by Trevor | Jan 9, 2020 | #EnemiesWithin, Blog, Commentary, Democratic Party, Enemies Within, Featured, North America, Social Movements, Socialism/Communism, Socialist Opinion Shapers
By Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times | January 3, 2020, Updated: January 5, 2020
Commentary
American Marxists are seriously targeting judicial positions in key states—Texas among them.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has already elected some comrades to key positions in the Lone Star State and is targeting several more positions in upcoming races.
The Marxists understand that it’s not always who makes the laws but who interprets the laws that count. Influencing the legal process in favor of the left is a revolutionary act.
So far Houston DSA has elected two comrades to local judgeships.
DSA member Franklin Bynum won his bid for judge in Houston in November 2018 with an endorsement and electoral support from Houston DSA.
His platform “includes plans to stop jailing those who can’t pay bail, an end to ‘plea mill’ practices that coerce guilty pleas from defendants in exchange for freedom, support for diversion programs to reduce arrest, an end excessive to court appearances, and providing more police oversight in the courtroom,” according to Jacobin magazine.
He believes “capitalism drives the horrors of this [justice] system.”
At the same election DaSean Jones, a self-described “criminal justice reformer,” was elected as judge for the 180th criminal court in Houston. He’s also a member of the Houston DSA.
On Jan. 31, 2019, Bynum, Jones, and Tarsha Jackson of the Communist Party-influenced Texas Organizing Project participated in a Houston forum “The end of policing: putting abolition into practice”—”a conversation” with anti-police activist Alex Vitale.
A former Houston DSA member, Vitale is a professor of sociology and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College. “He has spent the last 25 years writing about policing and consults both police departments and human rights organizations internationally,” according to People’s World. “He also serves on the New York State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.”
Vitale is a personal friend of Bynum and is active in the “close Rykers Island” and the “End Gang Database” campaigns in New York.
Comrade Vitale has also advised Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign concerning the candidate’s “Justice and Safety for All” proposal—so you can guess how “just” and “safe” these proposals may be.
In November 2019, Vitale gave a similar presentation at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library in Berkeley, California—sponsored by the Northern California Communist Party,
According to the People’s World account of the event:
“In his recent work, ‘The End of Policing,’ Vitale gives a scathing critique of police reformism and presents realistic alternatives to policing, such as restorative justice and harm reduction programs implemented in various departments around the world. The book attempts to spark a public discourse by telling the racist and anti-labor origins of modern policing as a tool of social control, in which police authority is inconsistent with community empowerment, social justice, and public safety.
“Vitale says, ‘The origins and function of the police are intimately tied to the management of inequalities of race and class. The suppression of workers and the tight surveillance and micromanagement of black and brown lives have always been at the center of policing. Any police reform strategy that does not address this reality is doomed to fail.’
“An example is the reformist idea of ‘community policing,’ which focuses on police accountability, diversity, training, and community relations which so far do not produce positive results, either alone or in combination. ‘The problem,’ Vitale says, ‘is not police training, police diversity, or police methods. The problem is the dramatic and unprecedented expansion and intensity of policing in the last 40 years, a fundamental shift in the role of police in society. The problem is policing itself.’”
Imagine a prosecutor trying to bring a case before a judge imbued with this type of judicial philosophy?
Recently, Houston DSA endorsed Audia Jones (wife of DaSean Jones) in her bid for Harris County District Attorney—that’s Houston’s top prosecutor.
According to her campaign website, while working in the Harris County DA’s office, Audia Jones noticed:
“… courts disproportionately filled with the poor, people of color, intellectually disabled, and people suffering with addiction standing accused of non-violent offenses. It became clear that the criminal justice system was sorely broken and was not working for the benefit of our largest and most vulnerable communities.”
Unsurprisingly, Audia Jones has also secured the endorsement of socialist and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors.
A couple of hours away in the state capital Austin, the 1,000-comrade-strong Austin DSA chapter is also endorsing and backing two socialists for high judicial office in Travis County.
According to Austin DSA’s Facebook page:
“Austin DSA is proud to endorse Dominic Selvera for Travis County Attorney and Jose Garza for DA. Our criminal justice system needs to change. People in Travis County deserve real reform, champions who will end mass incarceration and the war on drugs, eliminate wealth-based detention, protect immigrants, fight racism, and restore integrity to the way victims are treated. If Jose and Dominic win, things are going to change. And we will be the ones changing them.”
How would you like to be a property owner or businessperson in Austin with people like this running the legal system?
The DSA’s infiltration of the Texas judicial system has nothing to do with justice in the traditional American sense. This is a quest for revolutionary justice. It’s an attempt to seize the power of the courts to weaken the “capitalist” system and private property rights to pave the way for worker’s revolution.
This is not justice. It’s subversion. The Justice Department should be investigating and countering the DSA’s penetration of the judiciary before it becomes even more entrenched
Photo credit: The Harris County Courthouse in Houston, Texas, on April 1, 2017. (Patrick Feller via Wikimedia Commons)
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!
by Trevor | Jan 2, 2020 | #EnemiesWithin, Blog, Commentary, CPUSA, Democratic Party, Electoral Politics, Enemies Within, Featured, Freedom Road, International, Liberation Road, North America, Red Reps, Social Movements, Socialism/Communism
By Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times | December 31, 2019, Updated: December 31, 2019
Commentary
A shadowy new alliance led by pro-China communists plans to mobilize 40 million new Democratic voters for the 2020 election.
This group, firstly known as the State-based Power Caucus and now simply the State Power Caucus, has the ability to mobilize thousands of volunteers and paid staff in New York, California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Mississippi, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, and Texas.
The State Power Caucus has already had a major political impact in Virginia, Florida, Kentucky, Texas, California, and several other states. This alliance could decide the 2020 election—yet it’s operating almost completely “under the radar.”
In July 2017, 20 state-based organizations from 13 states united to form the State-Based Power Caucus. The organization has no website and has generated very little publicity. We don’t even know its full roster of member organizations or the identities of most of its leaders.
What we do know is that most of its identified leaders come from “orbit” of Liberation Road—the United States’ main pro-China communist party. We also know that at least 22 major organizations in at least 15 states have now joined the caucus.
Leaders
Most known leaders of the State Power Caucus have some connection to Liberation Road. Known until recently as the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Liberation Road is descended from radical Maoist groups from the 1960s and ‘70s. While no longer exclusively Maoist in outlook, Liberation Road maintains ties to China, Cuba, and other communist nations and movements.
Identified leaders of the State Power Caucus include:
Jon Liss—co-chair of the New Virginia Majority, national chair of State Power Caucus. Long-time member of Liberation Road.
Andrea Mercado—co-chair of The New Florida Majority, leadership team State Power Caucus.
Bob Wing—organizing committee State Power Caucus. Former member of Maoist grouping Line of March. A long time Liberation Road affiliate.
Anthony Thigpenn—founder and president of California Calls and leadership team member of the State Power Caucus.
Claire Tran—State Power Caucus staff. Long time Liberation Road member.
Member Organizations
Most of the State Power Caucus affiliates are led by Liberation Road cadre or supporters. Some of the organizations are former affiliates of ACORN, the discredited “community organizing” organization exposed by Project Veritas, Glenn Beck, and others.
Confirmed organizations affiliated to the State Power Caucus include:
California Calls is a California-wide alliance with includes the renamed ACORN affiliate Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, several Liberation Road influenced organizations including Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Community Coalition, Strategic Concepts in Organizing Policy Education, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, Oakland Rising, San Francisco Rising Alliance plus California Federation of Teachers, Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement, Dolores Huerta Foundation, and several others. These groups have signed up hundreds of thousands of mainly “minority” voters to turn California into one the most heavily Democratic states in the country.
Kentuckians for the Commonwealth claims 7,500 members across the state and played a role in the recent defeat of Republican Gov. Matt Bevin. One of Democratic Governor-elect Andy Beshear’s first actions was to restore voting rights to 100,000 Kentucky felons—a move lobbied for by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. One of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth’s key leaders, Meta Mendel-Reyes, was involved with the pro-China League of Revolutionary Struggle in the 1980s and has served on the board of the Liberation Road-led Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee.
New Virginia Majority can claim credit more than any other organization for turning reliably Republican Virginia into a Democratic state. In 10 years of solid organizing New Virginia Majority claims to have signed up more than 200,000 Democratic-leaning “minority” voters. The group also worked closely with former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe to re-instate voting rights to more than 200,000 disenfranchised felons.
The New Florida Majority, like its Virginia cousin, is a front for Liberation Road. The New Florida Majority has signed up tens of thousands of “minority” voters for the Democratic Party and has helped elect several state-level politicians in Southern Florida. In 2018, the organization also worked with Organize Florida (formerly Florida ACORN) to pass a referendum re-enfranchising 1.4 million felons for the 2020 election. The New Florida Majority almost succeeded in electing the leftist Mayor of Tallahassee to the Florida Governor’s Mansion in 2018.
Washington Community Action Network is the state chapter of USAction. The group claims that in May 2019, Gov. Jay Inslee signed “their” Eviction Reform Bill into law. Washington Community Action Network executive director Mary Le Nguyen was a 2017 alumna of the Liberation Road-affiliated Rockwood Leadership Institute, an Oakland, California-based school for “community organizers.”
The Plan
It’s no secret that the communist rulers of China would love to see President Donald Trump defeated in 2020.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that Beijing’s American franchise has a plan to do just that.
According to State Power Caucus leader Jon Liss writing in Organizing Upgrade:
“Inspired by the disaster of Trump and Trumpism two years out most organizers are engaged in barroom or coffee shop speculation about the 2020 election. …
“All of it is idle speculation unless ‘we’ collectively organize tens of millions of the 108 million eligible voters who didn’t vote in 2016. That’s right, one hundred and eight million eligible voters chose not to register or to vote in 2016. The non-voting block is disproportionately young, poor and people of color.”
So how does Liberation Road plan to harvest these millions of potential Democrat votes? They claim credit for nearly 4 million new voters in 2016—but the target is way higher for 2020.
“Over the last twenty-five years, state power organizations have grown to fill the political space created by the decline of Democratic Party local organization, the breakup and collapse of ACORN, and low levels of voter turnout. …
“These organizations have deep strategic knowledge and practice in their particular states. Starting in the summer of 2017 many leading state-power organizations have come together as a caucus to support peer-to-peer learning and incubate innovate organizing practices. …
“The State Power Caucus has worked to first analyze the collective reach of the national networks who engage in electoral and civic engagement work. …
“We’ve also begun to assess the collective impact of state-based organizations. Looking at 2016, our rough estimate is that at most 4 million people were contacted and encouraged to vote. This is our high-water estimate. The actual number who actually voted is probably much lower still.
“Now, recall the 108 million people who were eligible but not voting? They are largely our ‘core’ constituency, or in other terms, they are our unorganized social base. This 108 million when compared to the voting electorate is more Black, more immigrant, more working class and poor.
“If we initially target just half of the 108 million, and we acknowledge that some in that half are going to disagree with our values and politics, some aren’t going to vote no matter what, and some are in geographies that we just can’t reach, we believe our real voter mobilization target number is 40 million, and we’ve agreed as a caucus to that number as our target. That’s our natural consistency.
“These are the voters or potential voters who put AOC and Ilhan Omar into Congress. They are our friends and family, and they are the everyday members and supporters of our organizations that fight for racial justice at the state and local level.”
The State Power Caucus believes that 40 million new anti-Trump voters is both realistic and achievable.
“The State Power Caucus is committed to working more effectively, efficiently and collaboratively with national social justice networks. Together, we look to take a big leap forward and move from mobilizing 4 million and organizing many less to mobilizing and organizing many times more.
“The long game to defeat white nationalism and move past neo-liberal corporatism is by building a bottom up movement of 40 million people.
“At a minimum that is a movement where people vote consistently and consciously. Where people share our values for racial, gender and social justice and where people believe they have the capacity to rule.”
Does the Republican Party even understand what’s coming? While President Trump is confronting China on trade and challenging China’s military in the Pacific, his voter base is being undermined by pro-China communists in Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona. If Liberation Road can flip only two or three states in the South, a China-appeasing Democrat takes the White House in 2020.
Permanent Socialism
The United States stands one election away from permanent socialism—otherwise known as “communism.” If the Democrats win in 2020 they will use the organs of the state to destroy their enemies. They will flood the country with immigrants, legal and illegal, and they will swamp the conservative voting base. They will consolidate their power just like they did in Cuba and Venezuela, and a free America will be over forever.
And all this could happen because a few hundred pro-China communists, with mountains of money from the Democracy Alliance, unions, and tax-free foundations are allowed to out-organize Trump and the Republicans in the South.
It’s perfectly legal to sign up “minority” voters for the Democratic Party. It’s not legal to do that to the advantage of a hostile foreign power.
The State Power Caucus and their constituent groups should become the number one priority for federal and state investigative bodies.
Photo credit: Voting booths are set up at the Yuengling Center on the campus of the University of South Florida as workers prepare to open the doors to early voters in Tampa, Fla, on Oct. 22, 2018. (Joe Raedle/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!
by Trevor | Dec 17, 2019 | #EnemiesWithin, Blog, China, Commentary, CPUSA, Democratic Party, DSA, Electoral Politics, Enemies Within, Featured, Freedom Road, International, Liberation Road, North America, Social Movements, Socialism/Communism, Socialist Opinion Shapers
By Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times | December 16, 2019, Updated: December 16, 2019
Commentary
America’s main pro-China communist party Liberation Road is working overtime to win Florida for the Democratic Party in the 2020 presidential election.
With 29 Electoral College votes—behind only California and Texas and tied with New York—Florida may well decide the 2020 election. California and New York are deeply blue states and Texas is moderately red, so purplish Florida will be heavily targeted as the most significant “swing state” in the nation.
Liberation Road Maoists finally turned Virginia blue in 2020. They’re now using similar tactics to flip Florida.
Liberation Road (until April this year known as Freedom Road Socialist Organization or FRSO) flipped Virginia by signing up at least 300,000 new minority voters over the last several years and working with then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe to restore voting rights for an estimated 200,000 former felons.
Working through the New Florida Majority and allied organizations FRSO/Liberation Road has signed up hundreds of thousands of new minority voters in Florida and helped pass a referendum giving 1.4 million “Sunshine State” former felons the right to vote.
They also helped to raise the Democratic vote for their friend Andrew Gillum in the 2018 governor’s race. Gillum only lost because Donald Trump endorsed Republican Ron DeSantis who called Gillum out for the socialist he undoubtedly is. Given that Gillum is now working with the Florida left to sign up another million minority Democratic voters, it’s entirely possible that China’s American franchise Liberation Road may well decide who wins the 2020 election.
FRSO Infiltrates Florida
FRSO has been active in Southern Florida since at least 1999 when the Miami Workers Center was founded by FRSO affiliates Gihan Perera and Tony Romano.
Though never FRSO’s strongest section, the Miami branch has been reinforced in recent years with comrades from North Carolina, California, and the Northeast.
Perera founded Miami-based The New Florida Majority circa 2009 (as Florida New Majority). He would staff his new organization with Maoist comrades, including political director Badili Jones—one of the very few open FRSO members.
Perera trained in 2005 at the FRSO-connected and Oakland California-based “community organizer” school Rockwood Leadership Institute. The New Florida Majority’s current executive director Andrea Mercado trained at Rockwood in 2013. Andrew Gillum served his time there in 2012.
In 2007, Perera (who now runs programs for the Ford Foundation) and John Liss of New Virginia Majority, established a nationwide umbrella group for FRSO-affiliated community groups called the Right to the City Alliance.
Moving Florida Left
The New Florida Majority immediately set out to harness the power of minority voters to move Florida left.
From the allied Florida Immigrant Coalition website:
“Through street-level organizing, The New Florida Majority is overcoming the dark days of racism and divisiveness in the Sunshine State to bring the new light of fairness and equity to all residents.
“In 2012, The New Florida Majority’s mobilization efforts resulted in the election of ten new progressive Federal and State legislators in Florida. Through our Breakthrough campaign, we reached more than 250,000 voters across the state, 76% of which turned out on election day.
“This year, The New Florida Majority organizers are mobilizing leaders to significantly expand democratic rights for communities that have been historically marginalized, excluded, and silenced. The key components of the campaign are voting rights, immigration reform, fighting mass incarceration, and standing up for women and our young people.”
Victories included Orlando area congressman Darren Soto and Miami area State Sen. Dwight Bullard—who now serves as the New Florida Majority’s political director.
In recent years, the New Florida Majority has chalked up victory after victory—local and state-wide. All apparently under the nose of the Florida Republican Party.
According to the group’s website the ”Majority” can claim credit for:
“• 31,000 new voter registrations in low-income black & brown neighborhoods, with 32,277 voters contacted, in 2017 alone.
• Helped to win $15/hr living wage legislation in the City of Miami.
• Citizen-lobbying effort led to creation of low-income community representative on the City of Miami Sea Level Rise Committee.
• Led effort to collect 127,000 petitions to get campaign finance reform on 2018 ballot.
• Won lawsuit to extend voter registration period after Hurricane Matthew, which enabled 108,000 additional people to register during this election cycle.
• Field programs helped to win important down-ballot races including Opa Locka City Commissioner Matthew Pigatt, State Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez, State Representative Robert Ascencio.”
Socialist SWAG
But by far the New Florida Majority’s most important campaigns to date were the almost successful Gillum campaign and the concurrent push to pass Amendment 4—which gave most convicted felons the right to vote.
“In 2018, New Florida Majority made history with the passage of Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians with felony convictions. Our work, along with the work of so many other groups who fought so hard for that win, continues today as the state legislature attempts to roll back our hard-won victory.”
Both campaigns saw the New Florida Majority deepen its ties with several allied organizations across the state through a new umbrella organization the Statewide Alliance Group (SWAG).
The new alliance included:
• The New Florida Majority
• Dream Defenders—a black-led pro-Palestine group closely affiliated to Liberation Road.
• Organize Florida—led by Stephanie Porta, former leader of Florida ACORN.
• Florida Immigrant Coalition—led by Maria Rodriguez, a 2009 Rockwood Leadership Institute alumni and close affiliate of Liberation Road.
• SEIU—heavily penetrated by Liberation Road and other communist groups.
• Faith in Florida—part of Faith in Action, formerly known as the PICO National Network, which is closely affiliated to some Liberation Road supporters.
• Central Florida Jobs with Justice—led by Denise Diaz, who is closely affiliated to Liberation Road and the Communist Party USA.
Defending Gillum
SWAG’s first job was to defend Gillum from his Republican opponent DeSantis’s well-justified and very effective “red-baiting.”
Liberation Road calls the conservative, Christian, Republican-leaning South the “New Confederacy”—and Gillum was supposed to help the Maoists defeat the New “Confederates” in Florida.
JoHanna Thompson, a Miami-based FRSO comrade, wrote a facetiously entitled article on the group’s website “Don’t Let the Socialists Take Over Florida!”
“Gillum seemed like someone who comrades could work with in office.
“Falling in line with the New Confederacy, DeSantis was less concerned with changing liberal minds than attacking liberal ideologies, making inaccurate associations of his opponent, and getting conservative voters to the polls.
“One door hanger asked the question, ‘Does this sound familiar?’ It depicted a picture of a street mural, by a local artist, of Andrew Gillum. Underneath the picture were the words, ‘Andrew Gillum: Another Big Government, Socialist Dictator’ followed by three more street murals of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez. It boldly proclaimed, ‘Don’t let the socialists take over Florida! Republicans must vote, there’s too much at stake.’
“On one hand, the door hanger was laughable, while on the other, it spoke to the intentional decision of grassroots organizations and a union to work collectively as Statewide Alliance Group …”
The attacks on Gillum worked. Although SWAG lifted the Democratic Party vote by a staggering 40 percent over the 2014 elections, DeSantis so boldly called out Gillum’s socialism that the Republican vote rose even more. Florida was saved from a socialist governor by razor thin 33,000 votes.
Anti-communism works.
FRSO did better with Amendment 4, however, which passed 64 percent to 34 percent.
Thompson explained how the Florida left came together to pass Amendment 4:
“The Dream Defenders (DD) took a deep dive in community to create an ideology reminiscent of the Black Panther Party Ten Point Program with seven freedoms. DD launched the #freedompapers, claiming #thisistheyear, focusing on building with community to target private prison corporations, like GEO Group, and transform the Florida political landscape.
“Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) along with Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) and United We Dream focused on immigrant rights and abolishing ICE. The New Florida Majority (NFM), SEIU, Faith in Florida, Jobs with Justice, and the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) Electoral Justice Project appealed to their vast membership bases.
“In addition, the Miami Workers Center (MWC) centered the Movement for Black Women and Girls with Soul Sista’s. Power U Center for Social Change continues to inform youth. Community Justice Project (CJP) supported Poetry for the People’s, Maroon Poetry Festival, which amplified the Black Arts Movement and use of art in activism.
“The age old social justice organizations such as NAACP, ACLU, Faith in Florida, PACT, and the likes, also joined the effort to get Amendment 4 passed. All used the same messaging in their conversations which advocated for a Yes Vote on Amendment 4. The strategy was to restore the rights of over 1.4 million voters as freedom voters.
“It was a brilliant, coordinated strategy in alignment and consistent communication that is beginning to consolidate a united front against the New Confederacy in Florida.”
Can Florida Be Saved From Socialism?
Most Florida voters who supported Amendment 4 thought they were simply being kind to people who had paid their debt to society. Many of the Amendment 4 “Yes” voters also voted against socialism and for Ron DeSantis. They had no real idea of who was behind the ballot initiative or why.
FRSO Maoists and their allies basically fooled several million compassionate Floridians into voting for their own destruction. It was never about restoring rights to the formerly incarcerated. It was all about several hundred thousand new potential Democratic voters.
Old-line Maoists believed that all power sprang “from the barrel of a gun.” Modern Liberation Road Maoists know that such crude tactics won’t work in the United States. They believe that total power can be better achieved by mobilizing minority voters to give a hard-left Democratic Party an unbeatable majority. Different tactics—same eventual result.
Liberation Road/The New Virginia Majority used Democratic-leaning ex-felons to turn “The Old Dominion” blue. You can bet that Liberation Road/The New Florida Majority is out there right now registering Florida’s ex-felons for the same purpose.
President Donald Trump would be well advised to hold several large rallies in Florida next year. His Sunshine State base loves him like a chocolate. If he’s there for them, they will turn out for him.
Donald Trump, Jr. recently told Fox and Friends that the 2020 election would be “communism versus freedom.” Florida will prove him correct.
Feature photo: Trays of election ballots are seen at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Election Warehouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Nov. 15, 2018. Michele Eve Sandberg/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 offers his acclaimed movie, “ENEMIES WITHIN” DVD—BUY NOW!
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 | 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.
by Trevor | Jul 25, 2019 | Asia-Pacific, CPUSA, North America, Russia, Socialism/Communism
Commentary
Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times | July 24, 2019, Updated: July 24, 2019
Despite taking second place to the “mainstream” media, and the stiff competition from Hollywood, academia, and leftist churches, organized labor is still a major “transmission belt” for communist ideas to the American “masses.”
This wasn’t always the case. For many years, labor in the United States was staunchly anti-communist. However, since 1995, American unions have largely fallen under Marxist control. This gives the far left the political muscle to implement socialist ideas through the Democratic Party—even when these policies clearly damage union members’ interests.
The father of the Bolshevik revolution, V.I. Lenin, prophetically said of the trade union movement, “It is an organization designed to draw in and to train; it is, in fact, a school: a school of administration, a school of economic management, a school of communism.”
Soviet Instruction
In the early days of American communism, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) showed little interest in the labor movement. In those days, American unions tended to be craft-based and fairly conservative. The communists just didn’t think they had much revolutionary potential. But in 1921, the American communists’ Soviet masters set them straight.
On direct orders from Moscow, the CPUSA established the Trade Union Educational League as the U.S. affiliate of the Profintern, the Soviet-created Red International of Labor Unions. Progress was slow but steady through the 1920s and ’30s as the CPUSA began to infiltrate and initiate new labor organizations, both within and outside the “orbit” of the dominant union body in the country, the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
When miners’ union leader John L. Lewis established the forerunner to the more left-wing Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1935, in competition to the AFL, the communists climbed on board.
The CIO supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his massive expansion of federal power known as the “New Deal.” In July 1943, the CIO established the first political action committee in the United States, the CIO-PAC, to help Roosevelt’s election. In contrast, the AFL was far less partisan, being more willing to work with either main party to get a better deal for its members.
The CIO came under pressure in the late 1940s as Americans started waking up to the massive Soviet-directed communist infiltration of their government and institutions.
Robert R. McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, claimed that the communist-infiltrated CIO had become the dominant faction in the national Democratic Party:
“They call it the Democratic national convention but obviously it is the CIO convention. Franklin D. Roosevelt is the candidate of the CIO and the Communists because they know if elected, he will continue to put the government of the United States at their service, at home and abroad. … The CIO is in the saddle and the Democrat donkey, under whip and spur, is meekly taking the road to communism and atheism. … Everybody knows that Roosevelt is the Communist candidate.”
In 1946, the Republican Party took control of both the House and Senate. That Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, made all union officers sign an affidavit declaring that they were not communists if the union wished to bring a case before the National Labor Relations Board.
Over the next few years, hundreds of communists were purged from the U.S. labor movement, until, when sufficiently “cleansed,” the CIO was allowed to merge with the AFL in 1955 to form what we now know as the AFL-CIO.
For nearly 40 years, American labor remained under conservative and patriotic leadership. That is, until the over-optimistically named “collapse of communism” convinced the U.S. public that “communism” was no longer a threat.
This country’s largest Marxist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—effectively the new “communist party”—would take deadly advantage of that dangerous illusion.
Re-infiltration
Around 1994, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee approached the AFL-CIO with his idea for “Project ’95,” a coalition effort aimed at retaking the House for the Democratic Party. Moderate AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland turned down the proposal, wishing to keep the door open to some Republicans. McEntee and fellow DSA supporter John Sweeney of the Service Employees International Union immediately began plotting Kirkland’s removal.
According to DSA’s Democratic Left, September–October 1995 issue:
“In short order, they amassed support from a coalition that included not just the core of the old CIO (the Auto Workers, Steelworkers, Mine Workers), but the Machinists, Ron Carey’s new-model Teamsters, the Carpenters, and the Laborers. And what began as somewhat inchoate dissatisfaction among top labor leaders with the Big Sleep of the Kirkland era evolved in the course of the year to potentially the most profound reshaping of labor since the founding of the CIO.”
Sweeney formally joined the DSA just before the union elections and went on to oust Kirkland to become president of the AFL-CIO.
According to the Democratic Left article by DSA member and former Washington Post journalist Harold Meyerson, the “progressive coalition” of labor unionists who ousted Kirkland in 1995 was led by McEntee, Richard Trumka, and George Kourpias. McEntee and Trumka (the current AFL-CIO president) were both longtime DSA supporters. Kourpias was a confirmed DSA member.
According to Workers World, “After his victory, Sweeney called a number of high-level meetings with women’s organizations, such as the [CPUSA/DSA-led] Coalition of Labor Union Women, as well as establishment civil rights organizations, and met with the leadership of numerous central labor councils in different cities.” The aim was to build bridges across the American left, to create a unified mass front against the Republican Party.
Sweeney inherited an AFL-CIO constitution that formally banned communists from leadership positions in the organization. Ohio CPUSA leader Wally Kaufman led the charge to abolish that impediment.
According to the CPUSA’s People’s World:
“Kaufman had been nominated to represent the retiree council on the executive committee of the North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor, but said he could not accept due to the anti-Communist clause. This caused an uproar with protests being sent to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. At the following AFL-CIO Convention, the clause was quietly removed. The Painters and most other unions then followed suit removing similar provisions in their constitutions.”
Militants from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s communist, socialist, and student movements flooded into organized labor.
DSA’s Democratic Left letter’s page in the Spring–Summer 2000 edition assured readers:
“More DSA members and alumni of DSA’s Youth Section are moving up through the administrative and organizing reaches of AFL-CIO international unions, and global labor solidarity groups, than ever in recent memory.”
This change in organized labor explains the massive swing to the left in the Democratic Party in the past 25 years. As the unions moved to the left, they effectively took over local Democratic Party machines across the nation. The Democratic Party became increasingly dependent on union money, manpower, and organizational skills to win elections. There is hardly an elected Democrat at any level in this country who doesn’t rely on some degree of organized labor support.
With this support came strings. All over the country, the Marxist unions imposed their candidates and policies on what little was left of a once vibrant and patriotic Democratic Party. The unions helped the Democrats win elections.
In an essay in the same issue of Democratic Left, Meyerson wrote:
“The differences here are magnified because the strategic importance of unions in American politics has increased almost exponentially since John Sweeney took the helm at the AFL-CIO in 1995. It’s the unions that have brought the Democrats back to brink of retaking Congressional power.”
But it was a devil’s bargain. The further left the Democrats went, the smaller their traditional base became—the more they needed union help—the more far-left they veered. It’s a vicious cycle of destruction that is now almost impossible to reverse.
That’s why the Democrats and their union and Marxist masters are so fixated on securing amnesty for the 20 million-plus illegal immigrants now in this country. The Democrats have so destroyed their traditional base that they can now only win by importing millions of new voters from south of the border.
Illegal Immigration
As late as the mid-1990s, both the Democrats and the unions vehemently opposed illegal immigration. They rightly saw that illegal workers would undercut U.S. workers and undermine union organizing.
In 2000, at the AFL-CIO’s national convention in Los Angeles, Service Employees International Union leader and DSA comrade Eliseo Medina engineered a complete turnaround in AFL-CIO policy toward illegal immigration. Illegal aliens were no longer to be shunned. Democrats would no longer campaign to close the borders. From now on, unions would campaign in support of illegal immigrant amnesty.
Medina revealed the real reason for the about-face at the “America’s Future Now!” conference in Washington on June 2, 2009. Medina addressed the gathered comrades on the vital importance of “comprehensive immigration reform”—a code phrase for amnesty.
Medina failed to mention the plight of illegal aliens, focusing instead on how—if given amnesty—they would eventually vote for Democrats.
Speaking of Latino voting patterns in the 2008 election, Medina said:
“When they [Latinos] voted in November, they voted overwhelmingly for progressive candidates. Barack Obama got two out of every three voters that showed up. …
“[If] we reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters. Can you imagine if we have—even the same ratio—two out of three?
“If we have 8 million new voters … we will be creating a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.”
But now, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it’s 22 million illegal immigrants. In other words, Medina wants to create a socialist one-party state by overwhelming the Republican Party base.
Tough luck for U.S. workers thrown out of jobs or living on incomes much lower than they were accustomed to. The Marxist-led unions don’t care about workers—they only care about revolution and raw power.
American union members are now being asked to accept the DSA-originated Medicare for All, which would put most of them in endless waiting lines for the most routine operations. They’re also being commanded to accept the Marxist Green New Deal, which would completely destroy America’s industrial base, which provides their jobs, and the U.S. military, which guards their freedoms.
Today’s Democratic Party is the tool of the unions. Today’s unions are controlled by revolutionary Marxists. Millions of veteran-supporting, gun-owning, stars and stripes-loving, patriotic union members are being led into socialism by their treacherous anti-American leadership. And they may drag all of the rest of us to hell with them.
That’s why Donald Trump Jr. was correct when he recently stated that the 2020 election would be “about communism versus freedom.”
Photo credit: AFL-CIO President John Sweeney during an AFL-CIO rally on Capitol Hill on June 19, 2007. (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 movie, “ENEMIES WITHIN” DVD—BUY NOW!
