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Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

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The Tides Network is a powerful instrument leveraged by billionaires working to change America, while shielding their philanthropic dollars from public scrutiny. Here’s how it works.

In July of 2013, the seeds of the most powerful protest movement of the modern era were planted.

In a restless climate of nationwide demonstrations touched off by the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, an activist named Alicia Garza uttered the phrase “Black lives matter.” A few months later, in October 2013, Garza took a job with an organization called the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and the nonprofit immediately saw a dramatic increase in its funding from organizations tied to some of the wealthiest people in the world—people with names like Buffett, Soros, and Rockefeller.

This spring, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, the movement became a global interest: Some 1.1 million individual donations worth an estimated $33 million flowed into its coffers. Large corporations, especially in Silicon Valley and retail, have been quick to follow suit, with brands like Square, Ubisoft, Google, Spanx, Tom’s Shoes, Lululemon, Nike, and Anastasia Beauty all making six- and seven-figure organizational pledges.

The received wisdom, echoing the official mythology around Black Lives Matter Global Network Inc.—co-founded by Garza along with fellow activists Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors—is that BLM is a grassroots movement that rose up organically out of the widespread rage sparked by viral videos of Black American men killed by police officers. According to this account, the political priorities of activists in Brooklyn screaming at cops and calling to defund the police have been fused with those of suburban moms in Peloton T-shirts, hand-painting signs with their kids using the BLM hashtags of large multinational conglomerates—an unusual union of protesters and the corporate boardroom spurred on by nothing more than everyone’s shared outrage over racism.

There is, however, another version of events, in which the heartfelt dedication to racial justice is only the forward-facing side of a more complicated movement. Behind the street level activism and emotional outpouring is a calculated machinery built by establishment money and power that has seized on racial politics, in which some of the biggest capitalists in the world are financially backing a group of self-described “trained Marxists”—a label that Cullors enthusiastically applies to herself and the group’s other co-founders.

These bedfellows, whose stories and fortunes are never publicly presented as related, are in reality intertwined under the umbrella of a fiscal sponsor named the International Development Exchange. A modestly endowed West Coast nonprofit with origins in the Peace Corps—which for decades supported local farmers, shepherds, and agricultural workers across the Global South—IDEX has, in the past six years, been transformed into two distinct new things: the infrastructure back end to the Black Lives Matter organization in the United States and also, at the very same time, an investment fund vehicle driven by recruited MBAs and finance experts seeking to leverage decades of on-the-ground grantee relationships for novel forms of potentially problematic lending instruments. And it did so with help from the family of one of the most famous American billionaires in history—the Oracle of Omaha himself.

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Indeed, in 2013, after decades attending to the patient, detailed work of making grants to farmers in Guatemala, IDEX underwent a sudden transformation—just as the Black Lives Matter movement was beginning in earnest. For the decade prior, according to their financial disclosures, donor revenue to IDEX, which changed its name to Thousand Currents in 2016, remained in the modest six figures, often around $500,000 to $600,000 annually. But in 2013, IDEX received an unprecedented $450,000 in grant funding from a single source—raising from one donation about 73% of what the organization had taken in the year prior. That donor was NoVo, a social justice foundation formed in 2006 by Peter Buffett—the son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett—and Peter’s wife, Jennifer.

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To that end, IDEX—now Thousand Currents—became BLM’s official fiscal sponsor—an IRS designation wherein a government-sanctioned nonprofit can accept and manage tax-deductible donations on behalf of another organization that has not attained nonprofit status. In addition to managing BLM’s finances, Thousand Currents took over the movement’s “administrative and back office support, including finance, accounting, grants management, insurance, human resources, legal and compliance,” according to a Thousand Currents statement.

That year, NoVo donated another $3.08 million to Thousand Currents and another $4.9 million to NDWA. In keeping with its history of providing direct financial support to organizations that employed the leaders of the movement, NoVo also gave a $300,000 grant to Black Alliance for Just Immigration, which was then helmed by BLM co-founder Opal Tometi. Tometi did not respond to Tablet’s requests to comment for this article.

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If all these organizations and layers of administration seem a bit confusing and opaque, that is the point. Shuttling Black Lives Matter over to the Tides Network does more than shield Thousand Currents from intense inquiry. It allows BLM to join a massive repository of projects that can be administered behind extra layers of protection in the form of donor-advised funds, which allow donors to anonymously fund projects while still reaping tax benefits, and multiple organizational shells which include the Tides Network, Tides Center, Tides Foundation, and a slew of other incorporated nonprofit shell organizations which are housed within a single institutional silo. There, they are overseen by a small band of executives who operate with virtually no outside scrutiny—and can coordinate and leverage the political, social, and financial opportunities that these projects create for whatever forms of gain their donors decide to prioritize.

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On Saturday, October 17, 2020, at approximately 12:20 PM, San Francisco Police officers responded to the area of Leavenworth and McAllister Streets for a report of an aggravated assault. Officers met with a 25-year-old male victim who identified himself as the victim of the assault. The victim told officers he was participating in a free speech rally at UN Plaza when he was punched in the face by an unknown suspect. The assault caused the victim to lose two teeth. The SFPD Night Investigations Unit and Special Investigations Unit led the investigation.

Investigators developed information that led to the identity of the suspect in the assault. The suspect was identified as 35-year-old Adora Anderson of Watsonville. On Sunday, October 18, 2020, at approximately 2:53 PM, Adora Anderson was taken into custody by San Francisco Police officers in Oakland, CA. Adora Anderson was transported to San Francisco County Jail where he was booked on charges of mayhem (203 PC) and a hate crime enhancement (422.75(a) PC).

While an arrest has been made, this remains an open investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call the SFPD 24 Hour Tip Line at 1-415-575-4444 or Text a Tip to TIP411 and begin your text message with SFPD. You may remain anonymous.

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Originally posted by corsair:
Looks like SFPD made an arrest of the guy who knocked-out the two front teeth of the Team Save America leader.

A white guy, covered in a balaclava, arguing against facism, knocks-out the teeth of a black man, who's arguing for free speech....can't make this shit up

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Originally posted by corsair:
Wonder where the funding for BLM is coming from?

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Originally posted by ersatzknarf:

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Originally posted by corsair:
Wonder where the funding for BLM is coming from?

Amazing article. Thank you.

So, the rich who want to destroy this country are able to do so with tax breaks....

Great

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The various funds that support such activity, is a reminder of the wealthy, white collar ideologues from another era such as Sargent Shriver, John Lindsay, and Ted Kennedy.

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Originally posted by icom706:
Got to participate in an afternoon of Sheriff Office joint LEO 'crowd control' exercises, in my volunteer role for my local Sheriff's office.

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This is also where the shooter event happened - of course on the Trump side. Took the first group 5 secs to realize / id / responds to the shooter..

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Originally posted by RichardC:

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Originally posted by icom706:
Got to participate in an afternoon of Sheriff Office joint LEO 'crowd control' exercises, in my volunteer role for my local Sheriff's office.

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This is also where the shooter event happened - of course on the Trump side. Took the first group 5 secs to realize / id / responds to the shooter..

Ummm, who was the bad guy, the Trump supporter, or one of the peaceful protestors?