As a child of the 1960s Kamala Harris and her rise to power came by way of having close affiliations with communist groups and through the help of communist affiliates like her parents, Black Panthers, elected officials John Burton and Willie Brown, leaders within the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in SF, and others. Using the Communist code word “progressive”, the advocacy efforts and practices of these individuals are undeniably aligned with Marxist, Leninist, Maoist, and Stalinist ideals.
Communism is popular only among people who in practice have not lived under it. Communism only benefits those who are in power.
“All the communist governments [have historically] persecuted their whole populations, all of them strove to terrorize and silence all sources of independent thought and life-for a very long time with great success-and several of them massacred many millions of their own subjects. In the Soviet Union, for example, Pravda and Izvestia have recently suggested that Stalinism accounted for some 50 million dead; in Rumania, and Bulgaria, conditions were unspeakable, indeed unimaginable; the suppression of Czechoslova, kia, Hungary, Poland are known about, though not well understood in the West.”
Evald, M. and Krygier, J. (2006) Marxism, Communism, and Narcissism. Law & Social Inquiry 15(4), 707-730. DOI:10.1111/j.1747-4469.1990.tb00602.x
It is well established that Kamala Harris’ father, mother, and sister, along with friends, a mentee, and affiliate groups are tied to promoting Marxist, Maoist, Leninist, and Stalinist communist ideologies. Many of Harris’ heroes were card carrying members of the Communist Party. Growing up as “a child of the civil rights movement” in Berkeley, Kamala Harris was surrounded and influenced during her formative years by openly professed communists.
Donald Harris, Kamala’s father, fancied himself as a practicing Marxist and frequently attended the Berkeley communist group Afro-American Association. There, Don Harris met and eventually married Shyamala Gopalan. Don Harris later became a professor in the Economics Department at Stanford University. While at Stanford he became a tenured professor in 1974 with the “help of fellow Marxists with the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE).”
While at Stanford, Harris published a book emphasizing class equity through increased government control and redistribution of wealth as his firmly held post-Keynesian belief system. In his 1965 article in The Kingston Gleaner and tribute to Malcolm X, Don Harris argued in favor of Malcolm X’s support for violence against any people who were subjectively believed to be “white racists”. However, in his subsequent writings Don Harris focused less upon racism and more upon his core belief that the root causes of inequality besetting blacks is primarily the evils of capitalism. Dr. Harris was also a consultant to Michael Manley within the communist regime in Jamaica after the People’s National Party stormed to power on a popular anti-imperialist and left-wing program.
From its inception the Afro-American Association praised and promoted their Marxist revolutionary “heroes” including Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to its members. Fidel Castro was a Marxist-Leninist and Secretary to the Communist Party.
Led by Donald Warden (aka Khalid al-Mansour, a mentor to Huey Newton), as well as Donald Hopkins, Otho Green, Henry Ramsey, and Aubrey LaBrie (Kamala Harris calls him “Uncle Aubrey”), by 1962 the group had grown to 150 members with a key focus upon “new concepts like colonialism, the negritude movement, Marxism, and Black nationalism.” In October, 1966, the group eventually became the Maoist inspired and communist based Black Panther Party under the guidance of Huey Newton and with direct contact and support from leadership in communist China. Following their return from a 1970s trip to communist China, Newton and others faced numerous criminal charges. Newton fled for 3 years to communist Cuba and was later convicted of killing a police officer.
In his book Black Marxism, Cedric Robinson and his connection to other Marxists like Donald Hopkins are clear. Robin D. G. Kelley writes in the forward:
“…an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley during the mid-1960s, Robinson was active in the Afro-American Association, a radical nationalist student group based in California’s East Bay and led by Donald Warden. Founded in 1962, the Association became the basis for the California chapter of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM); some of its members, including Huey Newton, went on to form the Black Panther Party” [Emphasis added]
Robinson, C.J. (1983). Black Marxism. Zed Press, reprinted by University of North Carolina, Forward XV-XVI.
Kamala’s parents met and married as members of a Berkeley communist group. Like her father, Kamala Harris studied economics. While enrolled at Howard University, Harris was a member of a program founded by black Marxist scholar Abram Lincoln Harris Jr., who argued that capitalism was morally bankrupt. Kamala Harris would later serve as President of the Abram Harris Economics Society.
Kamala’s sister Maya Harris while at Stanford University was a student activist and hung around other Marxist-Leninist advocates including Steve Phillips. Phillips was a member of the League of Revolutionary Struggle, and a frequent campaign supporter of Kamala Harris.
A look at those who helped Kamala Harris rise to power:
SF resident Dr. Carlton Goodlett, publisher of the Sun Reporter and California voice, traveled the globe to encourage progressive and communist causes. In the Spring term of 1945 Goodlett taught a course at the Communist School in San Francisco alongside the labor union Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union David Jenkins.
Goodlett and Phillip Burton (John Burton’s brother) founded the San Francisco Young Democrats, and both were instrumental in getting Willie Brown elected. Naming Brown the “Sun-Reporter Man of the Year” Goodlett financed Brown’s entire first political campaign in 1962. Between 1953 and 1971 the FBI compiled more than 600 pages of documentation of Burton’s “pro-communist” activities and his activities with David Jenkins and Willie Brown. Brown was closely linked with pro-communist organizations.
During the 1960s labor unions in San Francisco were riddled with communist members. Beginning in the 1920s, Communist activists had taken a strong interest in American trade unions and played a pivotal role in shaping the nature and promoting the advancement of the communist American labor union movement.
In his book Beginnings, Robert Burton wrote about his father Dr. Thomas Burton and interactions with David Jenkins. Jenkins recalled “Burton was pro-labor, but not a joiner. He had no use for the Communist Party.“
According to Jenkins, “We had played a role in his [Willie Brown’s] life from the beginning of his career. We had gone along and had been crucial to him. Our union was key in electing Willie Brown. We brought a hundred black longshoremen and warehousemen to do precinct work. Willie recently had his twenty-fourth anniversary, which I was invited to, along with ILWU leaders Leroy King and Jim Herman. It was one of the few anniversaries where we didn’t have to pay. Everybody who was there was in at the beginning. The guy most responsible was Revels Cayton. I was the legislative coordinator for the San Francisco and East Bay ILWU locals when Willie got elected. Our support was equally so with Phil. The ILWU did much of the leg work for Phil in precincts when he got his 51
percent to go on to the Congress.” Jenkins, D. (1988). Interview by L. Rubens. (Transcript of Tape Recording). International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union Oral History Series, UC Berkeley, at page 232.
Jenkins went on to say “We elected a brilliant black assemblyman. Look at what Willie Brown has become. He is a unique progressive wheeler-dealer in the state, for Christ’s sake.” Jenkins, D. (1988). Interview by L. Rubens. (Transcript of Tape Recording). International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union Oral History Series, UC Berkeley, at page 241.
Former California lawmaker John Burton (brother to Phillip Burton), Willie Brown, and Goodlett were instrumental in pushing Harris into the SF limelight. Brown, then 60, also dated Harris who was 29 at the time. As Speaker of the Assembly, Brown unilaterally appointed Harris to two high paying State boards.
While SF District Attorney, Harris mentored young San Francisco Radical Maoist activist Lateefah Simon. Simon was a member of the STORM Revolutionary Movement and is currently District 7 Director of the Bay Area Rapid Transit [BART] board. SImon has for decades been close friends with the founder of Black Lives Matter and renowned Marxist Alicia Garza, as well as STORM member and avowed Communist, Van Jones.
When she was elected to the US Senate, Kamala Harris appointed a Pro-Communist Senate Chief of Staff, Karine Jean-Pierre, who was active with the New York based Haiti Support Network that advocates for redistribution of the factories, the land, the banks, the stores as the foundations of the Haiti economy to change ownership to the underclass. This organization was aligned with pro-Communist China/Communist North Korea Workers World Party and supported Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the far-left Communist former president of Haiti and the radical Lavalas movement.
In her bid for President, Kamala Harris since June 2024 began utilizing and promoting known communist slogans of Fidel Castro. Harris repeatedly emphasized “Forward”. Fidel Castro used “Adelante”, the Spanish word meaning “Forward”.
Harris was also fond of pumping her right fist in the air and exclaiming “What can be, unburdened by the past.” In other words, the freeing one’s self from historical events.
As Karl Marx put it, “Le mort saisit le vif” (literally “The dead seize the living”). As the communist repository Charnel-House explains, “We suffer not only from the living, but from the dead” which is a variation of Marx’s “the dead holds the living in his grasp.” The attempt to distinguish between the meaning’s of the Marx quote and Harris’ quote “unburdened by the past” is like trying to dance upon the heat of a pin.
Harris’ Lackluster Response to Israel
In July, 2024, when Bibi Netanyahu visited Washington D.C. and addressed Congress, Kamala Harris would not be seen in public with the Prime Minister.
Harris did not meet Netanyahu at the airport and when Netanyahu spoke to Congress, Harris also did not attend the congressional address which she certainly could have done as Vice President.
Citing a campaign rally in Indianapolis, Harris’ representatives expressed their apologies and Harris agreed to later meet with Netanyahu behind closed doors. Appearances, you know?
Kamala Harris did not want to appear to be supportive of Israel. Soon after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Kamala Harris’ heroes, including black activists Malcolm X, militants from Black Panther Party, and Jessie Jackson, began to condemn Israeli actions. Many of Harris’ heroes even visited the Middle East to meet with Yasir Arafat.
Citing greedy Jewish landlords and shop keepers using money taken from the exploited [internal colony]black communities to fund Israeli crop planting and purchasing firearms for Israeli soldiers, many within the black community condemned Israel’s efforts.
“In many cases [landlords and real estate brokers] acquire their capital through a process of ‘primitive accumulation,’ that is, through deceptive manipulation of land titles of illiterate blacks, ‘legal’ seizures and outright theft.” Donald Harris (1972). THE BLACK GHETTO AS COLONY: A THEORETICAL CRITIQUE AND ALTERNATIVE FORMULATION at page 17.
The Black Power movement came out publicly as pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. Based upon anti-imperialism viewpoints, Harris’ heroes saw the conflict as a liberation struggle by Palestinians.
Fischbach, M.R. (2019) Black Power and Palestine. Stanford University Press.
On October 7, 2024, Hamas terrorists ventured into Israel and committee the most heinous atrocities upon Israeli civilians including women and children. Hamas terrorists took hostages, executed the innocent and unarmed, raped women, and have scoffed at numerous attempts to bring about resolution.
Meanwhile, Harris’ only response has been to say she supports a ceasefire and call for aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza (where Hamas leaders and other militants are being protected). A very safe and non-committal position for Harris to take.
Kamala Harris is a self-described Progressive
From her days as District Attorney to her 2020 bid for election, Harris is a self-described “Pragmatic Progressive“. But what is the historical basis and meaning behind using the term “Progressive”?
Progressivism has its historical basis in social movements including women’s suffrage, prohibition, and laborer rights in industrial settings which eventually became labor unions. But in the last hundred hears the term “progressive” has taken on a more euphemistic socialist and eventual communist spin.
Simply put, in politics Progressive is now used as a noun and is a code word for describing a person who dips a toe into socialism as a requiem to diving into communism. A Progressive now seeks to tear down colonialism and destabilize the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure. Under the guise of seeking democracy, the Progressive advocates for redistribution of wealth for the sake of socialism.
As the left-leaning Politico Magazine contributing editor Joshua Zeitz puts it, an argument could be made for progressive meaning “A top-down drive by politicians and businessmen to smooth out the sharper edges of industrial capitalism” and as a means to “blunt the appeal of socialism“. Historically, the Progressive movement has been divided over direct election of representatives and darker “antidemocratic tendencies” which only benefited those in power.
Communism is often used interchangeably with “progressive”.
Communist is often used interchangeably with “Progressive”.
The term “Progressive” is a euphemism because to say outright “we support communism” is recognized to have less public appeal and tends to elicit vehement opposition in many circles. So the poison of communism is spread one mouthful at a time by saying “Progressive” and intermixing it with some variety of “democrat”.
As used by progressives, “Progressive” is code for “Marxist Socialist” or Communist”. As socialist-leaning Dr. John P. David writes, “Progressive leaders wrote current books, such as W.E.B. DuBois… Kwame Nkrumah… and Richard Wright….”
“Progressive” W.E.B. DuBois and Richard Wright and are well established to have been devout communists and members of the Communist Party. Kwame Nkrumah was an avowed Marxist socialist. Presently, Dr. David is a director for the socialist entrenched Southern Appalachian Labor School which was formed on the basis of ideologies established by the Lovestoneites.
In a Communist Party USA April 17, 2024 call to action entitled “Forward Together”, the DC Young Communist League states “In order to advance the organization of progressive forces and achieve our Party Program’s stated goal of Socialism USA, our slogans must not only point out the path of struggle forward….”
The DC Young Communist League then proceeds to differentiate between the democratic and progressive movements as being separate but aligned, and needing a “militant and organized base” to advance the ultimate goal of socialism.
“The democratic and progressive masses want more than to fight one defensive election after the next. They want and need an offensive strategy for victory… [T]he class-conscious worker … understands the relation between the two struggles. He knows that there is no other road to socialism save the road through democracy, through political liberty. He therefore strives to achieve democracy completely and consistently in order to attain the ultimate goal — socialism.”
There is no doubt that Kamala Harris’s parents, sister, mentee, political promoters, friends, Chief of Staff, and mentors were disproportionately avowed affiliated Maoist, Marxist, and Leninist communists with strong ties to militant communist organizations with histories of violence as a means to their goals. Harris was the President of a society of Marxist communists in college. Harris publicly calls for Marxist ideals under thinly veiled code words. In numerous public speeches she has declared goals to engineer economic outcomes for blacks. “Everybody should end up in the same place,” she has argued, with the same income, property, and assets. Because blacks didn’t start in the same place, she explains, they “need more equitable distribution” under democratic socialism.
Harris Advocates for Redistribution of Wealth.
Harris continued, “[We must be] giving resources based on equity,” she’s said. “If you look at the reality of who will benefit from certain policies, when you take into account that they’re not starting at the same place, and they’re not starting on equal footing,” she added, “it will directly benefit black children, black families, black homeowners.”
In a 2021 interview with Forbes, Kamala argued that capitalism is based on the “false assumption” of equal opportunity. “What we have to do is recognize the disparities that have long existed” between whites and blacks and rich and poor, and close them through socioeconomic programs, such as affordable housing, guaranteed minimum wage, universal health care, and industrial policy initiatives. (YouTube Interview at 07:08 minutes)
Harris calls for “inclusive capitalism” which is merely a euphemism for Marxist socialism where government takes from the rich to give to the poor. As part of Harris’ various 2019 – 2024 platform statements, she admits to considering a tax as high as 80% for the rich, gifts of public taxpayer dollar forgivable loans to anyone who is a “black entrepreneur”, and gifts of up to $25,000 to black home buyers as a form of reparations.
For an economics major, Harris’ summary of capitalism is fatally flawed in that she incorrectly asserts capitalism is based upon the assumption that everyone starts out in the same place.
No, capitalism doesn’t make that baseless assumption. Capitalism assumes everyone who is interested may choose to exercise the freedom to create opportunities by ‘coming up with a better mousetrap’ or starting their own small business, pulling themselves up ‘by the bootstraps’ and through hard work, creativity, and dedication carving out a part of the economy for their product or service. If you want a business shining shoes, make a small investment in products and start shining shoes. No-one has to give you that opportunity and you don’t have to start in the same place as anyone else.
Stalin was also a Marxist. Communism only benefits those in power. Zealous, driven, often brilliant people deeply committed to implementing a body of ideas which they knew as Marxism are the beginnings of every communist regime.
For reasons which should be clear to any reasonable person, while Kamala Harris denies the unpopular communist affiliations for clearly negative political ramifications, the evidence is clear in her own slogans and public statements that communism has endured within her and tinted her world views.
BTW, Snopes denounces Kamala Harris being a communist. As one reads through Snopes’ rhetoric of twists and turns the ultimate reasoning rests upon the conclusion that:
1) Harris is registered as a democrat; and
2) other self-proclaimed communists subjectively state Harris doesn’t go far enough.
3) therefore Harris is not shown to be a communist progressive.
That’s Snopes for you.
The author of this website does not seek to distinguish between the terms socialist, democratic socialism, Marxist, Marxist-Leninist, communist, or Progressive because arguing the subtle nuances is like trying to dance upon the head of a pin. They all lead to the same inevitable disaster.