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 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 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.
by Trevor | Oct 9, 2019 | #EnemiesWithin, Blog, Commentary, Featured, Red Reps, Socialism/Communism, Socialist Opinion Shapers
Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times* | September 30, 2019, Updated: October 1, 2019
Commentary
Controversial Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is about to associate herself with one of the most subversive organizations in this country.
On Oct. 3, Omar will present the annual Letelier-Moffitt Awards at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). The IPS is a center of both far-left policy formation and support for the Palestinian socialist cause. The Letelier-Moffitt Award is named after the late Orlando Letelier, a paid Cuban intelligence agent.
With Omar’s strong ties to radical groups such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Palestinian socialist cause, she is a perfect fit for the IPS—whose columnists have been defending her regular outrageous statements since her election to Congress.
An IPS press release states:
“We’re excited to announce that Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota’s 5th District will present this year’s Letelier-Moffitt Awards!
“Rep. Omar has made herself a key figure in the progressive movement by working with a diverse group of legislators on the best ideas in politics today; bold, transformative policies like student loan forgiveness, Medicare for All, and a Green New Deal.
“We’re thrilled to work with her and delighted to welcome her into our community.”
Omar’s IPS connection should raise all sorts of alarm bells.
For many years, the IPS was the largest and most influential of the far-left think tanks in Washington. From its founding in 1963, it steadily pushed a pro-Soviet line on foreign policy, defense, and the economy.
In a 1978 article in National Review, Brian Crozier, then director of the London-based Institute for the Study of Conflict, described the IPS as the “perfect intellectual front for Soviet activities which would be resisted if they were to originate openly from the KGB.”
The Letelier-Moffitt Award has its roots in Chile’s bloody anti-communist counter-revolution of the early 1970s.
Assassination
In 1973, at the request of the Chilean parliament, Chile’s generals stepped in to remove pro-Castro socialist President Salvador Allende from office for alleged gross breaches of the country’s constitution. Allende committed suicide in the presidential palace rather than surrender to the military. For several years afterward, the military brutally cracked down on Chilean socialists, communists, and terrorists. Thousands were imprisoned, many were executed, and some simply “disappeared.”
One of the victims of the anti-communist purge was Allende’s former ambassador to the United States, Orlando Letelier. After a period of imprisonment, Letelier was allowed to leave Chile, settling first in Venezuela, then in Washington at the suggestion of IPS staffer Saul Landau, a personal friend of Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro.
In 1975, Letelier became a senior fellow of the IPS, where he soon became a leader of the leftist resistance to anti-communist Chilean President Augusto Pinochet. On Sept. 10, 1976, Pinochet officially deprived Letelier of his Chilean citizenship.
Undeterred, Letelier carried on his efforts to bring down the Pinochet government. He was reportedly responsible for the cancellation of several major European loans to Chile, which made him a major enemy of the government. He was described by one of his colleagues as being “the most respected and effective spokesman in the international campaign to condemn and isolate” Chile’s anti-communist government.
On Sept. 21, 1976, Letelier was traveling to work with an IPS colleague Ronni Moffitt and her husband. As they were driving down Washington’s Embassy Row at 9.35 a.m. a bomb exploded in their car. Within an hour, Moffitt and Letelier were pronounced dead. Moffitt’s husband survived.
It was later revealed that the bomb had been planted in the direction of Chile’s intelligence service, the DINA.
During the investigation into the assassination, the FBI leaked documents to The Washington Times columnist Jack Anderson, and others, which indicated that Letelier had been an Eastern Bloc intelligence operative. Letelier had also apparently been coordinating his activities with the Chilean government-in-exile, then based in communist East Berlin.
Letelier was reportedly working closely with Allende’s daughter, Beatriz Allende, who was married to a senior Cuban intelligence officer. While working for the IPS, Letelier was being paid $1,000 a month (no small sum in 1976) from Cuba’s communist regime.
So in giving out the Letelier-Moffitt Award, Omar is, in effect, honoring the memory of a paid Cuban agent-of-influence.
Marxist Ties
Today’s IPS maintains strong ties to the DSA and other domestic Marxist groups. The IPS has several DSA comrades on staff, including Ashik Siddique, a research analyst with IPS’s National Priorities Project, and John Feffer, co-director of IPS webzine Foreign Policy in Focus. The Metro DC DSA steering committee even holds its meetings in an IPS office.
Like Omar, the IPS is uncompromisingly pro-Palestine and anti-Israel.
Khury Petersen-Smith is the Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow at the IPS. He researches “U.S. empire, borders, and migration.”
Until earlier this year, Petersen-Smith was a leading member of the now-disbanded International Socialist Organization. According to the Socialism 2016 conference website: “He has written about Black and Palestinian liberation and US empire for Socialist Worker and the International Socialist Review. He co-authored the ‘Black Statement of Solidarity with Palestine’ in 2015, which was signed by over 1,100 mainly communist Black activists, artists, and scholars.”
In April, Petersen-Smith, with his IPS colleague Noura Erakat. held an event with the Tufts University chapter of the far-left Students for Justice in Palestine, titled “Black Solidarity With Palestine.”
Veteran IPS staffer Phyllis Bennis runs the IPS’s New Internationalism Project. In 2001, she helped found the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. She advises several leading U.N. officials on Palestine and was twice in contention to be appointed the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory.
Bennis was also a leading member of Line of March, a Marxist-Leninist group that supported first communist China and then the Soviet Union.
The IPS still maintains strong ties to Cuba and played a role in President Barack Obama’s disastrous directive to ease sanctions on Havana, which probably saved the communist dictatorship from imminent collapse.
In July 2015, as the communist flag was raised over the newly reestablished Cuban Embassy on 16th Street NW in Washington, Bennis and her IPS and ex-Line of March comrade James Early “joined in the delirious shouts of ‘Viva Cuba!’,” according to The Washington Post.
“It’s an amazing moment,” Bennis told The Washington Post. “In the decades-long effort to normalize relations with Cuba, to stop the US attacks and hostility toward Cuba, we have not had so many victories. Suddenly we have a victory. The flag going up—that’s huge.”
“For those of us who were committed to the values and the aspirations of the Cuban revolution,” said Early, raising that flag again “is a recognition of Cuba’s right to sovereignty and self-determination.”
Right from the start, the IPS built networks of contacts among congressional legislators and their staff, academics, government officials, and the national media. The IPS’s main aim has always been to influence U.S. government policy in favor of the world socialist movement.
It’s no surprise to see the IPS welcome Omar into its radical bosom.
Feature Photo: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaks at a press conference on the Capitol on July 15, 2019. (Holly Kellum/NTD)
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 | Sep 22, 2019 | #EnemiesWithin, Blog, CPUSA, Democratic Party, Featured, Latin America, Social Movements, Socialism/Communism
Trevor Loudon | TheEpochTimes* | September 16, 2019, Updated: September 16, 2019
Commentary
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is working closely with Brazilian Trotskyists from the Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL) to coordinate attacks against U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
The U.S.–Brazil revolutionary alliance is conducted through revolutionaries in both countries aligned to an international Trotskyist revolutionary coordinating body—the Brussels-based United Secretariat for the Fourth International.
One of the key point men in the alliance is Pedro Fuentes, an Argentine-born revolutionary now living in the United States. Fuentes, along with São Paulo-based “militant and leader of the Socialist Left Movement” Bruno Magalhães (also known as Bruno Silviano), represented PSOL at the August DSA convention in Atlanta. During his speech, Magalhães declared, “We in Brazil are really, really excited with the Democratic Socialist movement here in the U.S.”
Also associated with PSOL are journalist Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda, who is a federal congressman for Rio de Janeiro, and former PSOL member Adélio Bispo de Oliveira, who stabbed Bolsonaro in the stomach during a 2018 rally, almost killing him.
Pedro Fuentes
Pedro Fuentes is the “nom de guerre” of Argentine Trotskyist revolutionary Alberto Pujals. Born circa 1943, Fuentes “began his activism [in Argentina] as a teenager, when he and his brother joined a high-school student movement to reform the schools called Movimiento de Acción Reformista. In the 1960s, he joined Palabro Obrera, led by the Argentine Trotskyist revolutionary Nahuel Moreno,” according to a DSA Facebook event post. In 1971, Pedro’s older brother, Luis Pujals, a leader of the Proletarian Revolutionary Army, died in the “dirty war” against Argentina’s anti-communist government.
Fuentes was forced to flee Argentina, traveling across Latin America and Europe, where he continued working with Trotskyist groups in several countries.
Fuentes eventually settled in Brazil and, in 2000, began organizing with Movimento Esquerda Socialista (MES), a Trotskyist tendency inside the ruling leftist Workers’ Party. In 2003, the Workers’ Party split over pension reform issues, and several Trotskyist factions, including MES, subsequently founded PSOL—now Brazil’s fifth-largest political party.
Fuentes served for many years as PSOL’s secretary of international relations and still works to build ties between PSOL and other leftist parties. Though living in the United States, Fuentes still serves as a leader of the PSOL’s MES faction.
Fourth International and Mass Party of the Left
In the early 1990s, the Fourth International used its national affiliates in an attempt to rebuild the world revolutionary movement after the so-called “collapse of communism.” These efforts were modeled on the very successful Brazilian Workers’ Party—an amalgamation of leftist Christians, Greens, black radicals, ex pro-Soviet communists, former Maoists, and Fourth International Trotskyists.
In my home country of New Zealand, this concept materialized in the New Labour Party/Alliance Party, which ruled for a time in coalition with the “old” Labour Party. The Australian counterpart, Socialist Alliance, achieved little success, but in Germany, the former East German communists joined up with several Trotskyist factions to form the Party of Democratic Socialism (now Die Linke), Germany’s third-largest party on the left. Similar coalitions were formed with varying degrees of success in El Salvador, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Philippines, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and some Scandinavian countries.
Many of these groups also maintained close ties to old-line communists, including the Maoist-leaning Belgian Workers’ Party, the pro-Soviet South African Communist Party, and of course everyone’s friend on the left, the Cuban Communist Party.
In the United States, Trotskyists from a small “socialist feminist” group called “Solidarity” joined with former pro-Soviet communists, DSA activists, Maoists from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and ex-Maoists from the Frontline Political Organization, to form the Committees of Correspondence (CoC) in Chicago in July 1994.
According to the September/October 1994 issue of Chicago DSA’s New Ground publication, “Over 500 delegates and observers … attended the founding convention of the Committees of Correspondence (CoC) held here in Chicago in July.”
New Ground reported that the speakers included Charles Nqukula, general secretary of the South African Communist Party; Dulce Maria Pereira, a senatorial candidate of the Workers’ Party of Brazil; Angela Davis of CoC; Andre Brie of the Party of Democratic Socialism of Germany; and a representative of the Cuban government.
CoC was supposed to lay the foundation for a new mass party of socialism—one that could eventually replace the Democratic Party. However, rampant sectarianism and lack of visionary leadership eventually turned the project to dust. Today, the organization still exists as the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, but it’s down to fewer than 200 mainly elderly members nationwide—many of whom hold dual membership in the DSA or the Communist Party USA.
While the Fourth International’s dream of an international alliance of new mass parties of the left lived on in Brazil and Europe, it was dead in the United States—until Bernie Sanders came along.
Rebirth of the DSA
From the start, PSOL and the broader Trotskyist movement welcomed the Sanders socialist movement that took the U.S. left by storm in 2015 and 2016. The DSA went to nearly 30,000 members from 6,500 in two years, and is now approaching 60,000. This was very inspiring to many Trotskyist revolutionaries, including Pedro Fuentes.
Writing on the Spanish language website Aporrea in August 2015, Fuentes and his PSOL comrade Tiago Madeira urged Trotskyists to get behind the Sanders movement:
“In our opinion, we must support Sanders. For us, the debate in the US, with its specific characteristics, is similar to what we face in the rest of the world. Will Trotskyists, without losing sight of our strategy, intervene in events and real political movements—however contradictory they are—to contend for influence. … We are talking about building new organizations, new parties—and respecting their leaders, even if we disagree with them.”
And support Sanders they did. Solidarity, the U.S. affiliate of the Fourth International, joined the DSA en masse to help lead the Sanders movement.
Fuentes has worked closely with DSA members in the United States and attended several DSA events. As mentioned, he was a PSOL delegate to both the 2017 and 2019 DSA national conventions.
Fuentes and PSOL comrade Mariana Riscali wrote of their experience attending DSA’s breakout 2017 national convention in Chicago on the socialist website Left on the Move. The PSOL delegates were very welcome and were given equal standing to large Marxist parties from Europe.
“PSOL was known by a large share of delegates. … We are proud to say it was MES, a slate from PSOL, that has made the greatest effort to establish this contact so that we are proud of our country being recognized by the DSA at the same level as the Momentum from England, Mélenchon’s Party [France], Podemos [Spain] and Bloco de Esquerda [Portugal],” Fuentes and Riscali wrote.
The PSOL delegates look to the DSA as a breakthrough in world socialism—the start of a new international hybrid left that might build a mass revolutionary movement where older formations such as the CoC and the Brazilian Workers’ Party have failed.
“Surely, this privileged relationship with DSA will allow PSOL to look from a more internationalist point of view [at] the international situation and the emergence of new political processes independent from the old social democracy or false Latin American progressivism as PT [Workers’ Party]. DSA is the best expression of the ‘new cycle.’”
In November 2018, Fuentes attended a DSA meeting in New York, where he was photographed with two admiring members of the DSA International Committee, Carrington Morris and Ella Mahony.
In June 2017, Mahony represented the DSA at the PSOL organized “International Encampment of Youth in Struggle” in Rio de Janeiro. The event was both a congress for PSOL’s youth wing and “a convocation of international solidarity.”
Solidarity and the DSA International Commission
In 2018, the DSA revived its decades-old International Committee. After splitting with the “moderate” Socialist International in 2017, the DSA began looking for revolutionary friends overseas. The International Committee became the DSA’s diplomatic wing, charged with cementing ties to foreign socialist and communist movements.
At least two Solidarity members made it onto the newly formed committee: Boston-based David Grosser and New Yorker Dan La Botz.
Grosser is a longtime supporter of El Salvadorean revolutionary movements, whose personal goal is to “build the internationalism necessary to bring down the US Empire.”
La Botz is a seasoned revolutionary with direct ties to the Fourth International and to several Latin American revolutionary movements, including PSOL.
La Botz was meeting with PSOL activists in Brazil as far back as 2014, and also met with PSOL activists in New York in November 2016.
In April and May 2016, La Botz toured several countries in Europe and Brazil speaking about Bernie Sanders and the U.S. elections. All of his talks in Brazil were sponsored by either PSOL, or by Insurgencia, another Fourth International affiliated group also active in PSOL.
In a May 2016 article on the DSA website, La Botz explained how Fourth International Trotskyists were working with mainstream communists and other Marxists to create broad-based political parties that could compete electorally in Europe, Brazil, the UK, and the United States:
“In France, Spain, and Brazil, there have been and continue to be attempts to found new broad left, radical socialist parties as an alternative to the Social Democrats. In France we have seen both the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) and the Front de Gauche, in Spain Podemos, and in Brazil, PSOL. These efforts can be compared to those in the English-speaking nations where Jeremy Corbyn in the British Labor Party and Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party clearly represent a similar popular reaction among youth and sections of the labor movement to the conservative policies of Labor and the Democrats.”
La Botz emphasized that the Fourth International had moved on from its notoriously violent and sectarian past to a strategy of bringing about socialist revolution through the electoral process. Forming broad-based electoral alliances with communists and socialists was to be the new path to the revolution:
“The New Anti-Capitalist Party came out of a merger of former members of the French Trotskyist Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) with environmentalists and other social activists. Anticapitalistas was formed by people out of the Spanish Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), also Trotskyist. Ensemble in France, which participates in the Front de Gauche, has members who come from the Socialist and Communist Party, as well as from NPA and the Trotskyist left. Similarly, solidaritéS Suisse [Switzerland], though it has Trotskyist roots, has also incorporated those from other traditions.
“These groups, if they were Trotskyist in origin, have by and large turned away from many of the characteristics once associated with Trotskyist organizations. At one time many of these groups held a dogmatic view of socialist ideology based almost exclusively on a very particular and narrow reading of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. …
“They worked to organize ‘vanguard parties’ based on a supposedly ‘democratic centralist’ model and often attempted to take control of and to dictate to labor unions and popular movements. … The Fourth International … has developed a more broad-minded view of revolutionary socialism, and so have most (but not all) of its affiliated organizations.”
Hating on Trump and Bolsonaro
According to an article by DSA comrade Ben Dalton:
“The official topic at the first Brooklyn Jacobin [DSA-aligned magazine] reading group held after the [2016] election was socialist politics in Brazil, but the conversation kept returning to Trump.
“’I think you should be in the first line against Trump,’ said Pedro Fuentes, a visiting speaker and official in Brazil’s Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL). Around the room heads nodded. ‘Anti-Trump. This is the first task you have.’”
If PSOL and the DSA are united in their goal of building mass revolutionary parties in their home countries, they’re even more unified in the hatred of their respective presidents, Trump and his friend Bolsonaro.
In the United States, the DSA’s approximately 60,000 members are active in the anti-Trump movement in all 50 states. DSA comrades and their captive unions, non-profits, student unions, and even churches have organized thousands of anti-Trump rallies and meetings across the country. DSA comrades played a major role in taking back the House of Representatives for the Democrats in 2018.
Currently, the DSA is working with two pro-China organizations—Communist Party USA and Liberation Road (formerly Freedom Road Socialist Organization)—in the Left Inside/Outside Project to flip North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and even Texas to the Democratic column in 2020. If they succeed, Trump will be a one-term president, and the United States will almost certainly be lost. All the remaining free countries will then fall like dominoes.
PSOL has played a major role in almost every anti-Bolsonaro rally held before or since Brazil’s 2018 election. Their American DSA allies have tried to poison the waters for Bolsonaro in the United States as well.
At a meeting on May 26, the Collin County DSA (North Texas) Skyped in “three comrades from Brazil who are members of the PSOL … to talk with us about their organizing efforts against the current proto-fascist president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro. Thanks to Mr. Pedro Fuentes of the PSOL, Ms. Alice Domingues, a student organizer, and Mr. Bruno Silviano, an organizer with the teacher’s union.”
“One of the most important things we learned from our comrades in Brazil was that opposition to Bolsonaro is huge in Brazil right now. At the most recent demonstrations against Bolsonaro before our conversation (which happened around the same time as DSA NTX and other area socialists, communists, anarchists, LGBTQ people, labor, and antifascists were protesting against Jair Bolsonaro’s visit to Dallas …)
“We asked our comrades in Brazil what we in the U.S. can do to help — the big ask right now was to boost awareness in the U.S. of the huge protests against Bolsonaro and show our solidarity. …
“Solidarity with the working class and oppressed of Brazil against fascism!”
The Trump–Bolsonaro Alliance Must Continue
Brazil was specifically mentioned in DSA’s Resolution #4, titled “Building the DSA International Committee,” passed during the convention, where the comrades resolved in part to “prioritize establishing relations with socialist and working-class organizations in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada, Brazil, the Caribbean, and Latin America broadly.” The resolution claimed that “an effective and orderly International Committee is necessary for DSA to transition into an internationalist organization.”
The DSA and their PSOL comrades are fully committed to destroying the Trump–Bolsonaro alliance. From the revolutionary’s point of view, presidents Trump and Bolsonaro are huge impediments to world socialism.
They understand that this auspicious pairing could do more to counter world communism than anything we have seen since the Ronald Reagan–Margaret Thatcher–Pope John Paul partnership of the 1980s.
If Trump can turn around the United States and Bolsonaro can save Brazil, the positive consequences will be felt across the entire Western Hemisphere. And it will not end there.
If Trump and Bolsonaro destroy the Marxist movements in their respective countries, the world communist movement could be set back decades. This would be a fantastic boon for world freedom.
Trump and Bolsonaro should immediately direct their intelligence services to investigate the DSA and PSOL’s transnational interactions and their network of international allies. The DSA–PSOL–Fourth International alliance needs to be countered and dismantled. It poses a more urgent threat to our freedoms than does ISIS or al-Qaeda.
This alliance is nothing short of transnational treason. We need widespread media exposure, international governmental cooperation, and firm legal action to put an end to this threat.
Photo: U.S. President Donald Trump (R) and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (L) walk down the Colonnade before a press conference at the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC on March 19, 2019.
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!
*Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
