Look Who Funds The Group Behind The Call To Arms At Milo’s Berkeley Event
The left-wing group that helped organize the violent shut down of the Milo Yiannopoulos event at the University of California, Berkeley on Wednesday is backed by a progressive charity that is in turn funded by George Soros, the city of Tucson, a major labor union and several large companies.
The Alliance for Global Justice, based in Tucson, is listed as an organizer and fiscal sponsor for Refuse Fascism, a communist group that encouraged left-wingers to shut down the Yiannopoulos event.
The call to arms succeeded. Yiannopoulos’ talk was cancelled after demonstrators lit fires, vandalized businesses, and assaulted Donald Trump and Yiannopoulos supporters.
Refuse Fascism, which includes Princeton professor Cornel West as one of its founding “initiators,” defended the response,
issuing a statement on its website that called the shut down “righteous.”
And
on its Facebook page, the group asserted that the vandalism and arson were not “violence.”
According to its most recent 990 tax form, Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ) received $2.2 million in funding for the fiscal year ending in March 2016.
One of the group’s biggest donors is the Tides Foundation, a non-profit funded by billionaire progressive philanthropist George Soros. Tides gave AfGJ $50,000.
Other notable donors include the city of Tucson and the United Steel Workers labor union. The former gave $10,000 to AfGJ while the latter contributed $5,000.
Patagonia.org, the outdoor apparel and equipment company, gave $40,000. The Ben & Jerry Foundation, the charity associated with the ice cream maker, gave $20,000. And Lush Cosmetic gave $43,950. The New World Foundation gave $52,000 to AfGJ.
