Let’s continue right from where we left off in Part 1, where I focused on Stand Up America. While the bourgeois media analysts like Harry Enten say that polls seem to indicate rising support by the U$ populace for impeachment proceedings, the actual numbers are mixed. Interestingly, even though the orange menace has declared that House Democrats have the votes to impeach him but is confident that the Senate will not vote to impeach him. This is interesting considering that allies of the orange menace are currently raising much more than the Democrats even with the impeachment inquiry! Interestingly, the charade may have unexpectedly thrown off plans to bomb Iran, while violent acts like the Ukrainian government could increase since the U$ State Department, with Pompeo at its head, approved the sale of 150 Javelin missiles and 10 launch units to the country, driving much of the $39.2 million dollars directly into the coffers of Rayethon. Although Rob Urie has too much faith in the system, wanting the “electoral process…[to] play out” rather than pushing for impeachment, he is right that the political establishment is trying to bring down the orange menace, writing that

The CIA was the central protagonist in Russiagate. The origins of the New Cold War are found in Bill Clinton’s first term, when administration neo-cons looted, plundered and moved NATO against a prostrate Russia…Proponents of impeachment want none of the geopolitical back-and-forth that ties the CIA to U.S. actions in Ukraine, Russiagate and now to impeachment…Russiagate was a declaration of war by the ‘intelligence community’ against a duly elected President. As argued below, the CIA’s motive is to move its own foreign policy agenda forward without even the illusion of democratic consent…An explanation of Russiagate that ties establishment Democrats to the CIA and the U.S. adventure in Ukraine should be emerging…This is where Russiagate / impeachment stands today: national security and surveillance state liberals have joined with a not-so-bright left to oust a not-neocon / not-CIA insurgent (Trump) from power. In other words, Mr. Trump may be everything that the not-so-bright left claims he is, but that has nothing to do with why he is being ousted from power. Impeachment is to bring Joe Biden to power to go after Russia…The establishment goal is to crush the left and stop its momentum. Impeachment is the tool of convenience toward this end.

That brings us to our article today, which aims to look at groups pushing impeachment and their funding.

Pro-impeachment progressives and foundation money

It should already be evident at this point that groups like Free Speech for People (FSFP), headed by John Bonifaz, along with people like Ron Fein (also working for FSFP), Dan Rather, and Erik Erikson of the PR firm, Erikson Communication Group, have supported impeachment since at least May 2018. [1] There is one group called “Impeach Trump Now” with 23,300 followers, yet only following 528, most of which look like bots and/or “progressives,” except for a few like Progressive Democrats of America, Amy Siskend, By the People, The Young Turks, MSNBC, Protect Democracy, Keith Olbermann, the Democratic Coalition, Bill Moyers, The Nation, David Frum, and a bunch of others. Of course, this doesn’t tell the full story. Their privacy policy and contact us pages don’t even list an address. But other pages show that this group is led by two entities: FSFP and RootsAction. In Part 1, I already discussed how FSFP is a group standing against the 2010 Citizens United decision, and rulings in McCutcheon v. FEC, and Buckley v. Valeo, claiming this will “restore democracy to the people,” although that is obviously a lie. If we look through their available annual reports in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, we find their most consistent funders, through this whole time period, are two foundations: the Park Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.

The former foundation, has funded efforts to privatize nature itself with “sustainable markets” (also see here), and bourgeois environmental groups like Defenders of Wildlife, along with “questionable scientists to produce anti-fracking research” among much more, part of what some have called a “Billionaires Club.” Some have called it a “foundation-manifested echo chamber.” This foundation was founded in 1966 by capitalist Roy H. Park, a mass communicated mogul who owned, as a part of Park Communications, Inc., “22 radio stations, 11 television stations, and 144 publications” to quote from the website of the foundation itself. The foundation presently has seven people on its board of trustees, headed by Adelaide Park Gomer, the heiress of fortunes from Duncan Hines and Park Communications, with ties to the “progressive” sect of the Democratic Party (through Donna Edwards), the Environmental Working Group and the Energy Corporation (through Alicia Wittink), a funds management company named Christofferson (through Richard Robb), Eversheds Sutherland (through corporate tax lawyer Jerome B. Libin), New York Public Interest Research Group, 350.org, Earthworks, and TechRocks (through Jay R. Halfon), and the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research (which William L. Bondurant was once part of, with more noted here). Its two staff, Sue Kittel and Tania Yannarilli have ties to the grantmaking world, as does the organization itself, with group memberships in “conservation”/environmental funds, and various others. [2] Presently, the Park Foundation has over $368 million in assets, which could fund, over a year, either about 8,208 elementary school teachers, 7,503 high school teachers a year, or 7,776 middle school teachers, within the U$ using average salary rates.

Then, there is the Overbrook Foundation. This foundation has funded groups like Amazon Watch and the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), while investing in a so-called “sustainability nonprofit organization” called Ceres. This foundation claims to be progressive in striving for protecting “human and civil rights, advanc[ing]…self-sufficiency and well being of individuals and their communities, and conserv[ing] the natural environment.” Since its foundation was founded in 1948 by Frank and Helen Altschul, it has shelled out money to “universities, libraries, hospitals, land preservation trusts and NPR programming” with Frank Altschul a “registered Republican…[who] abhorred extremes and endowed both Republican and Democratic political candidates,” some claiming this was done “in ways that were low key and not strictly self-serving.” Apart from financing environmental nonprofits, Frank Altschul, one of the organization’s co-founders, was an investment banker (like his father, head of an investment firm named Lazard Frares) and head of General Investors Corporation Inc., dying in 198, having so much prominence by the 1930s that some called him one of the “grand dukes” of Wall Street! He studied at Yale, “proved to be a highly successful financier,” served on the governing committee of one of the capitalist exchanges, the New York Stock Exchange, was a director of the Chase National Bank, was heavily involved in the Council of Foreign Relations from 1951-1971, while also giving talks on topics such as U$ relations with the Zionist state (because of his Jewish heritage) and psychological warfare. As for the foundation, claiming to advance its mission as a so-called “progressive family foundation,” through a focus on the environment and human rights, supports “biodiversity conservation…sustainable production and consumption…marriage equality…reproductive justice and challenging the undue influence of money in politics” with an endowment of over $150 million dollars. Involving itself in the political process, its most recent tax return shows it giving to organizations you may recognize, while using hedge funds, venture capital funds, and publicly-traded securities, aligning with their most recent strategic plan with bourgeois goals like biodiversity conservation, “reforming” corporate practices, “improving” consumer behavior, “innovative solutions,” “movement building,” “gender rights,” “human rights,” and “money in politics.” [3]

This is no surprise for an organization headed by Stephen A. Foster, former adviser to foundations, who has been its head since June 2002, with the organization’s vice-president (Daniel Katz) formerly the head of RAN, while also assisting organizations like People for the American Way and Grist. Others on the staff include a public accountant (Mary Greco), a former consultant for the Human Rights Funders Network (Jessica Mowles), and others, like Nikole LaVelle Neilon, Megan Nickel, Ranger Ruffians, and those on the board of directors. [4] This embodies what Rancid Tarzie wrote back in May 2015, that the “professional left is effectively astroturf…[which] leads people away from systemic critique and genuine opposition and points them toward information consumption, handwringing, hero worship and passivity.”

There are a number of major funders of FSFP I’d like to point out: the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (in 2015 and 2017), Cloud Mountain Foundation (2015-2016), Mertz Gilmore Foundation (2015-2016), Namaste Solar Foundation (2015-2016), Rauch Foundation (2015-2016), William B. Wiener, Jr. Foundation (2015-2016), Amalgamated Transit Union (2015, 2017-2018), Gaia Fund (2015, 2017-2018), WhyNot Initiative (2015, 2017-2018), The Clements Foundation (2016-2018), Endeavor Foundation (2016-2018), and Wallace Global Fund (2017-2018). [5] The first of these has been extensively written about on Wrong Kind of Green, so I don’t think I need to review that again here. As for the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, it claims to be a “private, independent grantmaking institution that supports and promotes vibrant communities, the performing arts, a sustainable environment and an inclusive democracy” and his headquartered in New York City, while the Namaste Solar Foundation is a nonprofit with a mission to “propagate renewable energy for socially responsible organizations,” claiming to be independent from the Namaste Solar Company, which is headed by a seemingly all-white (or mostly white) board of directors. As for the William B. Wiener, Jr. Foundation, it has broad goals, although little is known about it, other than it being a family foundation. This is different from the Gaia Fund, which began awarding grants in 1995, and has assets of about $49 million, seeming to chart a new direction as of this month! While the website it relatively sparse, others note that this foundation focuses on environmental issues, specifically “integrating the goals of responsible environmental stewardship, profitability, and social and economic equity,” sounding as bourgeois as the others.

Other groups are openly capitalistic, like the WhyNot Initiative, a program of the “Patriotic Millionaires” group, which is to “support social change efforts that have the potential to significantly address problems with the democratic process, income and wealth distribution, universal healthcare, and tolerance,” currently headed by the former CEO of Conservatree Paper Company and ASDavis Media Group. This awful groups declare they are concerned “about the destabilizing concentration of wealth and power in America,” claiming they want to “build a more stable, prosperous, and inclusive nation by promoting public policies based on the “first principles” of equal political representation, a guaranteed living wage for all working citizens, and a fair tax system,” obviously working to co-opt any movement for these demands and make them palatable to the bourgeoisie. As for the Endeavor Foundation, it is focused on “liberal arts education and related fields” and is obviously achieving the aims of U$ imperialism as it is claimed to “assist independent states in the formerly Soviet-dominated region of Central and Eastern Europe” and with its founder outwardly capitalistic. I don’t think the foundation exists anymore as I can’t really find anything on it, unless it changed its name or something, as what I can find on it is very sketchy. However, for the Wallace Global Fund, the story is different. It is guided by the vision of “the late Henry A. Wallace, former Secretary of Agriculture and Vice-President under Franklin D. Roosevelt” and it was established by his son, Robert B. Wallace (1918-2002) in 1995, growing out of the Wallace Genetic Foundation, founded in 1965 by Henry A. Wallace. The Fund’s executive director, Ellen Dorsey was chummy with Leonardo DeCaprio in ensuring fossil fuel divestment, support so-called “sustainable markets” and a video connected to Naomi Klein.

RootsAction, Berniecrats, and foundation dough

This brings us to RootsAction. They have a petition calling for the orange menace to be impeached for violating “domestic and foreign emoluments clauses of the Constitution,” adding that other offenses included “obstruction of justice, incitement of violence, interference with voting rights, discrimination based on religion, illegally threatening nuclear war, and abuse of pardon power” which seems absurdly limited, to say the least. They claim to have a “fresh approach to defend the public interest,” calling out “a far-right Republican Party regime that is largely a subsidiary of corporate America, and a Democratic Party whose leadership is enmeshed with and compromised by corporate power,” further declaring they will “take action — independent of both party leaderships.” They are tied to bourgeois groups, when it comes to progressive causes, and is operated by Action for a Progressive Future (APF), with the website powered by Non-Profit Soapbox, a tool of Soapbox Engage, an “easy and affordable content management tool for non-profit organizations.” APF is classified as a corporation with over $200,000 in assets, and is listed in California. Furthermore, it is classified as a “non-profit public benefit corporation” for “social welfare purposes” meaning it cannot participate or intervene in any political campaign on “behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.” APF got scrutiny from the IRS, even though they got tax-exempt status, after a 18-month process involving “intrusive questions.”

What is at that address which is mentioned in statements of information in May 2017 and in June 2019? I would think its a P.O. box, because when you look there you just end up at a plaza of some sort, although this further looking at this, I think its just a room they rent. [6] They clearly seem to be Berniecrats, with Politico calling them “an online activist group that supports Sanders,” clear from their “Democratic Autopsy” website which lists four people as researchers: Karen Bernal, a chair of the California Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus and a Bernie delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Pia Gallegos, chair of the Adelante Progressive Caucus of the Democratic Party of New Mexico, Sam McCann, a “writer and researcher,” and Normon Solomon, whom is a co-founded of RootsAction and was a “delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and 2016,” along with being the “national coordinator of the Bernie Delegates Network in 2016”! The latter group is also tied to “progressive” groups like Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), which is in turn part of the “progressive” Democratic machinery. This puts them on the “progressive” sect of the Democratic Party. They have also backed the Green New Deal, the latter which has been described by Cory Morningstar as a way to financialize nature, a benefit to the capitalist class, harshly and accurately criticized from an indigenous perspective. The names of RootsAction employees aligns with four individuals, apart from the organization’s bookkeeper, Robert Barkley, in Murfeesboro, Tennessee: Normon Solomon, Director [2015-2017], Deborah Thomas, Secretary/Treasurer [2015-2017], Jeff Cohen, CEO [2016-2017], and Pia Gallegos, CEO/Chair [2015-2017].

Solomon, described as a “media critic, author and activist,” founded Institute for Public Accuracy, co-founded RootsAction, and was a Bernie delegate in 2016, while Cohen helped found the Park Center for Independent Media, founded FAIR in 1986, co-founded RootsAction and was formerly a board member for PDA. While Gallegos seems to be long-time lawyer, Deborah Thomas just seems to be connected to FAIR and nothing else. I’ll get back to FAIR later. In the founding statement for RootsAction Solomon and Cohen write “millions of…informed Americans…represent a huge base ready to mobilize in new ways,” declaring it is the basis for RootsAction, saying their strategy is based on “using the Internet and social media as pathways around political discourse dominated by media conglomerates.” They further claimed they are “fully independent of Democratic leaders” and that they would “never be silent,” saying they are for “people who are loyal to progressive values.” This led them to anger some at challenges to Russiagate, while also claiming to work for impeachment of the orange menace since he was elected in November 2016. We do know that their education fund got $82,500 from 2015 to 2018 from the Park Foundation, meaning that the organization likely got money from them as well, tying them into the Foundation circuit:

Moving on, let’s take a look at their promotional materials, for why they think they are so great:

That’s why RootsAction has been strongly endorsed by such respected, independent-minded progressives as Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Frances Fox Piven, Lila Garrett, Phil Donahue, Sonali Kolhatkar, and many others.

This is troubling. Jim Hightower has been tied to the “progressive” wing of the Democrats since the 1980s, first supporting Tom Harkin, then Jerry Brown, and finally Bill Clinton for President in 1992. He also endorsed John Kerry in 2004, after first supporting Dennis Kucinich, saying “I don’t care if he’s a sack of cement, we’re going to carry him to victory” and currently sits on the board of directors for “Our Revolution,” a Berniecratic organization. Other members on the board, which is chaired by Larry Cohen with Deborah Parker as Vice-Chair, include Nina Turner, Jim Zogby, Huck Gutman (Bernie’s former chief of staff), Shailene Woodley, Justin Bamberg, Lucero E. Mesa, Richard Rodriguez, and Jane Kleeb. That brings us to Barbara Ehrenreich, a famed social critic and writer, is deeply entrenched in progressive circles and willingly racist, declaring earlier this year that “I will be convinced that America is not in decline only when our de-cluttering guru Marie Kondo learns to speak English,” which says something about her politics. Then there’s Cornel West, which despite his academic background, accomplishments and at-times radical views, who said that the overthrow of Saddam was desirable even as he opposed the Iraq War, worked with the Revolutionary Communist Party which has a cult of personality around its leader, Bob Avakian. He also originally supported Obama, withdrawing that support by 2009 and cementing it by 2011, later claiming Obama ran as a progressive, which isn’t the reality, while also supporting Bernie in 2016 and 2018, while also supporting Jill Stein of the Green Party in 2016 and her running mate Ajamu Baraka.

Beyond this, some of the others mentioned are much worse, while others are worth noting to explicate the connections of this organization in and of itself. Daniel Ellsberg, most well-known for the Pentagon Papers, worked for the U$ military-connected RAND Corporation, at the Pentagon under Secretary Robert McNamara, allowing the Phoenix Program to go forward, not disaffected by the Vietnam War until 1969. Since then, he has become a staple of the anti-war movement, whether opposing the Iraq War, proposed attack on Iran, while rallying to the defense of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange, along with publicly supporting the Pentagon-backed Tor network. [7] Additionally, here’s reactionary “leftists” like Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, and Bill Fletcher Jr., James Abourezk said to be critical of U$ Mideast policy, founder of American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and friend of Barry Goldwater. Apart from this, there’s political scientist Frances Fox Piven who served on the boards of the ACLU and Democratic Party-backing Democratic “Socialists” of America or DSA, TV screenwriter Lila Garrett, media personality Phil Donahue, journalist Sonali Kolhatkar, and journalist Laura Flanders, whom is tied to FAIR, also known as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Alexander, Andrew and Patrick Cockburn are her half-uncles.

When it comes to FAIR, officially called “Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Inc,” while they say on their website they do “not accept corporate funding, governmental grants or advertising of any kind,” they do admit support from “foundations and public charities,” comprising less than half of their operating budget (41%). But who? We know they are based at some New York apartment (112 W. 27th Street New York, NY 10001), with their 990 forms not saying anything. They are awash in foundation money, from the Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, CarEth Foundation, and Park Foundation [8]:

Russophobia, Garry Kasparov, and bourgeois democracy

We know that groups like Stand Up America are Russophobic, calling the orange menace “Putin’s puppet,” try to connect the gun lobby to Russia, and complain about supposed connections between the presidential campaign of the orange menace and Russia, falsely claiming Wikileaks is “Kremlin-linked,” while also being part of a voting push. Furthermore, it is no surprise these groups coalesced to defeat sexist predator Brett Kavanaugh (as noted here, here, and here), hosting pro-Mueller rallies, calling for the Mueller report to be immediately released (as noted here, here, and here), and suggesting that the Mueller report have nationally televised hearings. Its also obvious that since the push for impeachment has intensified since late September from groups like MoveOn, CPD Action, Indivisible, and various others, with absurd statements like claiming that “our democracy is at stake” or that democracy “depends” on impeachment, when it has never been a democracy of the masses. At the same time, hacks like Peter Daou are in total support of impeachment, claiming he is a progressive, and that there were “massive grassroots pressure” for impeachment, although this is obviously all astroturf, as Stand Up America was criticized for not describing paper ballots correctly, as it would enable “dangerous barcode voting,” knowing they don’t know what they are talking about. They even claimed the orange menace released a transcript of the call with the Ukrainian president, and that was also incorrect, as the document literally said it wasn’t a transcript.

This brings us to Garry Kasparov, whom is tied deeply to the global bourgeoisie, not only as chairman of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), but connected to Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI), both of which are non-profits. While the HRF declares that it promotes “freedom where it’s most repressed,” the RDI’s mission is similar vein: a dedication to advancing and renewing “values of liberal democracy in the US and around the world,” going off the descriptions on their Twitter profiles.

I’ll start with the Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI) because a piece in RT in April 2018 already criticized them. This piece calls them a bunch of “neocon heartthrobs” who had come together with “Russiagaters to form a visionary organization committed to protecting Western democracy” with Kasparov chairing the RDI. Also on their board of directors is warmonger Max Boot, who celebrated the creation of this organization in an op-ed in the Washington Post [9], joining other groups supposedly “championing democracy” and protesting the orange menace, aiming to unite those from the supposedly “center-left” and “center-right,” with others on the organization’s board, at the time, including imperialist Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post, Richard Hurowitz as the organization’s president, a “filed hedge fund manager…and member of the Council on Foreign Relations.” Other board members include Karl-Theodor Zu Guttenberg, who is described as a “German aristocrat who grew up in a centrist, democracy-filled castle,” and their “manifesto” is supported by Russophobes like “Anders Aslund, Ian Bremmer, Bill Kristol, Michael McFaul and Radek Sikorski.” Yet, this piece is a bit dated and doesn’t talk about who funds them or the fact that they have been signal boosted by Masha Gashen of The New Yorker, claiming the group to be an “an ideologically diverse group of journalists, [and] academics” with their manifesto signed by “Laurence Tribe, William Kristol, and Mario Vargas Llosa,” in an interview that Kasparov utters anti-communist claptrap and endorses the march of U$ imperialism, along with common Russophobia. Additionally, RDI has been promoted by elite academia like their conference at Johns Hopkins University and tried to give a platform to former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, literally paid by the Democrats to “dig up dirt” on the orange menace.

I poked around their website a bit to find out a bit more. For one, they declare they want to promote “liberal democracy” and seem blase at first, wanting to unite people under such “democratic” principles, promote “accessible, engaging, and effective” civics education, and respectability. Their real purpose is revealed not in values they say they support, like bourgeois “freedoms” (like of the press, speech, religion, assembly, conscience), “fair” elections and “equal justice,” an immigration policy which is “rational and humane,” and “civil discussion,” but three calling cards to the bourgeoisie:

“Equality of opportunity”

“A competitive marketplace free from corruption”

“Free flow of goods, services, capital, and ideas across borders”

To propagate their ideas, they host events, conferences, conduct bourgeois “civics education” which includes a focus on the ” origins of freedom around the world,” and share their findings. What they promote is utter Russophobic garbage, evident from Kasparov’s “welcome letter” where he complains about the “rise of authoritarian and populist regimes” and “Putin’s dictatorship” while extolling the supposed virtues of “prosperity, elections, rule of law, free speech, and free markets.” This is no surprise because apart from Kasparov and Boot on the organization’s board, there’s also Annafi Wahed who is a financier for the Democratic Party, former FBI agent “specializing in counterintelligence operations” Asha Rangappa, former Navy SEAL (and Nebraska State Senator and Governor) Bob Kerrey, former U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp, TV actor Ian Kahn, corporate lawyer Igor Kirman, Washington Post op-ed editor Mark Lasswell, lawyer Richard North Patterson, former corporate advisor Uriel Epshtein, lawyer Michael Eastman, and political scientist Yilun Cheng. Then, there’s the advisory board, which includes even more awful people, like a former Goldman Sachs analyst (Allison Lee Pillinger Choi), supposed “totalitarian” scholar (Bernard Henri-Levy), neo-cons (Bill Kristol), journalists (Bret Stephens, John Avalon), capital management types (Dan Benton, Daniel B. Hurwitz, Whitney Haring-Smith), former German Minister of Defense (Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg), and lawyers (Laurence H. Trib). This is no surprise as their “manifesto” literally endorses capitalist exploitation and destabilization of “closed” and “suppressed” societies while complaining about non-existent “neo-Marxists”:

…Political stability and international security enable global trade and tremendous economic growth. A predictable and consensual rule of law creates the conditions in which entrepreneurs and businesses flourish, fostering levels of affluence that in turn enhance the global appeal of liberal democracy. Responsible political and digital revolutions in previously closed or suppressed societies unlock the economic and intellectual potential of millions of people, making it more likely that similar revolutions will follow…Neo-Marxism has found new champions in countries that owe their wealth to the opportunities provided by free-market capitalism. Protectionism is likewise gaining popularity in countries that have benefitted from free trade… Western proponents of the liberal-democratic order must first promote these values at home and defend them abroad without paternalistically imposing them, or repeating past errors such as uncritical alliances with authoritarian regimes.

Is it any surprise that signatories of this dribble include those from:

Council on Foreign Relations

Freedom House

Black Rhino

Hoover Institution

Atlantic Council

The Fledgling Fund

The Eurasia Group

International Capital Strategies

BILD group

American Enterprise Institute

Heritage Foundation

RFE/RL

Global Security Institute

ReThink Education

Foreign Affairs magazine

Brookings Institution

Weekly Standard

The Foundation for a Civil Society

Common Cause

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Lansdowne Partners

BlueLine Rental

Accel Partners

Columbia Pictures

Coca-Cola

This also makes it no shock that their examples of “failed” democracies include social democracies of Venezuela and Nicaragua, and Weimar Republic of Germany. I couldn’t find anything on the funders of RDI, whether on GuideStar, ProPublica, or Charity Navigator. I did find it is located at the same address as Octavian Advisors which was a former “hedge fund firm specializing in distressed investments” having almost $1 billion in assets, later bought by other capitalists. At that address is nothing special, we know it received $25,000 from Patty McKegney of the mysterious Lisabeth Foundatin Company. Still, it is clear that RDI has ties to the bourgeoisie in some way or another. As Malcolm X put it astutely in February 1965, describing the nature of U$ imperialism, “they put your mind right in a bag, and take it wherever they want.”

The antics of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF)

With that, I can move onto the HRF, a group where Kasparov is an “international advisor.” It is a non-profit founded in 2005 by Thor Halvorssen, who headed a conservative group, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) from 1999 to 2004. Adhering to a legalistic view of “human rights” and loosely associated with a branch in Bolivia, it sends election observers, advocates “humanitarian” imperialism, funds documentaries and books, issues press releases, claims certain people are “prisoners of conscience” or political prisoners, while also organizing the Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF). It also organizes so-called “humanitarian appeal campaigns,” and condemns governments like Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba, and Venezuela for their claimed “human rights abuses,” showing it serves the interests of U$ imperialists. This is clear from the fact that not only does the OFF have right-wing support but in 2009, three of their speakers “had recently participated in or actively promoted military coups against democratically-elected governments in Latin America,” one of whom was Leopoldo López, who led the coup against Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in 2002, and is “Thor Halvorssen’s cousin.” Others were supporters of the U$-backed coup in Honduras in 2009 or embraced the former military dictatorship in Argentina. Joakim Mollersen wrote, in 2013, that

In its original mission statement, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), the organizer of OFF, proclaimed that it was founded to “to unite people – regardless of their political, cultural, and ideological orientations – in the common cause of defending human rights and promoting liberal democracy in the Americas.” One might argue that violently overthrowing democratically-elected governments is not a human right…Most of the criticism has come on the basis of the Latin American guests, but other speakers have also expressed opinions incompatible with human rights…Peter Thiel, a billionaire hedge fund manager, a personal friend of Thor Halvorssen and a donor to OFF, was a speaker at the 2011 forum. Little did the audience know of Thiel’s personal ties with Halvorssen and the fact that he helped fund the Forum…Thor Halvorssen…has denounced the peace talks in Colombia between the government and the FARC guerrilla group, aligning himself with Colombia’s far right. There has been considerable controversy regarding the lack of transparency surrounding the OFF’s funding. Halvorssen has refused to give details…Halvorssen is the creator and director of the HRF, based in New York. While the HRF has attracted little attention, a few journalists and activists have noticed that the Foundation’s funding sources seem to come mostly from the right wing…The HRF’s filings with the Internal Revenue Service…show that the Human Rights Foundation received approximately $600,000 in donations from the…Donors Capital Fund…essentially a slush fund for the cadre of rightist donors who bankroll the conservative movement.” Donors Capital has been a major funder of Islamophobic groups and projects…Halvorssen began his career as a conservative student activist, perceiving conservative students such as himself as sort of a persecuted minority…The purported liberal views of Thor Halvorssen are at best highly doubtful, and accusations that he uses the platform he himself built to invite friends, family and ideological allies from the far right is serious. But that is far from the most pressing issue. The fact that Oslo Freedom Forum abuses the name of human rights to whitewash human rights offenders, their supporters and apologists is far worse. However, looking at the track record of these people, there should be no doubt that they were invited exactly because of their political affiliation.

But, that article was written over six years ago, so circumstances may have changed. They still claim to partner with “world-changing activists” against what they call “tyranny.” In many ways, they show Bitcoin as a tool of the bourgeoisie, as they declare it can “be a tool of freedom for human rights defenders facing hyperinflation or financial surveillance.” Their history shows the organization’s past support of defectors from the DPRK, condemning Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Gabon, Cuba, Russia, Swaziland, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Chechnya, and many others, since their founding in 2005. While you could dig into the “team” that heads the organization, more important are their annual reports. [10] Apart from projects in the U$ there is an inordinate focus on Latin America, specifically Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, originally shown in their first report available, in 2007, repeated in later reports. Others show them pushing bourgeois causes in China, while never admitting their exact donors, not at all, just giving ballpark figures, as they continue to serve the interests of imperialism. The organization continued to be signal boosted in bourgeois media, with their most recent report gloating that “HRF’s work was the subject of hundreds of articles published in outlets…in more than a dozen languages,” further declaring that “these articles reached tens of millions of people around the world, informing them and educating them about human rights and the struggle against authoritarianism.” This is deeply problematic, especially when considering what countries they classify as “authoritarian” as declared a map in their recent report, claiming that most of the world was under the heel of “competitive authoritarian regimes…[and] full-fledged dictatorships”:

Clearly, as you can see from this above map, their reasoning is fully racist, Orientalist, Eurocentric, and anti-communist, as is also clear from their “micro-grants.” Hungary, Macedonia, Belarus, and Albania, apart from Russia, were the only countries in Europe classified as “authoritarian” while every single country classified similarly in Latin America has a leftist government: Ecuador (since aligned with the U$), Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Cuba. Almost all of Asia, apart from India, Mongolia, ROK, Taiwan, Japan, and Indonesia were considered “authoritarian” as was most of Africa. Such a map shows the mindset of imperialists like the HRF, especially their awful program to deliver capitalist garbage to Koreans in the DPRJ. To say that “more than half of the global population for whom information is suppressed and censored” is absurd, as the whole planet experiences this as it is part of the capitalist system. I tend to think they might be like another version of NED, as their current “freedom fellows” come from countries either destroyed by imperialist action (Asma Khalifa of Libya), defending themselves against imperialist attack (Edipica Dubon of Nicaragua, Vanessa Berhe of Eritrea, Rodrigo Diamanti of Venezuela), or countries which imperialists likely have an interest (Faride Nabourema of Togo, Rania Aziz of Sudan, Fred Bauma of DRC, Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal of Thailand, Johnson Yeung of Hong Kong). The same is clear from their “family” which includes bourgeois activists in China and the DPRK, showing their true role without a doubt. Who funds them? Max Blumenthal, back in 2013, talked about Donors Capital Fund, Donors Trust, Peter Thiel, the Norweigan government, and Sarah Scaife Foundation as funders. But, of course, this was far too limited. Sergey Brin, the Google co-founders, and Anne Wojcicki, 23&Me co-founder, both have funded HRF (although they are both now divorced) as has “Steppenwolf founder Gary Sinise…[and] Empire State Building owner Peter Malkin” as one article put it. Brin has now re-married to Nicole Shanahan, who founded ClearAccessIP, a legal tech company, and the Bia-Echo Foundation which mainly invests in “reproductive health.” Furthermore, HRF, from 2005-2015 was funded by the right-wing Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Amnesty International Norway, Christian Democratic International Center, Foundation for Democracy in Russia, Pan American Development Foundation, and Vanguard Charitable Endowment, among others. I think it is interesting that Halvorssen’s father was literally a CIA informant and worked with a “former top CIA official in Latin America who was indicted during the Iran-Contra affair” Duane Clarridge, which Halvorssen schoffs at as “absurd,” saying he had no special relationship with the CIA. I say that because of those who support the OFF. The first three, from left to right, show support from the Norwegian government, the city of Oslo, and Fritt Ord, a bourgeois “human rights” foundation.

Let us remember that the Norweigan government, as reported by SIPRI’s Trade Registers, has exported arms to Estonia, India, Japan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Oman, Peru, Poland, Qatar, Turkey, UK, and U$. [11] So much for “human rights,” as it more like they are endorsing death and destruction. Moving on, their presenting sponsors are the Brin Wojcicki Foundation, founded by the Facebook co-founder and seemed to unravel back in 2015, Facebook itself, itself tangentially tied to CIA money through In-Q-Tel, as the latter entity is the investment arm of the CIA, as they admit on their own website. As for the “Freedom Fund,” posing itself as “a leader in the global movement to end modern slavery,” is funded not only by fellow foundations like Humanity United (part of the Omidyar family as explicated later in this article) and Cassiopeia, but to the retail giant C&A with huge markets across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and UBS, a huge Swiss investment bank. They also get funds from, among others, British bourgeoisie in Asia (British Asian Trust) and the literal UK government through the United Kingdom Home Office. I mention all this because UBS owned a cement factory where SS officers “forced at least 400 prisoners from the nearby Auschwitz concentration camp to work” and a personal account for Hitler himself, along with bank accounts for victims of the Holocaust, using these accounts to enrich themselves. This is public record. Additionally, they engaged in systematic tax fraud, profited by a rise in cotton prices at the end of the U$ Civil War, something which will obviously, not be noted in their official history. But what about C&A? It complied with Nazi demands during World War II, favoring anti-Semitic laws, declaring to Herman Goering they had “penetrated the position of power held by Jews in the textile industry” and that “since the foundation of the firm, no non-Aryan has ever been employed by us” in 1937, although much of their property was destroyed during the war itself. Clearly, this organization is hypocritical and bourgeois to the core.

This brings us to Humanity United, which funded the “Freedom Fund.” Lunched in 2008, claiming they believe in “the power of people to bring about extraordinary change,” they are part of The Omidyar Group, tied to capitalists Pam and Pierre Omidyar. Is it no surprise that some of their key initiatives are about corporate “responsibility” and “innovation”? They state a focus on peacebuilding, with a worrying focus just on the African continent, they partnered with bourgeois outlets like The Guardian and openDemocracy, and various others, but also call for an expanded U$ role in the world, an imperialist position:

We have worked to ensure attention and coordinated advocacy around the U.S. government’s responses to the many conflicts in Sudan and the civil war in South Sudan…Our policy team also successfully advocated for policies and greater U.S. support in two key areas: to increase the focus on preventing violent conflicts from happening before they occur and to address emerging complex crises around the world, including building effective institutions within the U.S. government to address these challenges…In 2007, Humanity United established the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST) to ensure strong U.S. leadership in global efforts to end forced labor, debt bondage, sex trafficking, and other forms of modern slavery

Who have they given to? Their grants page, only listing those they have given to in 2016 and 2017, shows them dolling out money to the following organizations:

AccessNow

Clinton Foundation

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Global Investigative Journalism Network

Institute for Human Rights and Business

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

International Crisis Group

New America Foundation

National Domestic Workers Alliance, Inc.

Public Radio International

Tides Center

This brings us to their other sponsors. There are companies like Twitter, the liberal German imperialist Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, another organ of the Norweigan government (Innovation Norway, the government’s “most important instrument for innovation and development of Norwegian enterprises and industry”), a supplier of Bitcoins, and Meltwater, a “media intelligence company” (has the feel of a CIA front). There’s also a company that develops software for political campaigns (NationBuilder) that pulls in all sorts of voter data and was previously funded by the Omidyar Network, a VPN service based in Colorado, the business region of Oslo, a theater site in Oslo called “Vega,” a global right-wing non-profit named the Atlas Network which says they are part of “the worldwide freedom movement” and believe in a “free society.” They are anti-communists to the core as their founder, Antony Fisher complained about the supposed socialist course of Britain after the end of WWII:

After victory came at last in the war against Germany’s National Socialism, Fisher was distraught to see the British people elect a Labor Party government that set the country on a socialist course: nationalizing industries and using central planning to run the economy. He came across an abridged edition of F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, which posits that central planning inevitably erodes individual liberty and enables tyranny. Fisher was motivated to seek out Hayek, who was then teaching at the London School of Economics. Fisher told Hayek that he agreed with every word in the book, and was going to go into politics to save Britain from socialism…Fisher decided the most effective way to act on Hayek’s advice would be by establishing an independent research institute that would bring innovative, market-based perspectives to issues of public policy. In 1955, he founded the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in London…Fisher lived in San Francisco in 1981 when, with the help of his second wife Dorian, he founded the Atlas Economic Research Foundation to institutionalize this process of helping start up new think tanks. Friends like Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Margaret Thatcher applauded the idea of replicating the IEA model far and wide.

They boast about their role in assisting right-wing “market-oriented” organizations like “the Manhattan Institute in New York…the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, Instituto Libertad y Desarrollo in Chile, the Centre for Civil Society in India…and the Association for Liberal Thinking in Turkey.” Not surprisingly, they are broadly Eurocentric in their approach, as 341 organizations listed in their global directory are in Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, about 58% of the 589 organizations listed on their map, although there is a worrying concentration in Latin America and the Caribbean:

This includes organizations like the Adam Smith Center for Market Economy in Russia, African Objectivist Movement in Nigeria, American Enterprise Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Americans for Prosperity Foundation (a Koch Brothers outfit), Association for Liberal Thinking in Turkey, Atlas Society, and the Ayn Rand Institute. Other groups include the California Policy Center, Capital Research Center, CATO Institute, Center for Liberal Studies in Greece, Centre for Economic Strategy in Ukraine, Foundation for Economic Education, Hayek Institute in Russia, and the Institute for Humane Studies. Their recent annual report reveals who funds them, and its the typical organizations:

The Achelis & Bodman Foundation

Lotte and John Hecht Memorial Foundation

J.P. Humphreys Foundation

Charles Koch Foundation

Sarah Scaife Foundation

Smith Family Foundation

John Templeton Foundation

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

Charles Koch Institute

Chase Foundation of Virginia

Google

The Lowndes Foundation

Modzelewski Charitable Trust

The Thomas W. Smith Foundation

The Armstrong Foundation

British American Tobacco

George E. Coleman Jr. Foundation

Americans for Tax Reform

Biotechnology Innovation Organization

Free To Choose Network

The Fund for American Studies

HEYCO Energy Group, Inc

This brings us to our final list of funders of OFF, classified only as “supporters.” The governments of Canada, Norway, and various other entities. Clearly, the OFF is supported by the bourgeoisie and used for imperialist goals. There can be no denying that.

This brings us to one final group I want to focus on in this article: Bold Progressives. This group had a role in supporting the push toward impeachment as well. A focus on it is important to learning more about connections and interests behind this push.

The antics of “Bold Progressives”



I’d like to focus on Bold Progressives, otherwise known as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC). In the above tweet, the link sends you to a petition page which gives, by far, the most bland, milquetoast argument for impeachment:

New evidence of Trump’s corruption is being exposed on a near daily basis. To be clear, the House of Representatives is NOT yet considering Articles of Impeachment — what has to happen to actually impeach Trump and put him on trial in the Senate. We need DECISIVE ACTION and Articles of Impeachment NOW. The corruption of Trump’s campaign is running rampant in the Oval Office. There is no need for more inquiries and investigations…Every member of Congress — including Republicans — should be calling for Articles of Impeachment and a quick vote by the full House.

On the same page are declarations that no one in the U.S. is “above the law…not even the president,” giving optional choices like calling one “Democratic member of Congress each week” who hasn’t publicly come out for impeachment or you donate three dollars to support their work. This is a petition paid for “by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC,” part of PCCC. If you ended up signing the petition, your data is gathered, including your “name, email, and zip code,” saying they treat your “name, city, state, and comments as public information” on public communications you sign or complete, and also uses “cookies from third parties such as Google Adwords to serve ads based on usage of this site.”

But what is the PCCC? Well it defines itself as “a million-member grassroots organization building power at the local, state, and federal levels,” engaging in work on “issue advocacy” and elections, praised by progressive imperialists like Elizabeth Warren. Their stated priorities include social welfare goals like “expanding Social Security,” debt-free college, “allowing everyone to buy health care coverage through Medicare” (but not Medicare-for-All explicitly here), “Wall Street reform and accountability,” protecting privacy and stopping surveillance, stopping “bad trade deals like [the] TPP,” an open and free internet, and “paid family leave.” Later pages show they stand for the green capitalistic Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and the others noted as part of their priorities list. Presently, they back a slew of so-called progressives, mostly in the House of Representatives: Elizabeth Warren, Veronica Escobar, Deb Haaland, Pramila Jayapal, Andy Kim, Andy Levin, Mike Levin, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Katie Porter, Rashida Talib, Jamie Raskin, Mandela Barnes, Joceyln Benson, and Marie Newman. Perhaps it is no surprise that Warren calls for a “strong military…[and] leverag[ing]…all the tools of our national power, not just our military might” while using words like “endless war” to try and bring in those critical of U$ imperial policy, Escobar who sorta praises NAFTA, Haaland who declares that “force should always be a last resort in America’s foreign policy” but embraces imperial diplomacy as the answer, and Jaypal whom argues for bourgeois goals like “reassert[ing] Congress’ Constitutional authority to declare war…[a law saying the President] must come to Congress to seek authorization for any nuclear first strike…legislation to stop…U.S. military participation” in the war in Yemen, have the 2001 Authorization for Military Force “brought back to the floor for an up/down vote” and “a complete audit of the Pentagon” but nothing about closing the hundreds of military bases across the world! [12] Going through all of them, you imperialists of all types, whether Russophobes, jingoists, or Sinophobes, with Omar and AOC wanting to rebrand the murderous U$ empire, like Jaypal, Warren, and Haaland. It really says something about the PCCC itself.

Stephanie Taylor, a co-founder of the organization also founded the Progressive Change Institute (PCI), described as “a frequent commentator in the news on working-class politics…union organizer in Appalachia,” praised by the bourgeois Congressional Progressive Caucus, and went to CIA-connected Georgetown University, Columbia University, and University of Virginia (UVA) over the course of her undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral education. [13] The other co-founded of the organization, Adam Green, is a former director for MoveOn, served as the press secretary for the DNC in Oregon in 2004, communications director for “New Jersey Democratic Party in 2003,” and press secretary, in 2002, for “the top winning Democratic U.S. Senate race.” He holds degrees from the CIA-connected UVA and George Washington University, the latter which hosted the Annual National Security Conference, where then-CIA director Mike Pompeo spoke in 2017. While there, he called CIA officers a “national treasure” and grumbled about “bureaucracy” in the CIA, saying “leaders of our Stations and Bases…should call the shots as much as possible,” implying that consulting headquarters in Langley isn’t necessary! [14] The other members of the PCCC’s team include former software project managers, and have ties to a number of organizations, including:

Originally I was going to focus on the fact that the chairman of the Democratic Coalition, John Cooper, formerly an LI Campaign Chair for the Obama campaign, seemed to throw his weight behind impeachment, but I decided that what I have written so far is adequate enough to explain some of the main interests behind the push for impeachment. There are astroturf efforts everywhere and I have only highlighted some of the most prominent ones. [15] I may write another article in this series focusing on the results if the orange menace was impeached, what it would result in on an imperial scale.

Notes

[1] This all comes from John Bonfiaz’s tweet on May 11, 2018 and looking at the profiles of Erikson, Bonifaz, and Fein. The FSFP board has ties to AOL, Demos, the National Voting Rights Institute, Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement, Network for Good, Stop Handgun Violence, Clements & Pineault (LLP), NAACP National Voter Fund, Democracy Initiative, former Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Citizenship Education Fund, GTM Consulting Services, Partners In Health, World Health Organization, Elizabeth Warren, Marjorie Decker, and Fidelity Investments.

[2] The first group of funds includes the Biodiversity Funders Group, Environmental Grantmakers Association, Investors Network on Climate Risk, Health and Environmental Funders Network. The second group includes the Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, Media Impact Funders, and New York Funders Alliance.

[3] They have also funneled gobs of money to the Amazon Conservation Team ($35,954), As You Sow Foundation ($35,000), Alaska Wilderness League ($30,500), ALIGN ($30,000), American Constitution Society for Law ($30,000), Antarctic and Southern Ocean Association ($30,000), Solitary Watch ($30,000), Committee to Protect Journalists ($25,000), American Civil Liberties Union ($21,000), and Advocates for Youth ($20,000). Pages 11 and 15 to 37 of their most recent tax return list all the funders. I only chose the ones I recognized or felt were important here. I didn’t feel like transcribing all the names of every funder, but they are all listed there. Funny enough, but they openly list these on their publications page in their annual report on grants, I just didn’t see on first glance, organizing it into various categories like “movement building,” “Latin American biodiversity conservation,” “behavioral change,” “corporate practices,” and “innovation” as shown on page 4 of their 2018 report, with others listed on page 8. There are annual reports for 2017 (see pages 4-7 for those they fund), 2016 (see pages 4-7 for those they fund), 2015 (see pages 4-7 for those they fund), and 2014 (see pages 4-7 for those they fund), all of which I archived on the Wayback Machine since I don’t trust foundations to keep records like these. This may be somewhere I build upon in a later article, either on here or elsewhere.

[4] The board is chaired by Arthur G. Altschul, Jr. while Katheryn G. Graham is the Vice-Chair, Robert C. Graham, Jr. is the Director Emeritus and Isaiah Orozco is the Vice Chair. Other board members are Stephen F. Altschul, Emily Altschul-Miller, Carolyn J. Cole, Cooper Cox, Joyce Fensterstock, Kathryn C. Graham, Julie Graham, Aaron Labaree, Robert Labaree, and Dinorah Matias-Melendez.

[5] There were other funders, but they only gave funds for a single year. For instance, the Foundation to Promote Open Society (also known as Open Society Foundations, funded by Soros), Dewey Foundation, Rockefeller Family Fund, Selkowitz Family Foundation, Sister Fund, Stewart R Mott Foundation, and Laura Stratton all gave money in 2015 alone. Furthermore, the French American Charitable Trust and Schumann Media Center only gave money in 2016, while the Herb Block Foundation only gave in 2017, and Need to Impeach and Proteus Fund only gave in 2018.

[6] Strangely, this group does not list any funders on its 990 form for 2017, giving to a group called “Democracy Action, Inc” in Austin, Texas, with searches only pulling up some corporation in Massachusetts with the same name, although I’m not sure its the same. A 2016 990 form shows them giving to the Richmond Progressive Alliance, and seems to paint them as Berniecrats. Interestingly, in 2015, they state they are based at P.O. Box 260 in Healdsburg, California and have relatively paltry expenses. The same is the case on forms from earlier years (2011-2013 and 2014-2015), although we learn that executive compensation originally comprised almost a third of their expenses in 2010, declining to less than 2% by 2014.

[7] For further information on that, please see page 262 of The Armed Forces: Instrument of Peace, Strength, Development and Prosperity which describes it as originally funded by the Office of Naval Research in 1995 and DARPA by 1997, pages from Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, a paper proposing the concept literally noting funding by the naval laboratory, possibly pages in Malware Analyst’s Cookbook and DVD, Yasha Levine’s “Almost Everyone Involved in Developing Tor was (or is) Funded by the US Government,” and Dune Lawrence’s “The Inside Story of Tor, the Best Internet Anonymity Tool the Government Ever Built.”

[8] Sources of this information are the websites of the CarEth Foundaton (see here for recent grantees), the Ford Foundation’s grantee database, the page on the MacArthur Foundation, and Park Foundation grantee listings (in 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009). There are claims the Rockefeller Family Fund gave to them, but their website is very limited in the information it provides. Similarly, the Samuel Rubin Foundation only has pages for grantees in 2017, 2018, and 2019, with FAIR not listed on any of those pages, while it is extremely hard to find information on the The Schumann Media Center, Inc, formerly known as Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. There are similar claims about the Stewart R. Mott Foundation, with their page only listing current grantees, with nothing about previous grantees, with the Streisand Foundation doing the same. Tides does something similarly, only listing their current “partners” and stories from certain partners. Working Assets, also known as CREDO Action, does not list them either, with their list of donors a mix and not giving any amounts. InfluenceWatch claims that the Benjamin Fund, Cloud Mountain Foundation, Craigslist Charitable Fund, Ploughshares Fund, and Quitiplas Foundation give them money.

[9] In this op-ed, Boot declares that RDI is “not just a conservative undertaking…[with its] manifesto…[not] limited to the problem confronting the United States…[and] issues a call to mobilize the forces of moderation,” further declaring that “Emmanuel Macron showed last year in France that it’s still possible for a centrist to prevail against the far left and far right,” adding that “the intellectual labor now going on to revitalize the center is necessary if we are to prevent our democracy from eroding even further as is now happening in Hungary and Poland,” a clearly imperialist argument. In a related opinion by Richard Hurowitz, he writes that “we are at a frightening moment” and grumbles that “it is critical for defenders of liberal democracy—no matter their personal political views—to unite and fight back against this rising tide,” saying this is “the mission of the Renew Democracy Initiative,” adding that they “believe in the importance of free trade and of rational immigration policy in powering prosperity, of free markets and individual choice, and of the post-war international system where national disputes can be settled by law and countries can together address global issues.” He goes on to ramble about how their group “seeks to rally those who demand a civil, effective government, where moderates of the left and right can come together to solve problems and respond to the needs of their citizens…[embracing] people of good will on all sides of the political spectrum who value the liberal democratic order…[and that they] aim to bring together the centrist majority to fix our government and repair our political dialogue by proving…that the best system for human governance is liberal democracy.”

[10] For their financial reports, see the original webpage, here.

[11] They also sent arms to Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, ROK, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

[12] As for Kim, he doesn’t even talk about foreign policy at all, declaring the opoid crisis is “a national security crisis that takes more lives than any war or conflict that we are engaged in,” without explaining what those conflicts are, while Andy Levin doesn’t include anything about war, but declares that we need to crack down on “violations by China and any others who do the same,” a jingoistic and sinophobic position, and seems to think one of the aspects “attacking” the U$ bourgeois democracy is “foreign interference” obviously a hidden Russophobic barb. In the meantime, Mike Levin says, in full jingoistic tenor, “America has been the greatest force for freedom and security that the world has ever known,” calling for more resources for the Marine Corps, declaring “we must always protect America, defend our interests and values, support human rights, and be resolute against terrorism” but that “war must be a last resort.” AOC declares she is into re-branding U$ imperialism, complaining that continued wars damage “America’s legitimacy as a force for good…and erodes American prosperity” while also saying “America should not be in the business of destabilizing countries” (even though she supports the overthrow of Nicolas Maduro), and says bringing U$ troops home can repair the “image” of the U$. Omar also strikes a supposedly anti-war tone, but is also into rebranding, centering U$ imperial policy “around human rights, justice, and peace…[and] limiting our global armed presence” which she only wants “scaled back,” ending sanctions and embargoes against countries. Porter seems to only be focused on Wall Street with no positions on her website as of yet, Newman supports the green capitalist Green New Deal, Raskin grumbles about the Iranians getting a “nuclear bomb” (which has never actually been a possibility), and Talib doesn’t even mention it at all, clearly concealing her foreign policy views.

[13] The CIA has hosted information sessions at Georgetown, had a workshop where CIA representatives gave interview tips, had a former CIA executive director as an “executive-in-residence,” and served as the location of the CIA’s “first public national security conference.” As for Columbia, the CIA literally funded “research projects…in the 1950s and ’60s, sometimes channeling funds through supposedly independent organizations such as the National Science Foundations” while UVA has a professor who formerly was the CIA inspector general, hosted a “panel of CIA attorneys…[to] discuss the role of the general counsel’s office…career opportunities at the CIA and how to strengthen your candidacy,” and had a seminar where former CIA Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash spoke.

[14] He also noted that “only fifteen days after the towers fell, CIA put the first American boots on the ground in Afghanistan, acting on orders from President Bush,” another example of the CIA’s tentacles at work.

[15] Behavioral scientist Caroline Orr describes an astroturfed social media campaign as one that works to sway public opinion in a coordinated manner “by manipulating people’s online behavior on multiple media outlets.” It does this by firstly exploiting “online algorithms to amplify certain content and push it onto people’s social media feeds and to the top of search engine results…using a high volume of tweets to drown out real, reasoned debate between humans and replace it with false content that pushes fringe or extreme viewpoints into the mainstream, ultimately hijacking and derailing public discourse…using divisive issues to widen existing cultural divides and promote infighting within a particular movement…[and] creating “manufactured consensus,” or the illusion of popularity, so that an idea or position without much public support appears more popular and mainstream than it actually is,” the latter which is definitely true in the case of many of these efforts. Astroturf efforts also push a “specific message into public debate by artificial means” which results in coverage of this issue as a “trending topic,” certain phrases and words showing up as “suggested search terms” or hashtags, and feedback loops where “suggested search terms attract users who follow and participate in current social media trends.”