-income voters for Liss’s Tenant Workers Support Committee. McClure “plotted lower-income, high-rental housing areas to get a picture of where there was affordable housing in Northern Virginia,” according to the Mason Gazette. This information probably proved very useful when Liss established NVM two years later.
According to an Aug. 25, 2011, post on McClure’s blog:
“I have been recently working with New Virginia Majority to make a series of maps to inform planning for precinct walks in Virginia State house districts. … The core data are lists of individual households by pan-ethnic census categories. … The results are subjective but do suggest … the ways that actual communities conform or diverge from the discrete territorial units which define an electoral terrain in a democracy.”
All this wasn’t theoretical. It was designed to help NVM flip districts across the state by micro-targeting potential Democratic voters in low-income and minority communities. In another post, he wrote:
“In the general elections of 2008, Virginia voted Democratic for the first time since 1964 with Obama carrying the state. Demographic shifts and increased voter participation rather than a shift in political allegiances account for this outcome. …
“Focusing on Prince William County, Virginia, I applied spatial interpolation techniques in a GIS to translate the 2008 election returns from the geography of precincts to year 2000 zoning classification areas for further quantitative analysis. The goal was to produce actionable intelligence for working class organizations building popular power at the base. …
“The results are presented as maps and diagrams which might illuminate challenges and opportunities for organizations engaging with electoral efforts.”
McClure is still actively engaged in giving advice to his U.S. comrades on winning elections for the Democrats.
An article co-written by McClure and Bob Wing, “The Importance of the Fight for the South—and Why It Can and Must Be Won,” appeared on the Liberation Road-linked website Organizing Upgrade on Sept. 4, 2017. It states:
“The far right, racism, militarism, inequality, and poverty are all centered in the South. The majority of African Americans, the main protagonist of progressive politics in this country, live in the South. And the South has more electoral votes, battleground state votes, population, and congresspersons than any other region.
“The South is changing rapidly, giving rise to more progressive demographic groups—especially Black and Latino migrations, LGBTQs and urbanites—and a growing Democratic vote. These trends can only be maximized if the importance of the South is understood as a strategic necessity and the chance to win state by state, is acknowledged and acted upon.
“Hard as the fight is and will be, downplaying the Southern struggle is a losing political strategy and forfeits the moral high ground on the biggest issues facing the country.”
McClure and Wing (another “former” Maoist associated with FRSO) argue that to destroy the Republican Party in the South, black communities must be targeted and mobilized to vote:
“(1) A critical mass of Southern states can and must be won if we are to block or defeat the right in presidential elections. Three of the five or so critical battleground states are in the South: Florida, Virginia and North Carolina. Southern blue and battleground states plus Washington D.C. hold 38 percent of the electoral votes needed to win.
“(2) Winning an anti-rightwing congressional majority depends on winning in the South, as the South has a bigger congressional delegation than any other region and Southern congresspersons also hold key leadership posts within the Republican Party’s congressional hierarchies.
“(3) There are tremendous opportunities to build progressive political power and governance at the local level in the South as 105 counties have a Black majority. …
“While some might dismiss the South, focusing strategically on the Northeast and Pacific Coast as central to a progressive program and the Midwest as the main political battleground, the South’s dynamic growth, historical legacy of Black struggle and powerful political weight make it a critical battlefield.
“The nuance is that the South cannot be won as a bloc, but only state by state and county by county. In fact, winning the South in large part means understanding that it is not a monolithic entity and winning it piece by piece: i.e. politically deconstructing the South.”
President Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 shocked the left and, according to McClure and Wing, has made their goal of flipping the South even more urgent:
“This essay was prepared in March 2015, prior to the 2016 election season that eventually resulted in Donald Trump’s victory. However, the far rightwing’s capture of the presidency makes this essay’s main arguments even more important. …
“The South is the key center of the far right and the Republican Party; neither can be defeated without battling for the South.”
Liberation Road has a large presence in Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina (Durham for All), and Florida (the New Florida Majority). Now that Virginia is safely in the Democrat column, look to see an upsurge of Maoist electoral activity in North Carolina and Florida to turn those states blue in 2020; Tennessee and Georgia will be next. Then, Texas.
Chinese ‘Collusion’?
Trump has been tougher on Beijing than has any other president in living memory. It’s no secret that China doesn’t like Trump and would love to see him defeated in 2020.
Rather than risk war, or suffer huge economic setbacks, wouldn’t it be much cheaper and easier to use China’s American assets, such as Liberation Road, to ensure Trump’s defeat by “democratic” means?
It’s inconceivable that the Chinese government didn’t know what McClure was up to. After all, they presumably pay his salary or living costs while he is in China.
It’s clear that Liberation Road is tied to China. It’s also clear that their front-group NVM is heavily involved in U.S. electoral politics and played a decisive role in turning Virginia blue. It’s also obvious that Liberation Road’s goal is to destroy President Trump and the Republican Party to pave the way for a socialist America.
Is there Chinese “collusion” here? Do we need investigations and executive action against these subversive groups before they’re able to fully realize their goals? With less than a year until the 2020 election, there’s not much time left to do so.
Photo credit: Virginia voters head to the polls at Nottingham Elementary School Nov. 5, 2019, in Arlington, Va. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics.
Trevor presents his acclaimed movie, “ENEMIES WITHIN” DVD—BUY NOW!
*Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
by Trevor | Nov 16, 2019 | #EnemiesWithin, Bernie Sanders, Blog, CPUSA, Democratic Party, DSA, Enemies Within, Featured, Headline, Social Movements, Socialism/Communism, Socialist Opinion Shapers
Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times* | November 12, 2019, Updated: November 13, 2019
Commentary
Radical Maoists from Liberation Road and their small “c” communist allies from Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) elected one of their own to Philadelphia City Council on Nov. 5.
Kendra Brooks, who won a city council at-large seat, will join fellow radical Helen Gym on the 17-member body.
Heavily Democratic Philadelphia follows an unusual system for electing city councilors. Ten councilors are elected by district, while seven are elected “at-large” from the whole city voting base. Two of those seats are traditionally reserved for “minor parties,” which has for decades guaranteed two Republican seats on the council. Brooks took one of these minority seats, cutting Republican representation down to one.
Brooks ran on the Working Families Party ticket. The party, which has recently expanded from its New York base to several new states, spent more than $400,000 on Brooks and her running mate Nicolas O’Rourke, and knocked on 150,000 doors and sent 300,000 text messages.
In reality, the Philadelphia Working Families Party is just a ballot-line, a shell with little real structure. The backbone of Brooks’s campaign were activists from the DSA, the 215 People’s Alliance (a Liberation Road front—the 215 signifies Philadelphia’s area code) and Reclaim Philadelphia (a DSA-led organization).
Liberation Road (known from 1985 to April as Freedom Road Socialist Organization or FRSO) is a pro-China communist organization that has in the last few years turned heavily toward electoral politics. Liberation Road works both inside and outside the Democratic Party depending on the local circumstances.
The DSA is the nation’s largest Marxist group with a claimed 56,000 members. The DSA is aligned to several European and Latin American communist parties.
Together with the Communist Party USA, Liberation Road and the DSA combine their forces to infiltrate mainstream politics, including the Democratic Party, in an alliance dubbed the Left Inside/Outside Project.
Brooks’s victory should be viewed in this context.
As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported:
“Without the infrastructure of a major party, Brooks and her campaign manager, Arielle Klagsbrun, largely built their operation from scratch. But they could not have won without the efforts of a preexisting network of groups whose members knocked on thousands of doors, held fund-raisers, and posted constantly on social media for Brooks and her fellow Working Families Party candidate Nicolas O’Rourke, who came up short in his Council bid. …
“The activist groups that carried the Working Families Party banner this year didn’t just aid Brooks’ campaign. In many ways, they were the campaign.”
Philadelphia DSA has at least 600 members in its main branch and can draw on many more from Delaware, Bucks, and Montgomery counties. Reclaim Philadelphia can mobilize hundreds of people across South Philadelphia and the river wards. Reclaim Philadelphia’s lead organizer Amanda McIllmurray is a well-known DSA member.
Liberation Road also has deep roots in Philadelphia, stretching right back to the Maoist student movement of the 1970s. It’s much more secretive than the DSA, however, and publicly acknowledges very few of its members. However, it does maintain several front groups in the city, and it’s fairly easy to track the same people appearing in various Liberation Road-aligned organizations.
The 215 People’s Alliance, which is centered in Southwest Philadelphia, is riddled with Liberation Road-aligned people. Confusingly, many of them are also DSA members as Liberation Road has some cross-membership with the DSA all over the country.
Some examples include:
Ron Whitehorne, a 215 supporter, was active in the 1980s Maoist group Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee and has since been active with several Liberation Road-aligned groups, including Philadelphia Public School Notebook, Media Mobilizing Project, and Youth United for Change—as well as the DSA.
Bryan Mercer, a 215 activist, has been involved with Liberation Road-affiliated groups Media Mobilizing Project, Asian Americans United, and LeftRoots.
Nancy Dung Nguyen, a 215 canvasser, has been involved in Liberation Road-friendly groups, including Asian Americans United, Memphis Solidarity Brigade, Campaign for Nonviolent Schools, and Progressive Philly Rising.
Teresa Engst, a 215 endorser and canvasser, comes from a well-known Philly communist family. Many of her relatives grew up in China after immigrating to support Mao’s revolution. She is active with Asian Americans United.
Kendra Brooks herself serves on the steering committee of 215 People’s Alliance and has a history of left activism. Her campaign manger Arielle Klagsbrun comes by way of the Midwest where she was an organizer with Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (formerly known as ACORN), which was also closely aligned with the local Liberation Road.
Sitting Philadelphia City Council member Helen Gym, a Democrat, ruffled a lot of Democrat feathers when she endorsed Brooks rather than a fellow Democrat.
According to local radio station WHYY Philadelphia, Democratic Party chairman Bob Brady was “dismayed”:
“I don’t know why that’s happening. We have a slate of five, she’s a part of it, and now she’s asking someone to vote against herself or one of the other four candidates who won the nomination — that doesn’t make any sense to me.”
It makes perfect sense if you examine Gym’s background.
The high-polling Gym was first elected to the Philadelphia Council in 2015 by many of the same Maoists who elected Brooks. She has a history with Philadelphia’s FRSO/Liberation Road element going back more than 20 years.
Gym got her activist start with local FRSO leader Ellen Somekawa and her influential Asian Americans United activist group. She also helped Somekawa and Somekawa’s FRSO comrade and husband Eric Joselyn found the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School.
Gym played a key role in the creation and early publishing days of another FRSO-linked group, the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, a nonprofit news outlet covering the city’s public schools. She worked alongside Whitehorne, Joselyn, and several other FRSO supporters on this project.
Gym would later work with the Media Mobilizing Project, Progressive Philly Rising, and the Minneapolis-based FRSO-linked education journal Rethinking Schools.
In recent years, Gym, who is of Korean extraction, has served on the board of the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC), which aims to “organize Korean and Asian Americans to achieve social, economic, and racial justice.”
NAKASEC grew out of Young Koreans United, a 1990s activist group well-known for its pro-North Korean views.
Gym may officially be a Democrat, but to all intents and purposes she follows the Liberation Road “line.” No doubt she will look forward to having an ally in Brooks to help advance her far-left agenda.
Photo: The City Hall building with the statue of William Penn on top is seen in the city center of Philadelphia on Dec. 3, 2017. Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania and the sixth-most populous city in the United States. (ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images)
Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics.
Trevor presents his acclaimed movie, “ENEMIES WITHIN” DVD—BUY NOW!
*Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
by Trevor | Oct 23, 2019 | #EnemiesWithin, Blog, Commentary, Featured, Middle East
Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times* | October 16, 2019, Updated: October 22, 2019
Commentary
On Oct. 28, the two most powerful Democratic politicians in the United States, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), will headline the annual conference of J Street—a leftist (and, in reality, anti-Israel) lobbying organization.
Schumer’s presence at the conference is especially significant because he has been long regarded as a pro-Israel voice in the Senate. He regularly speaks at the annual conference of the pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—the nemesis of J Street.
Traditional bipartisan support for Israel has been waning for some time as the pro-Palestine left wing of the Democratic Party gains more and more influence. This “fraternizing” with J Street by party leaders will likely send a signal to Israel that Democratic support in the U.S. Congress can no longer be relied upon.
While AIPAC has long worked with both Democrats and Republicans, J Street is an almost exclusively Democratic-focused operation. Its affiliated political action committee, JStreetPAC, raised $5 million for more than 100 Democratic candidates in the 2018 midterm elections, according to The Jerusalem Post.
J Street was established in 2007 essentially as a counter to AIPAC. J Street describes itself as “the political home and voice for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans … who want Israel to be secure, democratic and the national home of the Jewish people … [advocating] for policies that advance shared US and Israeli interests as well as Jewish and democratic values, leading to a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.”
According to Media Director Jessica Rosenblum, cited in Brown University student newspaper The Brown Daily Herald, J Street “aims to ‘redefine what it means to be pro-Israel’ and marshal American support for a two-state solution.”
According to J Street, to be “pro-Israel” today is to support the “two-state solution”—the partitioning of Israel to create a new independent Palestinian nation within current Israeli borders.
The so-called two-state solution would in fact be tantamount to Israeli national suicide. Depending on the proposed borders (a major sticking point), a new Palestinian state would incorporate nearly a third of Israel’s territory and would include several major cities including Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, Hebron, and Jenin. It would bring the borders of a potentially hostile foreign power to within a very few miles of Israel’s economic center Tel Aviv and within literal yards of the capital city Jerusalem. It would also bring dozens of Israeli towns and settlements within easy rocket or sniper range.
The “two-state solution” would make Israel almost impossible to defend—which is no doubt the reason it is being pushed so hard by the Jewish nation’s enemies. It is the strategic equivalent of giving Hawaii, Alaska, California, Oregon, and Washington to China, or ceding the entire Eastern Seaboard up to the city limits of New York and Washington to Russia.
Israel’s traditional Middle Eastern enemies, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the openly Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, always owed their main loyalties to the former Soviet Union. Fatah, a faction of the PLO, now rules the Palestinian Authority, a semi-autonomous part of Eastern Israel. Terror group Hamas, which rules the Gaza strip in Southern Israel, is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood, which has deep ties to Soviet-Russian intelligence. Hezbollah, which has often attacked Israel from its bases in neighboring Lebanon, is a front for the Iranian regime, which partially owes its existence to the former Soviet Union and is still closely allied with Moscow.
Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising to learn that J Street is heavily penetrated by the U.S. hard-left, most of which is now militantly opposed to the existence of Israel.
Connections
In 2009, late Minnesota Communist Party leader Erwin Marquit traveled to Washington for the first national conference of J Street. Marquit “attended the conference on 26–28 October and participated in lobbying members of the Congress on 29 October. … The guidelines for the lobby stressed Congressional support of Obama,” according to his memoirs. Marquit was also a political ally and financial supporter of hard-left Muslim former Congress member Keith Ellison. J Street endorsed and funded Ellison in his 2016 congressional race.
Members of the J Street advisory board have included:
- Stanley Sheinbaum, a wealthy Los Angeles-based philanthropist and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member. Sheinbaum claimed PLO leader Yasser Arafat as a friend and denied that Arafat was a terrorist.
- Alan Snitow, a filmmaker and former member of East Bay DSA.
- Michael Walzer, professor emeritus at the School of Social Science of Princeton University and a member of the DSA.
- Maria Echaveste, the former deputy White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton. At Stanford University in the 1970s, Echaveste was active in MEChA, a radical socialist group advocating for the return of the U.S. Southwest to Mexico. In May 1975, Echaveste of Students for Equity joined the Alliance for Radical Change, the far-left Iranian Students Association, and the Maoist-leaning Revolutionary Student Brigade to pressure Stanford University trustees to terminate a three-year, $1 million contract to develop a satellite system for National Iranian Radio Television. The communist campaign to economically isolate the regime of the pro-American Shah of Iran contributed to the Islamic revolution of 1978. There are clear parallels to today’s anti-Israel Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment Movement.
- Rob Malley, the former special assistant to Clinton for Arab-Israeli Affairs and foreign policy adviser to President Barack Obama. Malley’s father, Simon Malley, was a founder of the Egyptian Communist Party and a close associate of PLO leader Yasser Arafat. According to Ed Lasky of the American Thinker: “Simon Malley loathed Israel and … spent countless hours with Yasser Arafat and became a close friend of Arafat.” In 1980, Simon Malley and his family were expelled from France for “political activities which do not correspond with, and even run contrary to, French interests in certain countries,” according to Discover the Networks. An Oct. 3, 1980, United Press International report stated, “[French] Interior Minister Christian Bonnet told the Assembly that some articles written by Malley were ‘genuine appeals to murder foreign chiefs of state.’”
J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami also has a radical bent. Ben-Ami was then-President Clinton’s deputy domestic policy adviser and later served as policy director for leftist Democrat Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. Before becoming president of J Street, he was senior vice president at Fenton Communications, a Washington public relations firm notorious for representing communist movements and governments, including Daniel Ortega’s Marxist regime in Nicaragua, Prime Minister Maurice Bishop’s Marxist-Leninist regime in Grenada, El Salvador’s Marxist-Leninist guerrilla organization the FMLN, and the pro-Soviet MPLA regime in Angola.
In 2009, Ben-Ami served on the board of J Street sister organization Americans for Peace Now alongside several radical leftists, including DSA members Jo-Ann Mort, Stanley Sheinbaum, and Michael Walzer.
J Street is unquestionably an enemy of Israel as it is constituted today. The fact that the two highest-ranking Democrats in Congress are scheduled to address the upcoming J Street conference will likely be noted with some concern in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Feature Photo: U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) arrive at a news briefing after they returned to the Capitol from a White House meeting with President Donald Trump May 22, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics.
Trevor presents his acclaimed movie, “ENEMIES WITHIN” DVD—BUY NOW!
*Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
by Trevor | Oct 12, 2019 | #EnemiesWithin, Bernie Sanders, Blog, Commentary, CPUSA, Democratic Party, Enemies Within, Red Reps, Social Movements, Socialism/Communism, Socialist Opinion Shapers
Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times* | October 11, 2019 Updated: October 11, 2019
Commentary
Judith LeBlanc, a leading member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), is organizing Native American communities in several states to turn out in high numbers for the Democratic Party in 2020.
At just over 2 percent of the population, the Native American vote could be enough to swing several key U.S. Senate races and even the presidency. LeBlanc also organized the nation’s first Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, Iowa—specially to lift Native American voter interest and drive turnout.
A member of the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma, LeBlanc joined the CPUSA in 1974 and has served at the highest levels of party leadership. LeBlanc has served as a vice-chair of the party and formerly chaired its Peace and Solidarity Commission. She has traveled to Japan, Australia, Israel, Lebanon, and “Palestine” on party business, which included a 2002 meeting with the late Palestinian terrorist leader Yasser Arafat.
On Nov. 29, 2010, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, LeBlanc “had the honor of speaking on behalf of civil society organizations to a special meeting at the United Nations,” according to the Peace Action blog.
In recent years, LeBlanc has been assigned to work on Native American business through her role as national coordinator of the Native Organizers Alliance—the country’s leading Native American activist group. This work included a training role in the 2016 protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota. In mid-September 2016, LeBlanc led a “four-day training at Standing Rock with tribal officials, native-led non-profits, and local community and political leaders on power mapping, strategic campaign planning, and direct action,” according to Inequality.org.
Now, LeBlanc’s role is to build on the energy and unity generated at Standing Rock. Her job is to ensure that millions of traditionally low turnout, yet Democratic-leaning Native American voters go to the polls in 2020.
Presidential Forum
Working in partnership with the South Dakota-based, Rosebud Sioux-affiliated voter registration organization Four Directions, Inc., LeBlanc’s Native Organizers Alliance hosted the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum on Aug. 19 and 20 in Sioux City, Iowa.
Named after a recently deceased Winnebago leader, the forum featured interviews with 11 Democratic candidates, including front-runners Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).
The forum was partially underwritten by the leftist funding group The Praxis Project, which is closely linked to the pro-China communist group Liberation Road. The Praxis Project was founded and led until recently by former Communist Workers Party militant Makani Themba-Nixon.
In her opening remarks to the forum, LeBlanc referenced the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s action to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.
“ We are moving on a continuum from protest to power. … Standing Rock interrupted the narrative, and when we left Standing Rock, we went back to our cities and our reservations to organize,” she said, according to Religion News Service.
LeBlanc told the Liberation Road-linked website Organizing Upgrade:
“Our goal for this first-ever Native presidential forum was twofold. The first was to energize the Indian electorate. We reached hundreds of thousands through the live stream of the event and the vast array of media coverage, including both the Indian and mainstream media. The second goal was to educate the presidential candidates about our strategies for overcoming the challenges in Indian Country.
“It was powerful. For example, Secretary Julian Castro spent quite a bit of time prior to the forum collecting input from various leaders in Indian Country. He issued a very excellent Indian platform prior to the forum. The week of the forum, Elizabeth Warren did the same. … The debate that happened during the forum, the back and forth with tribal and community leaders over the course of two days, will influence how whoever gets elected governs. For example, most of the candidates said they would have (or would consider) a cabinet-level representative of Indian Country.”
So promises of power have been made. But the only way to collect is to win the 2020 election.
The organized hard left—especially CPUSA and Liberation Road—want to win the next election on a Rainbow Coalition strategy. They intend to update Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign strategy from the 1980s—unite all the racial and ethnic minorities with the base of white “progressives” to achieve a winning majority. Don’t fight a losing battle on policy—make it all about race.
When Jackson last ran for president in 1988, minorities were about 12 percent of the pollution. Now, they are 38 percent. It only makes sense to focus resources on Native Americans to increase the chances of victory in what could be a very tight race in 2020.
LeBlanc also told Organizing Upgrade:
“Four Directions, our sister organization, did research and found there are seven states where the Indian vote would be decisive in determining the outcome of 77 electoral votes. These 7 states include critical Senate races. From that scientific basis, Native Organizers Alliance and Four Directions began to organize traditionally, to reach out to the community groups that we have relationships within those seven states.”
It’s all about “transformational change”—LeBlanc’s euphemism for socialist revolution.
“ We’re also turning our attention to working in those seven states where the Native vote will be decisive. Native Organizers Alliance is working with groups in Wisconsin, Arizona, Minnesota, Michigan, and Nevada. We’ll be doing the kind of voter registration, education, and mobilization that ensures that our grassroots groups and tribal entities expand their organized base. The day after the elections, we will be ready with a stronger organized, politically empowered grassroots base. …
“ In order to protect and deepen democracy in the long run, we need strong, vibrant social movements who understand that voting is one of the tools of social change along with protest, advocacy, governing and popular political education. That holistic strategy is needed for us to make a transformational change which deals with the systemic nature of the problems that our communities face. …
“We need science and people power.”
In 2016, President Donald Trump won 18 states by less than 250,000 votes. By targeting knife-edge states like Wisconsin, Arizona, Minnesota, Michigan, and Nevada, LeBlanc and her Native Organizers Alliance could well have a major influence on the 2020 election. If Trump loses Wisconsin, Arizona, and Michigan and is denied possible victories in Minnesota and Nevada by the Native American vote, LeBlanc will deserve much of the credit.
Most Americans (including most of the Republican leadership) seem to think that the Communist Party has no influence on U.S. politics. They might be shocked to find that just one comrade may be able to determine the outcome of the 2020 election.
Photo: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum on Aug. 20, 2019, in Sioux City, Iowa. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics.
Trevor presents his acclaimed movie, “ENEMIES WITHIN” DVD—BUY NOW!
*Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
by Trevor | Oct 10, 2019 | #EnemiesWithin, Blog, Commentary, CPUSA, Democratic Party, Enemies Within, Featured, North America, Red Reps, Socialism/Communism, Socialist Opinion Shapers
Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times* | October 10, 2019, Updated: October 10, 2019
Commentary
America’s largest Maoist organization, Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), has re-branded itself “Liberation Road.”
The new name is in line with a new strategy to place much more emphasis on electoral politics. The new strategy is bearing fruit as the pro-China communists have already helped to elect allies to public office in several states.
With the word “socialist” dropped from their name, the comrades probably reason that their communism will be less apparent to potential electoral allies and voters. This could lead to even more electoral victories in the near future.
There was also another reason for the change. In 1999, FRSO split into two organizations, both of which claimed to be the “true” FRSO.
The minority faction, based in Chicago and Minneapolis, wanted to concentrate on traditional communist methods—street demonstrations, picketing and agitation, solidarity with China, North Korea, and foreign terrorist organizations, and alliances with other groups on the hard left, such as the Workers World Party. This group, which produces the FightBack! newspaper, is now the only FRSO—which must be gratifying after fighting their former comrades for more than 20 years over naming rights.
The majority faction, which is now known as Liberation Road, wanted to work for Left Refoundation—to build a re-vitalized less doctrinaire left with broader appeal to the masses and the ability to work closely with the Communist Party USA, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and other left formations. Liberation Road is very well funded, and has a major presence in several tax-free non-profits and labor unions, and even some churches.
FRSO Liberation Road still maintains ties to communist China but is fairly discreet about it. While internally still committed to communism, the “Road” has been working hard to sanitize its radical Maoist image in order to be able to work more effectively with the Democrats and local electoral groupings.
Liberation Road has a major presence in the San Francisco area and enjoys close relations with many local politicians and social movements. It’s also strong in Oregon and Washington State, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, the Washington D.C. area, Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Southern Florida, and central Texas.
Goals and Strategy
Liberation Road’s goal in the South is to defeat what they call the “New Confederacy”—the conservative Christian/business/rural base that has kept the Republican Party dominant in the South and viable nationally for the last two decades. For example, FRSO was very active in the Tennessee U.S. senate race in 2018, backing Democrat Phil Bredesen. They did not prevail but did build strong networks for future races.
From the Liberation Road website:
“Our organization began in 1985 with a merger of two organizations … that came out of the New Communist Movement of the late 1970s/early 1980s. …
“Today, at a critical juncture—not just for us in Freedom Road Socialist Organization, but for the whole socialist and movement Left—we are excited to announce that we are changing our name to Liberation Road.
“Over the past 34 years, our organization has maintained a consistent commitment to opposing racial capitalism and fighting for socialism and self-determination. At the same time, we have prided ourselves on remaining highly adaptable based on ever changing internal and external conditions. …
“Since 2016, our organization has formally consolidated around a national strategy that focuses on building the independent political power of the strategic alliance through the creation of and support for mass independent political organizations (IPOs) as a part of a broader front to defeat the New Confederacy.”
These IPOs are independent political groups that are able to work both inside and outside of the Democratic Party to maximize the strength and leverage of the local left.
“Central to this strategic orientation is using the electoral arena as a tool and terrain that helps left/progressive forces to build political power.”
FRSO/Liberation Road has built several IPOs in Boston and in Philadelphia and Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley was elected with FRSO help, as were Philadelphia’s radical council member Helen Gym and District Attorney Larry Krasner.
But the South is the main target of Liberation Road’s electoral efforts. Liberation Road knows that if they can flip even two or three Southern states to the Democrats, the Republicans will soon become a permanent minority party.
“Our analysis is that this realignment of left/progressive forces, the building of mass independent political organizations operating both inside and outside the Democratic Party and the electoral arena, is crucial at this juncture. In embarking on this path, we have found considerable, though admittedly modest success in the building of IPOs in the South, which has been a geographic and strategic focus of our organization from its inception because of its unique role in the development of US racial capitalism.”
So far Liberation Road has had its greatest successes in swing state North Carolina and more reliably Republican Tennessee.
Southern Success
With its control of Durham for All, Liberation Road (which is aiming to raise an army of 10,000 activists) has put several comrades and allies onto local school boards and city councils, including recent Mayor Pro Tempore of the city of Durham Jillian Johnson.
In Tennessee, Liberation Road works closely with the DSA in local races in Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis.
In Knoxville, Liberation Road is running their comrade David Hayes on the City Council Movement / Knoxville for All ticket alongside DSA member Amelia Parker and Charles Al-Bawi—hopefully to join DSA comrade Seema Perez, who was elected to the city council last cycle.
In Central Tennessee, Liberation Road backs the Nashville Justice League, which endorsed no fewer than 15 City Council candidates this election cycle. DSA member Sean Parker recently won a Nashville City Council seat.
In the west of the state, Liberation Road’s Memphis for All has worked with the local DSA to elect several candidates for public office and is effectively running the campaign of mayoral candidate Tami Sawyer.
Memphis for All is doing extensive voter registration work in the city’s huge Democratic-leaning black voting base. If they flip reliably Republican Tennessee to the Democrats, it would be a knockout blow to the “New Confederacy.”
Memphis for All activist April Freeman recently told Liberation Road’s Mary Jo Connelly:
“Personally, I want Memphis For All to have a great impact on the voting turnout. … We’re already getting known for taking Memphis and Shelby County beyond—raising their voting turnout so much that it’s nationally covered.
“The Memphis electorate is a sleeping giant. It can flip Tennessee and lead a movement for deep change. … Deep grassroots organizing, and community leadership development can shift the balance.”
A New Socialist Party
Ultimately, Liberation Road wants to destroy the Republican Party. Then the plan is to work with the Communist Party USA, DSA, and others to gather all their combined forces inside and outside the Democratic Party into a mass socialist party that can seriously contend for permanent power.
From the Liberation Road website:
“In this new period of our organization and under our new name, we are excited to continue with others the process of building a party for socialism, while equally engaging with the broader progressive movement—globally and domestically—in the struggles to save the planet from environmental catastrophe and defeat both neo-liberal globalization and right-wing populism. Together, we look forward to working with others to create a vision and reality of fundamental social transformation that will move us down the liberation road.”
Liberation Road’s plans should not be treated as socialist fantasizing. The organization is backed by China and has a well-funded network spanning both coasts and most of the South. Their plan to use the Democrat’s minorities voting base and shifting demographics to destroy the Republican Party in the South has already made good progress in Virginia, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Liberation Road works well-under the radar but is highly effective, disciplined, and relentless. If the good people of the U.S. South do not want to suffer “socialist liberation” in the next few election cycles they’d better wake up fast.
Some state-level hearings on Chinese/Liberation Road influence on local and state elections might be a good place to start. I would happily testify.
Photo: Freedom Road Socialist Organization supporters during an anti-Trump march in Washington on Jan. 20, 2017. slowking4/GFDL 1.2
Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics.
Trevor presents his acclaimed movie, “ENEMIES WITHIN” DVD—BUY NOW!
*Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
