*Those interested in the hard truth about Black Lives Matter would do well to* *read Paul Street's Truthdig article from 2017, to which Pepe Escobar links in * *his new piece, **which I sent out last night.*
*Funded by the Ford Foundation, BLM is not a revolutionary movement, but a* *counter-revolutionary brand, distracting us from making common cause for* *real systemic change, and, now, also serving as the vanguard of the faux-* *progressive drive to "defund the police," to close municipal police departments,* *and replace them with a semi-human apparatus even more repressive, and * *wholly **unaccountable.* *The fact is that the Panthers were wiped out by the US government, with* *"our free press" serving as accomplices, by casting them as dangerous* *extremists—as the New York Times belatedly admits, that revolutionary * *specter **having long since been dispelled by force and fraud.* *https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/us/black-panthers-50-years.html <https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/us/black-panthers-50-years.html>* *Would any corporate advertiser have extolled the Panthers, and declared* *its "solidarity" with that black community? Would any politicians, liberal* *or conservative, have spoken in support of those black radicals? The only * *Panthers who had any state support were infiltrators working for the FBI.* *And while no multi-millionaires supported the Black Panthers, we now have* *Jeff Bezos, Bill/Melinda Gates, Jamie Dimon, Mitt Romney, Mark Zuckerberg, * *Mark Cuban, Tim Cook, Wells Fargo **CEO Charlie Scharf, Citibank CEO Mark * *Mason and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella all taking a knee, tweeting their* *applause of BLM, and/or pledging millions to fight racial injustice, as are * *the CEO's of Bayer, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, * *Sanofi and Novartis (as well as Merck, whose CEO is African-American). * *Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Apple, Google, * *Microsoft, Amazon, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and the NFL are all down with * *the black community. It is beyond remarkable that such rapacious players,* *whose policies and products have helped end countless black lives, are all * *suddenly on board against racism.* *We'd better wake up fast. The revolution that we really need "will not be * *televised," **as Gil Scott-Heron put it. * *(As I write, I'm listening to the oceanic roar of chanting multitudes**, with helicopters * *growling overhead.) * *MCM* What Would the Black Panthers Think of Black Lives Matter? https://www.truthdig.com/articles/black-panthers-think-black-lives-matter/ - <http://www.facebook.com/> - <http://twitter.com/> - <http://www.reddit.com/> - <?subject=What%20Would%20the%20Black%20Panthers%20Think%20of%20Black%20Lives%20Matter?&body=I%27ve%20just%20read%20%27What%20Would%20the%20Black%20Panthers%20Think%20of%20Black%20Lives%20Matter?%27%20at%20https://www.truthdig.com/articles/black-panthers-think-black-lives-matter/> Black Panther Party official Fred Hampton speaking at a Chicago rally for the Chicago 8, activists charged with causing a riot during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. In the background is writer-activist Dr. Benjamin Spock. In 1969, police killed Hampton in a raid on his apartment. ( AP <http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Illinois-United-/7905a38739e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/53/0> ) *The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.*—Martin Luther King Jr., 1968 You don’t have to be one of those conspiratorial curmudgeons who reduces every sign of popular protest to “George Soros money” to acknowledge that much of what passes for popular and progressive, grass-roots activism has been co-opted, taken over and/or created by corporate America, the corporate-funded “nonprofit industrial complex <https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/20/single-payer-the-democratic-party-and-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/>,” and Wall Street’s good friend, the Democratic Party <https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/431-the-democrats>, long known to leftists as “the graveyard of social movements.” This “corporatization of activism <https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/20/single-payer-the-democratic-party-and-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/>” (University of British Columbia professor Peter Dauvergne’s term) is ubiquitous across much of what passes for the left in the U.S. today. What about the racialist group Black Lives Matter, recipient of a mammoth $100 million grant from the Ford Foundation last year? Sparked by the racist security guard and police killings of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and Eric Garner, BLM has achieved uncritical support across the progressive spectrum, where it is almost reflexively cited as an example of noble and radical grass-roots activism in the streets. That is a mistake. *Click on the link for the rest.* -- If you appreciate News From Underground, please consider making a donation — either a one-time gift or a monthly subscription: http://markcrispinmiller.com/support/ Thank you for your support. Ways to unsubscribe: 1) send a blank email to [email protected] PLEASE NOTE: you must unsubscribe using the SAME email with which you subscribed 2) go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "News From Underground" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/newsfromunderground/CAGxB6W_trz1qRTZxu_1fx4qKoQRoG6TzgcA5uqWtqcVc_Pji6g%40mail.gmail.com.
