Secretive China-Linked Socialist Groups Had Fingerprints All Over BLM-Adjacent Riots: Schweizer
While most people know that BLM was largely behind the 2020 riots that followed the death of George Floyd, author Peter Schweizer has uncovered an angle we did not see coming.
According to Schweizer's book, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans, many of the seemingly spontaneous riots were actually organized by members of little-known radical organizations backed and funded by China, Breitbart News reports.
One of the groups, the 'secretive pro-Beijing' Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), gave rise to an offshoot called Liberation Road - of which alleged member Montague Simmons founded the Organization for Black Struggle (OBS). Simmons would later admit during a presentation that he brought some 10,000 out-of-state activists to participate in the protest.
According to left-wing author Max Elbaum - who wrote the definitive history of the radical movement, FRSO has an extensive history of taking "their cues from Beijing."
Schweizer writes that beginning with Ferguson, FRSO activists played an important role in the next half decade in pushing protests toward violence.
When the Black Lives Matters (BLM) protests broke out in May 2020 following the death of George Floyd, FRSO members’ fingerprints were all over them.
Weeks after the BLM protests broke out in Minneapolis, FRSO political secretary Steff Yorek’s wife Jess Sundin bragged about organizing night rallies and emptying the police station, Target, and other major stores, calling it “absolutely tied to, connected to, and part of the movement.”
“I can’t tell you the joy it brought all of us to see the Third Precinct destroyed,” she said. -Breitbart News
In August 2020, FRSO member Michael Sampson was involved in rioting in Kenosha, Wisconsin - where the organization has a chapter. Sampson also organized a protest in Jacksonville, Florida.
In 2022, FRSO openly pledged its support for the Chinese Communist Party, writing in a letter:
Dear Comrades,
Freedom Road Socialist Organization congratulates the leadership of the Communist Party of China, with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, for the great successes achieved at the 20th National Congress. . . . Socialist China is an example to oppressed people everywhere who yearn for a better future. Again, congratulations on a successful 20th Congress. The CPC is truly a great political party that has proven its ability to do great things. Long live the Communist Party of China! Long live the unity between the people of China and the people of the U.S.!
With fraternal greetings.
Another secretive group with ties to Beijing is the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), which has contributed to the social disunity in America since Ferguson.
PSL member and the national director of the ANSWER Coalition, Brian Becker, framed the Ferguson protests as a "rebellion." The group (PSL) distributed flyers throughout Ferguson claiming "There can be no peace with this system! . . . The Party for Socialism and Liberation stands with those in the streets—they have every right to rebel. . . . the system is criminal . . . The cops are the real gangs."
According to Becker - who has defended the CCP for the Tiananmen Square Massacre 'that wasn't' while slamming police brutality in America, it's the "responsibility of all revolutionaries and progressive people to resist the imperialist offensive and offer militant political defense of the Chinese government."
Becker was even interviewed by CCP-funded outlet the Global Times for a piece titled "China’s Socialist Goals a Source of Inspiration to Those Who Seek a Humanist Alternative: AntiWar Socialist."
He also appeared on Chinese state-owned media where he criticized the United States while defending the CCP.
Another PSL leader, Eugene Puryear of Washington DC, was actively involved in the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis, Philadelphia and DC. Puryear has similarly heaped praise on China, and even hosted a podcast episode entitled: "Why China Will Win: Capitalism Inherently Collapses." He's also referred to criticism of China's human rights record as "warmongering propaganda."
According to the report:
PSL also organized a protest in Denver in July 2020, where a mob of 600 people surrounded the Aurora Police Department’s District 1 station and barricaded it for more than seven hours. Four PSL members were arrested and charged with inciting and engaging a riot.
PSL also organized some of the largest demonstrations in Philadelphia, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The paper “failed to inform its readers about PSL’s close ties to Beijing or the organization’s defense of more extensive and widespread police brutality in China,” Schweizer writes. -Breitbart News
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