Ben Norton was invited to give this talk about the fake left and imperialism. He discusses how the CIA’s “woke” recruitment ad is not new; it is rooted in an “intersectional imperialist” history going back to the first cold war, in which the CIA poured money into cultivating anti-communist, pro-imperialist progressive groups, using fronts like the Congress for Cultural Freedom and billionaire-funded foundations like Ford and Rockefeller.
Ben goes through the book “The Cultural Cold War,” and talks about supposed “leftist” CIA assets like feminist leader Gloria Steinem and Trotskyite civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, then analyzes examples of astroturfed, Nonprofit Industrial Complex-backed pseudo-left campaigns in the US, Western Europe, and Latin America.
Video
Audio / podcast
Links / show notes
- Article “How the US gov’t cultivated environmental and Indigenous groups to defeat Ecuador’s leftist Correísta movement,” The Grayzone: thegrayzone.com/2021/05/04/ecuador-election-us-pachakutik-lasso-yaku
- Article “DSA/Jacobin/Haymarket-sponsored ‘Socialism’ conference features US gov-funded regime-change activists,” The Grayzone: thegrayzone.com/2019/07/06/dsa-jacobin-iso-socialism-conference-us-funded-regime-change
- Book “The Cultural Cold War The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters,” by Frances Stonor Saunders: thenewpress.com/books/cultural-cold-war
- Book “Killing Hope U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II,” by William Blum: williamblum.org/books/killing-hope
- Information on CIA/Ford Foundation-funded terrorist operations in East Germany:
This extremely important book The Cultural Cold War documents how the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation have long been "conscious instruments of covert US foreign policy, with directors and officers who were closely connected to, or even members of American intelligence" pic.twitter.com/SxbBPSHhlM
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) July 13, 2020
- Report “Did the CIA Drug Paul Robeson?–a Look at the Secret Program Mk Ultra,” Democracy Now: democracynow.org/1999/7/1/did_the_cia_drug_paul_robeson
- Article “Paul Robeson: the singer who fought for justice and paid with his life,” ABC: abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/intothemusic/paul-robeson/4691690
- NED tweet boasting of funding Uyghur separatist groups since 2004:
To further #humanrights & human dignity for all people in China, the National Endowment for Democracy has funded Uyghur groups since 2004. #NEDemocracy #HumanRightsDay https://t.co/C0LJEyWxq1 pic.twitter.com/OqZdehdxXN
— NEDemocracy (@NEDemocracy) December 10, 2020
- Ford Foundation in 2016 discusses its plans to co-opt the Black Lives Matter movement, “Why black lives matter to philanthropy”: fordfoundation.org/just-matters/just-matters/posts/why-black-lives-matter-to-philanthropy
- Publication Philanthropy New York in 2016, “Why Ford Foundation Is Underwriting Black Lives Matter”: philanthropynewyork.org/news/why-ford-foundation-underwriting-black-lives-matter
- Ford Foundation promoting Ford-funded Black Lives Matter “founder” Alicia Garza, “Alicia Garza on inequality and protecting workers”: fordfoundation.org/just-matters/ford-forum/inequalityis/alicia-garza-on-inequality-and-protecting-workers
- Book “Top Down: The Ford Foundation, Black Power, and the Reinvention of Racial Liberalism,” by Karen Ferguson: upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15142.html
- The summary of this important book follows:
At first glance, the Ford Foundation and the black power movement would make an unlikely partnership. After the Second World War, the renowned Foundation was the largest philanthropic organization in the United States and was dedicated to projects of liberal reform. Black power ideology, which promoted self-determination over color-blind assimilation, was often characterized as radical and divisive. But Foundation president McGeorge Bundy chose to engage rather than confront black power’s challenge to racial liberalism through an ambitious, long-term strategy to foster the “social development” of racial minorities. The Ford Foundation not only bankrolled but originated many of the black power era’s hallmark legacies: community control of public schools, ghetto-based economic development initiatives, and race-specific arts and cultural organizations.
In Top Down, Karen Ferguson explores the consequences of this counterintuitive and unequal relationship between the liberal establishment and black activists and their ideas. In essence, the white liberal effort to reforge a national consensus on race had the effect of remaking racial liberalism from the top down—a domestication of black power ideology that still flourishes in current racial politics. Ultimately, this new racial liberalism would help foster a black leadership class—including Barack Obama—while accommodating the intractable inequality that first drew the Ford Foundation to address the “race problem.
- “Woke” CIA recruitment video:
- Last but not least, the exclusive Moderate Rebels alternate cut of the CIA intersectional imperialist video:
We exclusively obtained the director's cut of the CIA's "woke" intersectional imperialist recruitment ad pic.twitter.com/CHPlR07Drr
— Moderate Rebels (@Moderate_Rebels) May 7, 2021