Mike Gonzalez, author of the recently-released book, ‘The Plot to Change America: How Identity Politics Is Dividing the Land of the Free’ joins Jan Jekielek to reveal the financial and ideological ties he discovered between Black Lives Matter and the Chinese Communist Party.
It’s a very illuminating interview, worth listening to to the end. I’ve transcribed the first half below:
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TRANSCRIPT
Jan Jekielek: I want to talk to you about this recent article that you’ve written, finding a connection between Black Lives Matter’s founder and all the pro-Chinese Communist Party groups in America. This is this is pretty fascinating, because there’s been people alleging these kinds of connections there’s some ideological overlap but this is the first time a kind of financial connection was discovered.
Mike Gonzalez: Yes, the overlap is ideological, definitely. One has to realize that this founder, Alicia Garza sits atop a worldwide revolutionary network. It’s really a holding company for revolutionary cells. So one of the main ones, which she founded is the Black Lives Matter Global Network.
Now, I have to make clear that nobody is against the sentiment that black lives matter. In fact, I think all Americans adhere – at any rate, should adhere – to the fact that black lives of course do, indeed matter.
We’re talking about the organizations. So, Alicia Garza is one of the founders of these organizations and in 2018, she founded yet another one, called the Black Futures Lab and the Black Futures Lab, if you go to the donate button, it says that the money you give will go to the Chinese Progressive Association of San Francisco.
The Chinese Progressive Association of San Francisco is a an organization that has pushed the Beijing Line in San Francisco, that has uh taken some actions that would benefit the People’s Republic of China. But the main thing is that its leaders many of us leaders are members of LeftRoots.
LeftRoots is a an organization of the Hard Left…the Chinese Progressive Association of Boston, its leaders are also members of
LeftRoots and I think that’s where the ideological overlap is with Alicia Garza and the Black Lives Matter organization, because Alicia Garza is a Marxist; has said that she needs to “Smash Capitalism”, has said this several times.
I just viewed a video this morning of the two other founders, Opal Tometi and Patrice Cullors chanting, “We have nothing to lose our chains,” which is obviously straight out of the Communist Manifesto.
So, I think the overlap, the Venn Diagram overlap between the black lives matters organizations, Alicia Garza and groups like [Chinese Progressive Association] CPA San Francisco is this.
Jan Jekielek: But you actually found that there’s a financial connection between the CPA and this new organization that Alicia Garza founded.
Mike Gonzalez: Yes, so the Black Futures Lab is a fiscally-sponsored project of the San Francisco CPA. I think that a lot of the Black Lives Matter organizations are fiscally-sponsored projects of one thing or another, because that gives them a degree of flexibility in how opaque they can be and how they spend their money. That’s what the critics have said.
For example, the Black Lives Matter Global Network used to be a fiscally-sponsored project of Thousand Currents.
Thousand Currents is a another funder of the Hard Left- and then it emerged in July, because of research that was done by people here in Washington that the Vice Chairman of the Board of Thousand Currents, Susan Rosenberg, who used to be a member of the Weather Underground, which the FBI identified as a Domestic Terrorist Organization, she spent time in prison.
Susan Rosenberg, her sentence was commuted by Bill Clinton on his last day in office – and here she is, sitting on the board of Thousand Currents. So, after this emerges, Black Lives Matters Global Network, which is very media-savvy, became a fiscally-sponsored project of the Tides Center, which is also a funder of the Hard Left – but at least, it doesn’t have Susan Rosenberg on its board.
Jan Jekielek: So, Michael, you mentioned a couple of different organizations. You mentioned San Francisco CPA and Boston CPA. Obviously, different organizations. What actually ties these groups to the Chinese Communist Party?
Mike Gonzalez: Well, they were both created by I Wor Kuen. It was a hard-Marxist, militant organization in the ’60s, which created the San Francisco CPA in 1972, then some of the IW people, they created the CPA in Boston in in in 1977. They’re separately-registered and separately-run. Its members are connected through organizations, such as LeftRoots, which is a Marxist organization.
Both of them, the CPA in Boston has done events with the Chinese Consulate in Boston – with the Chinese Consulate in New York – but the events have taken place in Boston and the CPA in San Francisco has taken steps to defend the People’s Republic of China.
For example, they were part of an organization in 1977 that urged the Department of Justice not to investigate Chinese spying in America that’s spying by China. And they used the specious pretext that this was “racial profiling”…
Jan Jekielek: So, you mentioned to me, when we were speaking offline, that you had like three lines of evidence that that show the connection.
Mike Gonzalez: Well, I have that I just mentioned. Then there was the fact that Alex Tom is was part of an excursion organization, trying to bring people in China and the United States together. I looked at it. It looked like he was trying to find the Leftist Americans, trying to put them together with the most Leftist elements within the People’s Republic of China and then… there was the third instance, in which the CPA San Francisco joined a letter to the Biden Campaign saying, “We want you to beat President Trump in the election, but we urge you not to engage in any China-bashing – and if you engage in any China-bashing, this is going to cost you at the polls.”
The letter actually said that. So, I have no idea why an organization such as this would go to bat for the People’s Republic of China, telling a candidate not to engage in criticism of China.
Jan Jekielek: That’s really, really interesting. There’s been a fact-check of sorts that was published recently about your article which, as it gained some traction on social media, that there is this connection. So, what is your response to that?
Mike Gonzalez: The New York Times, they’re very eager to hide the Marxist roots of the Black Lives Matter organizations and its founders. And what I said is, “Look, it’s no surprise The New York Times covered for Communists in the Soviet Union in the ’30s, when it denied the genocide in Ukraine. The New York Times also covered for Communists in Cuba, when Herbert Matthew went down there and described the rebels as “Democrats” who were “not Marxists in the least.”
And The New York Times is now engaging in the same practice here, in the United States, by trying to describe Black Lives Matter as a “movement” whether that is not Marxist, at all. And this is parsing issues, here. Because, obviously, the people who turn out to demonstrate, who are outraged by the the manner in which George Floyd died, they’re not Marxist, they’re just outraged by the the death of a fellow American and so, they go out and demonstrate.
But the way they’re being manipulated by these organizations is the issue, here. These organizations, as I’ve said – and The New York Times cannot deny this, as much as it wants to. Alicia Garza, Patrice Cullors, especially are trade Marxists they say that, themselves. Patrice Cullers, for example trained at the Labor Community Strategy Center, that was founded by Eric Mann, another former member of the Weather Underground, who calls it a “center for revolutionaries,” a center where he trains revolutionaries. She trained there for many years.
Alicia Garza also has said many times that “Capitalism has to be smashed,” because Capitalism is racist, which is the opposite of the truth. Obviously, Capitalism is just a fancy word for, “I have [made] this cup with the sweat of my brow and you want to buy it. We both agree on a price and we both walk away happy.”
In other words, it’s another word for “freedom”, right? It’s actually a Marxist word for freedom. It’s colorblind. It’s the least racist thing, at all. It lifts up all people but yet, Alicia Garza says this, and as I said earlier, I believe I there’s a video of Opal Tometi and Patrice Cullors chanting, “We have nothing to lose but our chains,” which is out of Karl Marx and also all three of them praise Joanne Chesimard, who now goes by the name of Satta Shakur, who is Number one on the FBI Wanted List, who is a fugitive for having killed a cop; who fled prison and has been given asylum in Communist Cuba…
The New York Times is trying to obfuscate the fact that the CPA in San Francisco, which has taken pro-China stands is the fiscal sponsor of the BLM organization, because there’s an ideological overlap.
So, LeftRoots is not just Left-of-Center. LeftRoots is a very Hard-Lefty organization. You know, that groups people around the world who want World Revolution, when you publish in LeftRoots, when you meet at LeftRoots, when you speak at LeftRoots, you are a bonafide, charter member of the Hard Left.
Jan Jekielek: In this article, “Fact-Checking the Fact Checker,” you actually cite our columnist, Trevor Louden, who describes the CPAs as “Maoist organizations”. Can you speak to that? What does that mean?
Mike Gonzalez: CPA was founded by I Wor Kuen in 1972. We have to remember, 1972 is the height of the Cultural Revolution…which lasted in China between ’66 and ’76. So, ’72 is more or less a halfway point. This organization is founded to support the PRC in the United States, especially in San Francisco. Obviously, San Francisco and its very large Chinatown to convince the American public to switch recognition of China from Taiwan to the Communist People’s Republic of China.
And they’re inspired by the Revolution – again, at the height of the craziness of the Cultural Revolution, they find their inspiration in this. It’s coincidental – or perhaps not – that many people are comparing what we’re seeing in our streets today to the Red Guards of that time, of the Cultural Revolution and they’re saying that we’re going through at the same type of cultural revolution.
And we’re seeing this, for example with the “struggle sessions” that are being held. That’s a Maoist Cultural Revolution term. But we now we have the same things, in the “anti-racism training”, which are nothing but struggle sessions, in which people must confess their sins. People must be made to atone for things they haven’t done, for sins they haven’t committed; this idea of collective sin or the sins of one’s ancestors, carrying the sins of one’s ancestors. Anybody who understands anything about religion, understands that you do not commit the sins of your grandfather, you do not carry them with you.
But I’m very happy to note, along those lines that President Trump has banned these struggle sessions, at least from the Federal workforce, although I heard in the State Department, it persists in going ahead with one of these struggle sessions. I will see whether the administration was able to stop them. I think they should be gone.
Especially, Corporate America has embraced these things, in a rush to show good intentions, as have uh other elements of our society. These are things that are straight out of the Mao’s playbook.
