A 1965 cartoon shows a Communist Party Chinese official proclaiming, "We will fight to the last Vietnamese any U.S. Attempt for a Negotiated Peace." Black Lives Matter has made it equally clear that it will fight to the last professional athlete, actor, and "ally" to achieve its proclaimed goals of "revolution," "change," and "transformation." The so-called leaders of this organization also remind me of General Mireau in the movie Paths of Glory, in which generals in comfortable chateaus far from the battlefield order enlisted men into frontal attacks to advance the generals' careers. These manipulators are all willing to use and discard other people to achieve their ends.

Black Lives Matter Will Fight to the Last Professional Athlete

Black Lives Matter thanked the Milwaukee Bucks and other teams for going on strike in support of Jacob Blake, who was shot by a police officer after he resisted arrest and then reached into his car for something the cop couldn't see. A similar incident in Pennsylvania ended with an officer down with a severed femoral artery, and he is lucky to be alive.

Who misses a paycheck when the athletes go on strike—the staff of Black Lives Matter, or the players and coaches?  Do the "woke" socially progressive players and coaches care, in turn, about the ordinary working people who make the games possible by maintaining stadiums and fields? If the former don't work then neither do the latter and, unlike athletes who live in mansions, the working people can't afford to miss paychecks. The collapse of fan support for professional football underscores the basic principle that, to paraphrase Frank Herbert's Dune, "When politics and business ride in the same cart, only one survives to reach its destination."

Black Lives Matter Will Fight to the Last Actor and Supporting Worker

BLM's Patrisse Cullors has also asked Hollywood performers to join the strike to support Jacob Blake. Who misses a paycheck, and perhaps has an entire project fall through, if the performers strike; Cullors (assuming she draws a salary, I don't know), or the actors and producers? If producers realize that a performer might take a break to virtue signal instead of doing the job for which he or she might be paid six or seven figures, and thus delay completion of a movie, they would be well within their rights to not want to hire that person in the future.

What happens to the ordinary folks like the extras, prop managers, and camera operators who don't work when prima donna virtue signalers walk off the job? The celebrities are generally millionaires who don't really have to work if they don't want to, but the ordinary people who make their movies possible have families to support and mortgages or rent to pay. The extreme Left had told us repeatedly that revolution, change, and transformation justify "any means necessary" so harm to expendable pawns is just part of the price that needs to be paid—by everybody except BLM itself, of course. General Mireau stayed similarly as far as possible from No Man's Land so he wouldn't even get his fancy uniform dirty, much less risk a German bullet.

Black Lives Matter will Fight to the Last Fiscal Sponsor

BLM's new fiscal sponsor, the Tides Foundation, explains, "In a typical fiscal sponsorship relationship, a nonprofit organization confers its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status to groups that are engaged in activities that serve the host’s mission, typically for a fee." Tides adds under "Legal Fit" "To uphold Tides Center’s legal nonprofit status, to ensure all social ventures follow the IRS regulations, and to maintain compliance with the law, Tides Center’s staff monitors and maintains social venture finances, human resources, payroll, leases, contracts, and insurance."

My perception from this is that the Tides Foundation has entrusted Black Lives Matter with its own 501(c)(3) status (as did Thousand Currents prior to July), and that BLM has violated that trust by not only campaigning against President Trump but also seeking to influence the Democrats' selection of Biden's running mate. The Federalist's "BLM Co-Founder Appears To Violate IRS Laws On CNN" quotes campaign finance authority Cleta Mitchell and adds, "The Black Lives Matter Global Network and the IRS did not return requests for comment." The latter, if true, means BLM was informed of the potential problem but has not subsequently modified its behavior.

Tides' fiscal sponsorship of BLM looks (my perception and emphatically not legal or professional tax advice) like a re-grant model as depicted by the Leaffer Law Group. This seems to reduce the fiscal sponsor's liability because the grantee rather than the sponsor is the actual operator of the project. This sample re-grant agreement adds, however, "No portion of the Sponsored Program Funds shall be used to participate or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office." Cleta Mitchell elaborates, "BLM 'must comply with all the rules that govern 501(c)(3) organizations.'"

Here is a document from the Tides Foundation itself that is no longer online except at Archive.org, from the National Network of Fiscal Sponsors. The best practices include, "Injurious Activities. The fiscal sponsor expects that no project will knowingly engage in any activity that jeopardizes the sponsor’s corporate, nonprofit or tax-exempt status or otherwise create injurious liability." I cannot give legal or professional tax advice but my perception from the information in front of me is that BLM Global Network appears to be doing exactly that by campaigning against President Trump and also trying to dictate Biden's selection of a running mate.

Left-Wing Extremists Will Fight to the Last Innocent Bystander

Here is a video in which a swarm of thugs menace a female motorist, and apparently try to open her door so they can drag her out of her vehicle. A man in a black outfit who is running toward the car takes the front bumper squarely in his legs and flies into the air to come down hard. Pay close attention, however, to who did NOT get hit. The ones who were trying to assault the driver from the car's left side were not in the vehicle's path and were totally safe from the consequences of their actions, while individuals not involved in the attack could have easily been run over when the driver tried to escape.

We already know that, to paraphrase George Orwell, Black lives matter but some Black lives matter more than others. African-Americans whom left-wing extremists do not hesitate to call the N word or even murder are not among the the favored among equals. The movement as a whole does not care about any lives that are not convenient to its cause. It also does not appear to care what happens to its own supporters such as professional athletes, actors, the ordinary working people who support professional sports and theatrical productions, "allies," and also well-meaning peaceful demonstrators who get swept up in violence not of their own creation.

Civis Americanus is the pen name of a contributor who remembers the lessons of history, and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way. He or she is remaining anonymous due to the likely prospect of being subjected to "cancel culture" for exposing the Big Lie behind Black Lives Matter.

Image credit: YouTube screen shot from shareable Inside Edition video.