The Daily Signal - Marxist Nature of Black Lives Matter Exposed in New Book

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

America has spent years fighting communism outside its borders, but now a Marxist threat is growing from within the country, Heritage Foundation senior fellow Mike Gonzalez says. Gonzalez, author of ���BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution,” says the Black Lives Matter organization has encouraged Americans, especially young people, to embrace communist ideology.  In 2020, there “were 633 riots … according to the U.S. Crisis Monitor run out of Princeton [University], and 95% of those riots in which we know the identity of the perpetrator ... Black Lives Matter members were included,” Gonzalez says.  Through his book, Gonzalez hopes to “open people's eyes” to the true nature of Black Lives Matter.  Gonzalez joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the book and why he’s standing against the communist influences in our culture today.  Also on today's show, we read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a New Jersey community that is going above and beyond to make sure all returning military personnel receive the welcome and thank you they deserve.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, September 7th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen. Since its inception, many have questioned the mission and intent of the Black Lives Matter organization. On today's show, I sit down with Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Mike Gonzalez to discuss his new book, BLM, the making of a new Marxist Revolution. Mike explains the real nature of the Black Lives Matter organization and its leaders. We also read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a New Jersey community that is going above and beyond to make sure all returning military personnel receive the welcome and thank you they deserve. Before we get to today's show, we want to tell you about the only annual non-governmental assessment of U.S. military power, the Heritage Foundation's Index of Military Strength. As the crisis continues to unfold in Afghanistan, many Americans want to know our true military. capability. The index seeks to inform both government officials and the public in assessing the ease

or difficulty of operating in key regions, the presence of U.S. military forces, and the condition of key infrastructure. To learn more about the 2021 Index of Military Strength, you can visit heritage.org slash military. Now stay tuned for today's show coming up next. I am so pleased to be joined by Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Mike Gonzalez. Mike is the author of the brand new book, BLM, The Making of a New Marxist Revolution. Mike, the book is out today. Congratulations. Thank you, Virginia. Yes, I'm very happy. Now, you really didn't mince words with the title of this book, BLM, the Making of a New Marxist Revolution.

That's pretty straightforward. But I do want to begin with defining some terms. What exactly do you mean by new Marxist revolution? Well, I mean, Marxists have tried communists, really, when we talk about, we talk about, about Marxists, we're talking about communists, have tried to take over America for many decades, many centuries, really. They have always seen America as a, because America's a rich country, the world leader, at least since World War I, they want to see it as a top target. But they failed miserably.

In all the years, the Soviet Union tried to infiltrate us, but tried to influence Americans. They failed. this time through Black Lives Matter, and I can get into why Marxism and Marxist communists have come very close, the closest they've ever come, to changing our way of life. And that is what is happening right now. Well, I found it really fascinating that as you're going through the book, as you're explaining that very thing, kind of this changing culture, how the Black Lives Matter organization has an agenda. You actually started the book by talking about Frederick Douglass. That fascinated me. Why did you feel the need to give that historical perspective and talk about a

figure like Frederick Douglass before diving into this larger conversation about Black Lives Matter? Yeah, the introduction, chapter one starts with Frederick Douglass. The introduction obviously starts with January 6, and I explain my understanding of January 6. But I start the book proper on Frederick Douglass because Frederick Douglass really is the best known abolitionist in U.S. history. He was a man of noble character. He was a man of courage. And I started, in fact, with his fight with the master, a sadistic master to whom he had been loaned in how he said he became a man by beating this man who owned him on loan. I start with him because throughout his life, he really, first of all, he was anti-socialist. He, I described in the

book, a meeting of which he spoke, and there was a socialist, and socialists, one of the, they just, one of the quirky, weird, odd things about communist and socialists, by the way, Marx and Engels did not, never establish a difference between socialism and communism. They used the terms interchangeably. He was, the socialist speaking with Frederick Douglass really was not putting an emphasis on the abolition of slavery. He was putting an emphasis on the abolition of wage labor. Communists believe that wage labor, in other words, what we all do, is a continuation of slavery,

which is crazy, just as communism is crazy. And Frederick Douglass could not stand this man, could not stand that this man was saying things. To Frederick Douglass, abolition was about one thing, was about ending slavery, ending this blight upon our country. To communists, abolition is a completely separate thing. They want to abolish the family. They want to abolish the state. They want to abolish all the institutions. And in 1848, when this meeting takes place, Frederick Douglass, he understood that what we needed to abolish was slavery.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, that historical context, I think, is so, so critical for this broader conversation. I loved in the introduction, you really clearly lay out the mission for the book. You say this book exists to fill the void in public awareness. And you go on to say if journalists will not report on the real nature of the Black Lives Matter organizations and their leaders. And if the federal government cannot gather information on First Amendment protected activities, this book will attempt to correct the record and analyze all the aspects of what transpired in 2020, as well as the historical forces that led up to those events. So what then is that real nature of the Black Lives Matter organization?

and their leaders. First of all, I want to make it very clear that I agree with demand on the federal government not being able to collect information on First Amendment protected activities, obviously. I'm saddened by the fact that journalists did not vet, in fact, refused to vet, did not cover the Black Lives Matter movement. They covered for them. They de-emphasized or denied the Marxism of their founders, Patrice Kulurz, Alicia Garza, and O'Po'Hemeti.

and also Malina Abdul, even though they themselves are quite open about it and make videos, saying, yeah, I'm a Marxist, Bejabab, and train as a Marxist. They say this all the time, and journalists, when they report on it, which is very, very seldom, they say, I think I quote a political fact check, I think it was Polite Fact, in which he said, well, Marxism these days is really considering life through an economic lens. No, it isn't. No, Marxism is what it is, what it says it is. It's communism.

It's getting rid of the market economy, getting rid of capitalism, which Alicia Garza and O'Paul Tametti and Patrice Kuller's say they want to do. They want to get rid of free markets. They want to get rid of our ability to own property and sell that property or sell our labor for a wage. They don't even like our system of representative democracy. of Paul Tometti has been very praiseful of the Chavismo in Venezuela. She was photographed with Nicolas Maduro. She believes in this type of direct democracy. So, which is not direct democracy at all.

It's just dictatorship of a party, of one party. So this is what they want to do. They want to abolish the family. In fact, they had this on their website. The Black Glass Matter Global Network Foundation had it. on their website that they wanted to really make deep changes to the family system until I wrote about it with my colleague Andrew Olivastro

in a piece that was read by over a million people. And within a month, they did what all Stalinists do. They airbrushed that out of their website, all of a sudden that was gone, except that it is in other parts of their literature. So they cannot hide this. They want to abolish the American way of life. This is what they're about.

They hide themselves behind a very good slogan, Black Lives Matter, who could be against that? If you don't think that Black Lives Matter, I don't even want to talk to you. So they hide themselves. I mean, they would be, if they call themselves Red Ideas Matter, it would be much more representative of who they are. But of course, like all communists, they hide themselves behind these noble sentiments like Black Lives Matter. That's a really helpful context, Mike. Well, and I know you talk about the fact that, you know, for so long and obviously during the Cold War, America was fighting the Soviet Union and we were fighting communism from afar.

But now what we see is that we're fighting it within our own borders. We're fighting it from within. So talk a little bit about how the organization Black Lives Matter is responsible. I mean, are they responsible? Should we blame them for kind of what we see now in this new interest that we see young people having in socialism and a new fascination with communism? Is Black Lives Matter really to blame for that? Yeah, let me put it together. First of all, yeah, it is a really sad irony that as we celebrate this year, the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, that we're seeing communist ideas gain such currency in our system.

We spent all these resources, all this time and energy and lives fighting socialism, fighting communism, fighting what Reagan rightly called the evil empire, the Soviet Union, which was finally dissolved on Christmas Day in 1991, but kind of the significance of the date to underlining the noble and immoral character of our crusade against communism. It is because of what happened in 2020, the year of turmoil, the riots. There were 633 riots, by the way, at least, according to the U.S. Crisis Monitor run out of Princeton. And in 95% of those riots in which we know the identity of the perpetrator were Black Glass Matter, participants, members were included.

It is because of this, that critical race theory all of a sudden jumps the university walls and enters K through 12 in full force, all of a sudden we're seeing, as a result of last year, Our classrooms completely change. Teachers. It was happening before, but it really enters into full force. We see also critical race theory entering the military, the houses of worship. Corporate America has completely surrendered to this ideology. Sports, every aspect of our lives.

It is because of this. It is because of what happened last year. The manipulation of the tragedy of George Floyd's death, which is a tragedy. the manipulation of this into making people believe the leaders of all our key institutions that we are system system and that our criminal justice system is systemically racist, they just threw in the towel and accepted all of this. And now all these things, we're telling our soldiers to read critical race theory texts, which say that the Constitution is illegitimate.

These are people who volunteered to defend the Constitution from enemies domestic, foreign and domestic, and yet we're telling them to read Kennedy and all these other writers, Ibrahim X Kennedy, who say the Constitution is an illegitimate document. This is happening because of the year of

unrest that we had, the riots, demonstrations, the upheaval, that people want to forget now. Nobody wants to talk about it. But it's not we cannot forget what we had after May 2020 for many, many, many months. And now I've written

the book. book just to shine a light on this and say, we cannot give in. And in fact, you're seeing resistance from the American people. I cross the country speak to groups across, you know, from coast to coast. And I get hundreds of people. I'm not that electrifying a speaker. And people turn out because they demand the information about critical race theory. They want to know what's going on. They want to have it explained to them. So the resistance is now coming from the grassroots. The American people are standing up and saying, no. No, I don't want these things taught to my children.

I don't want to be trained and, you know, go through these re-education camps of my place of work. This is a form of workplace harassment. So they're fighting against what Verizon is trying to do, what American Express is trying to do. Even the Salvation Army has these training programs now. Well, Mike, I really appreciate the research that you have done on critical race theory. You really are the expert at heritage on that subject. encourage all of our listeners. If you want to read Mike's pieces on this, you can check him out on the Heritage Foundation website. But Mike, you mentioned the riots last year that obviously

it took the nation by storm, really changed so much in our country. And I was fascinated that in the book, you mentioned how Antifa in some ways became a distraction from Black Lives Matter. I was really, really interested in that point. Talk a little bit about that. Well, I say that in a way to castigate politicians. Politicians from all parties, from both parties, are not courageous, as courageous as it should be. They don't want to talk about black lives matter because black lives matter because of the slogan. So they are very shy to talk about these organizations which are distinct from the concept.

And Antifa, which is a much more white phenomenon, these are anarchists. You know, they're just violent to anarchists, as I see it. They don't have a thought-out academic discipline, like critical race theory had, like Black Glass Matter has critical race theory behind it. They're all practitioners of critical race theory. Antifa doesn't have that. Antifa is anarchism, and it's just pure violence, almost for the sake of violence. Obviously, I think they have goals like overthrowing the state, but they don't have a

well thought our program. Black Lives Matter has bills in Congress. Black Lives Matter has a curriculum that is being taught in many of our children's schools already. Black Lives Matter has a foreign policy. They support, they came out and supported the communist government of Cuba. As the, as the communist government was rounding up protesters, beating them up and putting them into prison through kangaroo trials, BLM came out and supported them. BLM came out and support against, came out against Israel, as Israel was fighting the terrorist group Hamas earlier this year. So Black Class Matter has a foreign policy.

It has all these, and it has a gazillion dollars. They have, they raised $10 million. Well, no, I'm sorry. They raised, I think, $100 million last year. So it has all these assets that Antifa does not have. Hmm. You mentioned the money. You have a whole chapter in the book, specifically titled Following the Money.

What did you discover as you looked at the money coming into and out of the Black Lives Matter organization? Well, there's all these corporations that have gone woke. There are many, many reasons being given why Vivek Ramoswami, a colleague being, he does a lot of anti-CRT work, has another book out in which he talks about how actually this is really easy for the CEOs to go woke is costless to them, cost less to them. But I think when we're seeing all these foundations raising money, but a lot of times, as I point out in the chapter devoted to this, these foundations have links, longstanding links to Marxist groups, such as Sandinistas. One of these groups is a pro-P-R-C, pro-Maoism group in San Francisco,

the Chinese Progressive Association, which is the financial sponsor of two of the Black Lives Matters, affiliates, and the Chinese Progressive Association of San Francisco was founded to support the People's Republic of China against, that is, mainland China, against Taiwan, was founded in the 70s for that reason. So in your writing of this book, in the research that you've done on the Black Lives Matter organization, on critical race theory, ultimately in your assessment, what's the end goal for Black Lives Matter? What are they aiming for? You say that they have public policy, they have bills in Congress.

What's their end-all be-all? Their goal is what Alicia Garza said in 2015. In a moment of Canada, no, actually in 2019, when she was visiting a group of main leftists. And she said, what we want to do is dismantle the organizing principle of society. She said that. And that's what they want. They want to dismantle the way we're organized. They want to dismantle the American system.

They say that we're systemically, structurally, institutionally racist because they want to pull out all the institutions. They want to change all the institutions, all the structures in the very system of America. That is their goal. And they hide behind this good slogan that black lives do matter in order to pursue the complete overhaul of the United States. Look, we have problems, problems that we need to solve, obviously. but we're still the fairest, you know, most prosperous country in the world where real human flourishing can take place. That's the reason why people fall from airplanes out of the sky to come to this country. There's no line of people leaving to get out.

There's a very, very long line of people coming to get in because they see, they understand that America is the land of hope for the working. man and woman of the world of any race. And these are people coming of all races. If we were a racist country, systemically racist country, we wouldn't have so many people of all races wanting to come in here and succeeding here and thank God for that. Yeah. This might be a naive question, but why? I mean, as you're saying that, as you're saying, they want to fundamentally, you know,

change America. you know, they want to kind of unravel the traditional structure of the family, of capitalism. Why? Well, on the family itself, I mean, it was Marx and Engels who put that in the Communist Manifesto of 1848 that they wanted to abolish the family, quote unquote. Look, I don't think anyone embraces evil, qua evil. I think that they do believe that this is an oppressive system, probably. They do think that the superstructure, critical race theorists, just like critical legal

theorists, just like critical theorists in the 1930s and 20s, believe that the West has a superstructure that is oppressive. They admit that capitalism produces the goods, but they say that's what's bad about capitalism because it produces material well-being and it perpetuates a very oppressive system. They are crazy, and I'm not a psychologist. But you have to believe that Patrice Cullors, Alicia Garza, Apalta, Medi, Belina Abdul, believed that we live in an oppressive society. Obviously, they haven't traveled, or they haven't traveled extensively, outside of the U.S., I have lived in at least seven countries, at least a year,

as a foreign correspondent. I lived in Kabul for a month. I could tell you that compared to the rest of the world, not only are we not oppressive, but we're pretty, pretty good. So where do we go from here then? And what is really your hope as readers read the book? What do you want them to take from it? I want to open people's eyes.

I want to convince people who are either ambivalent about Black Lives Matter or actually believe that this is a noble endeavor and noble organizations. As a concept, of course, it's noble. As organizations, no, they're not. And I want to convince people of that. But I also want to stiffen up the resolve of the American people. Then, no, we shouldn't allow this here. The American people are exceptionally attached to liberty.

We have always been, this is something that has been remarked upon by social scientists and foreign visitors for centuries. You know, G.K. Chasterton, beforehand, Alexis de Tocqueville, Herbert Marcusa, who hated it. you know, I want to, I want the people who already are suspicious of the BLM organizations to, I want to stiffen their spying against this and make sure that this does not take hold. But I also want to reach out to people who do believe that these are good organizations, who have been misinformed, who have been manipulated into believing that we live in an oppressive system with systemic racism. So critical. Well, the book is BLM, The Making of a New Marxist Revolution.

You can get it on Amazon. Yes, you can get it, right? Yeah, yeah. Great. And Mike, final words? Anything you'd like to add before we let you go? Yes, this is, as I said, America, I don't want to pretend that we do not have our faults. No system ever is going to be perfect on Earth because it's dealing with flawed individuals, right?

Man is flawed. but this is a good country. As I said, I travel the country. I go everywhere. Americans are a good people. We have a good system. Before we think about completely overhauling and pulling out the foundations, we should really think hard.

Is this really what we want to do? Critical. BLM, the making of a new Marxist Revolution. Get it on Amazon. Mike, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Virginia. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda.

In the Agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The Agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday, we feature our favorites on this show. Virginia, who's up first?

In response to Jim Caraphano's piece, don't blame Trump for Afghanistan's collapse, blame Obama. Barry E. Stern of Virginia writes, while I am largely sympathetic with James Carapano's point of view that the Obama-Biden foreign policy of appeasement and cut and run remains disastrous for this country, I disagree that President Trump was blameless

for the imminent Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Karifano writes, quote, Trump was negotiating with the Taliban, but there was nothing wrong with that. The negotiations were conditions based, and Trump made clear the Taliban would be held accountable for its actions. My view, there was plenty wrong with negotiating with the Taliban without the Afghan government in the room. This delegitimization of the Afghan government sent the Taliban a clear message that the U.S. was pulling out and would not. defend Afghanistan. This is not to say that the U.S. should have put up with Afghan corruption and incompetence, but better to work with and improve that over time than to bear witness to the slaughter of thousands of Afghans who thought they were our friends. And in response to

that same piece, Franks Dodolka writes, thanks to Caraphano's excellent commentary article, it really puts into perspective the fiasco there. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it and at a greater cost each time around. Your letter can be featured on next week's show, so send us an email at Letters at DailySignal.com. Hi, I'm Virginia Allen. I want to tell you all about an awesome Heritage Foundation resource called the Index of Economic Freedom.

The Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom ranks nearly every nation in the world according to its level of economic freedom. Whether for personal, professional use, or for school research, the Index is a wealth of information. You can learn why it's easier to start a business in Switzerland than it is in France and where America falls on the ranking. So go ahead and visit heritage.org slash index to explore the newly released 2021 Index of Economic Freedom,

which features interactive maps, country rankings, graphs of data, and much, much more. Virginia, you have a good news story to kick off our week. Over to you. Thanks so much, Doug. Well, if you happen to be in Blair's Town, New Jersey this week, you will notice almost every lamppost, sign, and fence bears a yellow ribbon. The ribbons are a small way to say thank you to the military men and women who served in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. And for those who are returning from deployment, the ribbons pave a safe path home. Marnell Blanchett is a longtime employee in the local public schools in Blairstown and told CBS, New York, she wanted to do something. special to thank all the former students and community members who have served our country.

I just wanted to show my appreciation to the kids that, you know, I know that were deployed. Maranelle began tying a few yellow ribbons on the school property, but the initiative quickly caught the attention of people all across the town. Now Blair's town residents are putting the big yellow ribbons up all over their community. Local military mom Shannon Dryley says she, She is deeply touched seeing the ribbons on homes, businesses, and signs. My oldest son, he served two tours in Afghanistan in the Army. I have another son who's currently in the Marines. The military mom added that she knows the ribbons will mean a lot to the servicemen and women returning home.

I'm sure that when these kids see these ribbons, when they come home, they're going to get choked up, just like all their parents did. Shannon's children have made it home safely, but she says her heart breaks for all those families who have lost loved ones, particularly the 13 killed in the suicide bombing. The folks in Blair's Town hope their yellow ribbons will encourage other communities all across America to think about the ways that they can honor and thank those who have served our country with such honor and bravery. Virginia, what an absolutely amazing story. I think it's so important that we acknowledge the sacrifice. that our men and women in uniform have done, especially as we're coming up on the anniversary of 9-11. Thank you so much for sharing. We are going to leave it there for the day. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on the Rickashay Audio Network, and all of our shows can also be found at dailysignal.com slash podcasts.

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