The Women's March movement has received fawning and forgiving establishment press attention, particularly from the Associated Press and New York Times, since its first official event the day after President Donald Trump's inauguration.
Now the movement appears to be (or at least should be) self-immolating for several reasons, most recently its unapologetic support for a 1970s convicted cop killer. That controversy has even pulled in the Black Lives Matter movement, which has also received consistent and undeserved favorable press treatment, also exposing BLM once again as consistently, violently radical. Now the AP and the Times aren't covering either group's direct association with this controversy.
Both the AP and the Times have led the establishment press in whitewashing the truth about the positions, leadership, and funding of the Women's March and BLM for the past six months and three years, respectively, while selectively covering their events and pronouncements. Neither outfit is a legitimate grassroots movement in any way, shape or form.
Sunday afternoon, the Women's March's official Twitter account took off the mask just long enough to ruin itself in the eyes of anyone who genuinely believes in nonviolence. It started with a tweet wishing happy Birthday to the "revolutionary" Assata Shakur:
The tweet received harsh pushback for honoring a woman who was a member of the 1970s Black Liberation Movement, a movement which "was responsible for the murders of more than 10 police officers around the country." Shakur herself was convicted in 1977 of the first-degree murder of officer Werner Foerster and seven other felonies relating to a 1973 shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike. Shakur, whose original name was Joanne Chesimard, escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba in 1984, receiving political asylum from that communist island. The FBI has had Shakur on its Most Wanted Terrorist List since 2013.
The Women's March, which claims that it "is committed to dismantling systems of oppression through nonviolent resistance," responded furiously to its critics Monday evening with a 20-tweet defense of its cop-killer birthday wish. Here are the lowlights:
- (Tweet 5) Shakur was "a civil rights leader who used her leadership position to challenge sexism within the Black Liberation Movement."
- (Tweet 6) Her "resistance tactics were different from ours. That does not mean that we do not respect her anti-sexism work."
- (Tweet 7) She "took a militant approach. We do not. That does not mean we don't respect and appreciate her anti-racism work."
- (Tweet 19) "We say all this not to say that #AssataShakur has never committed a crime, and not to endorse all of her actions."
- (Tweet 20) "We say this to demonstrate the ongoing history of government & right-wing attempts to criminalize and discredit political activists."
Please. The Black Liberation Movement was nothing more and nothing less than a pack of murderous, bloodthirsty revolutionaries dressing up their violent impulses in that era's language of political correctness — but the Women's March says Shakur deserves a pass because she "fought sexism" among her fellow thugs and was supposedly "anti-racism." (And where exactly is the tangible support for those claims?)
The Women's March, in its rant against the "right-wing," somehow forgets that it's the decidedly left-wing Obama administration's FBI which put Shakur on the Most Wanted Terrorists List, and that New Jersey was a Democratic Party stronghold during the time of her mid-1970s trial, having both a governor and attorney general from that party.
The Women's March thus appears to be exposing its real definition of "right-wing," namely "anyone and any group holding a political position which won't forgive unrepentant cop-killers." That's a vast majority of the U.S. population, positioning the genuine beliefs of the Women's March far on the outer fringes.
Black Lives Matter confirmed its presence on the outer fringes when co-founder Alicia Garza picked a Twitter fight with CNN's Jake Tapper over his "cop-killer" characterization of Shakur
Garza was merely reiterating BLM's already-expressed position on Shakur. In November, in its officially sanctioned tribute to communist Cuban dictator Fidel Castro after his death posted at Medium.com, BLM thanked Castro for protecting violent black fugitives from American justice:
... we are particularly grateful to Fidel for holding Mama Assata Shakur, who continues to inspire us. We are thankful that he provided a home for Brother Michael Finney, Ralph Goodwin, and Charles Hill, asylum to Brother Huey P. Newton, and sanctuary for so many other Black revolutionaries who were being persecuted by the American government during the Black Power era.
Thus, BLM is all-in with the entire violent group of 1970s black domestic terrorists.
Searches done late Wednesday evening at the Associated Press's main national site on "Assata Shakur" (not in quotes) and "Chesimard" (both without quote marks returned nothing and nothing, respectively. The most recent AP-generated story on Shakur at APnews.com is from mid-June, when the Trump administration demanded that Cuba return Shakur (Cuba quickly refused).
Though a search at AP on "black lives matter" (not in quotes), returned eight recent items, adding "Shakur" to that search dropped that number of results to zero.
The last mention of Assata Shakur found in a search on her name at the New York Times was July 8, well before the Women's March's de facto endorsement of her as a heroine occurred. But the Times did mention her in its coverage of the January Women's March, showing a photograph of a man with a photo of Shakur on his shirt. The man, named Bishop Walker and said to be a sixth-grade teacher, described Shakur as someone "who I look up to" and who "inspired me to become a teacher." (Our kids are in the best of hands, aren't they?) The caption at the Times photo only described Shakur as an "activist."
At National Review, David French noted how the press was not at all reluctant last week to falsely describe the Alliance Defending Freedom as a "hate group" with no genuine basis whatsoever, while groups on the left which flaunt their violence and hate have received a pass for years:
... these radical groups enjoy the best of both worlds, maintaining the mainstream-media credibility that allows them to raise money and capture the support of millions while also applauding and sustaining a far more dangerous fringe. Reasonable Americans march. Well-meaning Americans donate. Radicals profit.
It’s time for the rest of the media to join (Jake) Tapper, awaken from its anti-Trump trance, apply the same scrutiny to the Left as it does to the Right, and report the sad truth. Two of America’s most well-known #Resistance groups claim nonviolence but applaud terrorists. Liberal Americans, they haven’t earned your support — and they don’t deserve your respect.
And to be consistent with their treatment of Republicans and conservatives, the establishment press should be asking every leftist politician who has publicly supported the Women's March and Black Lives Matter if they will denounce the positions on Shakur taken by those two groups, and if they will disown their support for them if those groups fail to alter their stance.
Even if they don't, it's safe to say that an ever-growing plurality and perhaps even a majority of Americans have caught on to the press's dishonest game, and that the coverups aren't working nearly as well as they used to.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
