The divisive impact of Henry Ford’s wealth on American society
It’s November 2023, and, following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas terrorists that killed some 1,400 Israelis and at least 31 Americans, thousands of demonstrators march through New York City, calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Chants of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” echo through the streets, along with: “There is only one solution: intifada revolution.”
Among the crowd is the infamous Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour, who warns through a megaphone that a cabal of wily Jews has conspired to place “their little posters” (of kidnapped Israeli civilians) across the city, seeking to entice people to rip them down.
While many onlookers might look like “ordinary people,” she says, the Jews have “their little people all around the city,” surveilling others.
Sarsour is there to deliver such rhetoric in part because she’s been paid to be there. Her nonprofit, MPower Change, has received $300,000 in grant funding from the Ford Foundation “to build grassroots Muslim power.”
It’s May 2023, and protesters have stormed the Capitol building in Washington, DC, to demand that lawmakers not accept spending cuts during negotiations to lift the debt ceiling. Many are so disruptive that the police arrest them and drag them out.
These are activists of the Center for Popular Democracy, an extreme left-wing organization that has collected $35.2 million from the Ford Foundation since 2012.
Four months later they will be imitated by 150 youth activists from “climate revolution” group the Sunrise Movement, 18 of whom will be arrested after occupying the speaker of the House’s office.
The Sunrise Movement also receives Ford Foundation money — $650,000 for “training and organizing.”
No cause off-limits
It’s April 2023, and, a world away, the China Development Research Foundation (CDRF), a think tank set up and directed by the Chinese state, is hosting a conference in Beijing to discuss how to “promote the formation of an internationally accepted ESG system with Chinese characteristics,” including through China’s globe-spanning influence and infrastructure plan, the Belt and Road Initiative.
But this effort by America’s top geopolitical adversary isn’t too far afield for the Ford Foundation to fund; it has given CDRF $600,000 to help realize its ambitions.
