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Once a Terrorist

The Legacy of Marxist Terror: How the Left’s Violent Rhetoric Threatens Today

Joanne Chesimard murdered New Jersey State Police Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973

The violent rhetoric emanating from the American Left in 2025, epitomized by the assassinations of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione and conservative activist Charlie Kirk by Tyler Robinson, is not a spontaneous outbreak but a direct descendant of the revolutionary Marxist terror glorified during the late 1960s and 1970s. Figures such as Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur), Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, and the Weather Underground, whose heinous crimes were reframed as acts of liberation, have been romanticized by progressive institutions, elected officials, and media gatekeepers. This glorification, bolstered by the Left’s entrenched institutional power-amplified through decades of censorship and deplatforming until Elon Musk’s transformative 2022 acquisition of Twitter-has forged a perilous cultural pipeline that elevates Marxism over justice. I contend that this Marxism represents a denomination of Moloch worship, a ritualistic sacrifice of lives and values to an ideological deity, with transgender advocacy serving as a calculated communist recruitment drive to radicalize youth. Joanne Chesimard, whose legacy was resurrected by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) just two days after her death on September 25, 2025, encapsulates this disturbing evolution. A robust legal, political, and cultural counteroffensive is urgently required to drive this ideology back into the shadowy depths from which it emerged.

A Legacy of Leftist Lunatics

Joanne Chesimard

Trooper Werner Foerster Memorial

The origins of this violence can be traced to the late 1960s and 1970s, a period when Marxist revolutionaries committed acts that are now perversely celebrated. On May 2, 1973, around 12:45 a.m., New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster, a 32-year-old officer, was killed during a violent shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike near the New Brunswick barracks after Trooper James H. Harper stopped a white Plymouth with Vermont plates, driven by Clark Squire (Sundiata Acoli) with passengers Zayd Malik Shakur and Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur), members of the Black Liberation Army, for a broken taillight and driving without headlights. Harper, noticing a registration discrepancy, ordered Squire out of the vehicle, and Foerster, arriving as backup, began questioning him at gunpoint while Harper approached the passengers; suddenly, gunfire erupted-prosecutors claimed the occupants fired first, with Zayd Shakur shooting Harper in the left shoulder and arm, and Squire wounding Foerster multiple times in the chest and abdomen with a .32-caliber revolver. During the chaotic exchange, Zayd Shakur was fatally shot by Foerster’s .38-caliber service weapon, Harper fled wounded to the barracks, and Foerster, gravely injured on the ground, was allegedly executed by Chesimard, who prosecutors said took Foerster’s revolver and shot him twice in the head at point-blank range, though no fingerprints were found on the weapon and no gunpowder residue was detected on her hands. Chesimard, wounded in the shoulder and arm (possibly by friendly fire or Harper’s return shots), was arrested at the scene with a nine-millimeter pistol nearby, while Squire fled but was captured hours later; the prosecution’s case, supported by Harper’s testimony and ballistics evidence, led to Chesimard’s 1977 conviction for first-degree murder under an aiding-and-abetting statute, despite her claim of surrendering with raised hands and being framed as a targeted Black radical.

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Officer Daniel Faulkner

On December 9, 1981, around 3:51 a.m., Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, a 25-year-old five-year veteran, was killed during a violent encounter following a routine traffic stop at 13th and Locust Streets in Center City, Philadelphia, leading to the conviction of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a 27-year-old taxi driver, journalist, and former Black Panther, for first-degree murder. Faulkner had stopped a Volkswagen Beetle driven by Abu-Jamal’s brother, William Cook, for a minor traffic violation, and a physical altercation ensued between Faulkner and Cook. According to prosecutors, Abu-Jamal, who was nearby in his cab, ran across the street, drew a legally registered .38-caliber Charter Arms revolver, and shot Faulkner in the back; as Faulkner fell and returned fire, wounding Abu-Jamal in the chest, Abu-Jamal allegedly stood over the officer and fired multiple additional shots at close range, one fatally striking Faulkner in the face. Police arriving moments later found Faulkner dead with five bullet wounds, Abu-Jamal wounded on the curb, and his revolver, with five spent cartridges, nearby. Eyewitnesses, including Cynthia White and Robert Chobert, testified that Abu-Jamal shot Faulkner, and two officers and a hospital security guard claimed Abu-Jamal confessed in the hospital, saying, “I shot the motherfucker, and I hope he dies,” though this was undocumented until months later. Abu-Jamal, maintaining his innocence, claimed he was shot by Faulkner before any altercation and suggested a third party may have fled the scene, but the jury convicted him in 1982 based on the eyewitness accounts, ballistics evidence linking the bullets to a .38-caliber gun, and the alleged confession, despite later defense claims of coerced witnesses, biased policing, and an unfair trial tainted by racial and political factors.

Leonard Peltier

FBI Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams

On June 26, 1975, FBI Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams, both in their late 20s, were killed in an execution-style shooting during a violent confrontation at the Jumping Bull compound on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, leading to the 1977 conviction of Leonard Peltier, a 30-year-old American Indian Movement (AIM) member, for their murders. The agents, driving separate unmarked cars, had entered the compound to serve arrest warrants for robbery and assault, following a red pickup truck they believed carried the suspects; as they trailed the vehicle, gunfire erupted from multiple positions within the AIM camp, where Peltier and others were armed with rifles, including an AR-15 later linked to him. Coler and Williams, equipped only with service revolvers, were quickly overwhelmed, with Coler shot in the torso and arm and Williams in the arm and torso, leaving them incapacitated near their vehicles in an open field. According to prosecutors, Peltier and another individual approached the wounded agents, and Peltier fired fatal close-range .223-caliber shots to their heads-Coler through the jaw and skull, Williams through the face, severing his fingers as he raised his hand defensively-as confirmed by autopsies and ballistic evidence tying a shell casing to an AR-15 associated with Peltier, though the rifle’s firing pin match was inconclusive due to damage. The shootout also killed AIM member Joseph Stuntz, and Peltier fled to Canada, later extradited; his defense claimed self-defense, arguing the agents’ arrival sparked fear of an FBI attack amid Pine Ridge’s tense climate, but the jury, relying on ballistic evidence, witness accounts placing Peltier at the scene with the rifle, and his flight, convicted him of two counts of first-degree murder despite controversies over witness coercion and FBI misconduct. Peltier’s life sentence was commuted by autopen on January 20, 2025 in the final moments of the Biden-Harris administration

The Weather Underground

Peter Paige, Waverly L. “Chipper” Brown, and Edward J. O’Grady, Jr.

The Weather Underground’s campaign of revolutionary violence, driven by leaders like Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn to overthrow the U.S. government in opposition to the Vietnam War and systemic racism, unleashed a series of bombings that, while causing no deaths after the 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion killed three of their own members-Ted Gold, Diana Oughton, and Terry Robbins-inflicted significant property damage and terrorized communities by targeting government symbols like the U.S. Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972, acts that echoed the destructive intent later seen in the 9/11 attacks’ targeting of government and economic landmarks. The group’s most lethal action came in the 1981 Brink’s robbery in Nyack, New York, involving former members Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert alongside the Black Liberation Army, which resulted in the brutal deaths of three victims: Peter Paige, a Brinks security guard killed in the initial ambush, and Nyack police officers Waverly L. “Chipper” Brown and Edward J. O’Grady, Jr., fatally shot in a subsequent shootout, leaving families shattered and a community reeling from the violence of a failed $1.6 million heist meant to fund radical activities. The earlier bombings, designed to disrupt government operations, sowed fear and destruction despite advance warnings, contributing to a legacy of terror that destabilized public trust, much like the broader impact of later terrorist acts. By the 1990s, Ayers and Dohrn, then Chicago academics, crossed paths with Barack Obama’s early political career, co-hosting a 1995 Hyde Park event to introduce Obama as State Senator Alice Palmer’s successor and collaborating with him on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which purported to enhance student outcomes, but instead was a misguided and ideologically driven effort that squandered resources, prioritized progressive agendas over measurable results, and served as a platform for advancing radical political networks. The Weather Underground’s actions, particularly the Brink’s murders, left an indelible mark of loss and fear, with the deaths of Paige, Brown, and O’Grady underscoring the human cost of their militant campaign and its reckless assault on societal stability.

These acts, once universally condemned, have been transformed into symbols of resistance within Leftist circles, a transformation I argue mirrors the ancient Moloch worship-sacrificing human lives to appease a ruthless ideological construct.

Sunlight from a Sense of Congress

This romanticization is starkly illustrated by the CTU’s post, which lauds Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur) as a “revolutionary fighter” despite her criminal history, a stance that echoes Rep. Maxine Waters’ ideological pivot. Waters initially supported H.Con.Res.254, a 1998 resolution demanding Joanne Chesimard’s extradition, but later retracted her vote with a letter to Fidel Castro that not only demonstrated her desire for Marxism over justice but also glaringly exposed her own stupidity. The full text of H.Con.Res.254, passed by the 105th Congress, states:

H. CON. RES. 254

Expressing the sense of the Congress that the Government of Cuba should extradite to the United States convicted felon Joanne Chesimard and all other individuals who have fled the United States to avoid prosecution or imprisonment for serious crimes and who are living freely in Cuba.

Whereas Joanne Chesimard was convicted in a New Jersey court of the first-degree murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster on May 2, 1973, and was sentenced to life in prison;

Whereas Joanne Chesimard escaped from prison with assistance from members of the Black Liberation Army in November 1979 and fled to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum by the Government of Cuba;

Whereas Joanne Chesimard has been on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted Terrorist list since May 2, 2005;

Whereas the Government of Cuba should respect the rule of law and the rights of the victims of Joanne Chesimard’s criminal acts by extraditing her to the United States to complete her prison sentence; and

Whereas the Government of Cuba should extradite to the United States all other individuals who have fled the United States to avoid prosecution or imprisonment for serious crimes and who are living freely in Cuba: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that the Government of Cuba should extradite to the United States convicted felon Joanne Chesimard and all other individuals who have fled the United States to avoid prosecution or imprisonment for serious crimes and who are living freely in Cuba.

In contrast, Waters’ grovelling apology letter to Fidel Castro on September 29, 1998, reveals her Marxist leanings and intellectual shortcomings:

Letter from Rep. Maxine Waters to Fidel Castro

September 29, 1998

President Fidel Castro
Central Committee
Plaza de la Revolucion
Habana, Cuba

Dear President Castro,

I am writing to clarify my position on a resolution recently passed by the United States House of Representatives on September 14, 1998.

I, and some of the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, mistakenly voted for House Concurrent Resolution 254 which called on the Government of Cuba to extradite to the United States Joanne Chesimard and all other individuals who have fled the United States from political persecution and received political asylum in Cuba. Joanne Chesimard was the birth name of a political activist known to most Members of the Congressional Black Caucus as Assata Shakur.

For the record, I am opposed to the resolution.

By way of explanation, the Republican leadership quietly slipped this bill onto the accelerated suspension calendar last week as one of thirteen (13) bills that had been announced that same day. The suspension calendar is supposed to be reserved for non-controversial legislation like naming federal buildings and post offices. But, the Republican leadership chose to push this provision in an apparent effort to look tough on Cuba for The November elections.

As evidence of their deceptive intent, the resolution did not mention Assata Shakur, but chose to only call her Joanne Chesimard.

Unfortunately, none of our offices were alerted to the fact that this legislation was coming up for a vote by any of the numerous advocacy groups that monitor related issues.

Once I discovered the nature of this deception, I prepared a statement of opposition, which I delivered on the floor the next day. I unequivocally stated that a mistake was made and I would have voted against the legislation.

Allow me to explain why I am opposed to this measure.

I support the right of all nations to grant political asylum to individuals fleeing political persecution. The United States grants political asylum to individuals from all over the world who successfully prove they are fleeing political persecution. Other sovereign nations have the same right, including the sovereign nation of Cuba.

Although there are Members of Congress that may disagree with particular decisions made by other sovereign governments regarding political asylum, it is the inviolate right of legitimate governments to grant asylum pursuant to the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I will fight to maintain the ability of political refugees to find asylum in United States and respect the right of other governments to be able to grant political asylum. Just as we maintain the right to grant political asylum for individuals from Cuba, we must respect the right of the government of Cuba to grant political asylum for individuals from the U.S. fleeing political persecution.

I believe that the current thirty-seven year embargo on Cuba is a relic of a Cold War past, now over, and is primarily hurting the poor and working people of Cuba. I was encouraged by the words of the Pope in his visit to Cuba this year, and look forward to a new era of US-Cuban relations. Part of these efforts include work to allow humanitarian and medical aid for Cuba.

The second reason I oppose this measure is because I respect the right of Assata Shakur to seek political asylum. Assata Shakur has maintained that she was persecuted as a result of her political beliefs and political affiliations. As a result, she left the United States and sought political asylum in Cuba, where she still resides.

In a sad and shameful chapter of our history, during the 1960s and 1970s, many civil rights, Black Power and other politically active groups were secretly targeted by the FBI for prosecution based on their political beliefs. The groups and individuals targeted included Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, officials of the American Friends Service Committee, National Council of Churches and other civil rights, religious and peace movement leaders.

However, the most vicious and reprehensible acts were taken against the leaders and organizations associated with the Black Power or Black Liberation Movement. Assata Shakur, was a member of the Black Panther Party, one of the leading groups associated with the Black Liberation Movement. The Black Panther Party was the primary target of U.S. domestic government political harrassment and persecution during this era.

This illegal, clandestine political persecution was wrong in 1973, and remains wrong today.

I hope that my position is clear. I hope to see a new era of U.S.-Cuban relations in the future.

Sincerely,

[signature]

Maxine Waters, Chair
Congressional Black Caucus

Waters’ defense of Cuba’s Marxist regime over justice for Foerster, coupled with her naive justification of slipping this bill onto a non-controversial calendar and her failure to anticipate its implications, underscores her ideological bent and exposes her intellectual ineptitude. This pattern is mirrored by the CTU and the broader glorification of these terrorists. This is why recorded votes and the Congressional Record are vital.

The Left as a Monolith

The monolithic Obama Library under construction.

The Left’s institutional power has magnified this Marxist-Moloch connection. Radicals like Bill Ayers, a Weather Underground leader turned University of Illinois at Chicago professor, and Waters, a long-serving congresswoman, have embedded this ideology in academia and politics. Until Musk’s 2022 Twitter acquisition, the Left dominated information as media gatekeepers and social media censors. Censorship included Facebook suppressing Eric Ciaramella’s identity during the 2019 Trump impeachment despite it being public record, YouTube removing COVID-19 dissent under Biden administration pressure, shadowbanning 2020 election questions from the right while tolerating decades of Democrat denialism, and Google’s 2025 admission of Biden’s censorship demands.

The deplatforming of Parler in January 2021-dehosted by Amazon Web Services, delisted from Apple and Google Play, dropped by registrar Network Solutions, and effectively obliterated-stands as a stark example. Parler, a free speech-driven platform, was targeted for hosting conservative views post-January 6, while BlueSky, Reddit, and Discord, with censorship of the right and no moderation for Leftist murder fantasies, faced no such fate. Meanwhile, the ICE tracker app, used by Joshua Jahn in the deadly September 25, 2025, Dallas ICE shooting, remains available on both Google Play and the Apple App Store, a glaring double standard that reinforces my argument of selective censorship to protect Marxist violence. This selective annihilation reflects a Moloch-like sacrifice of free discourse to Marxist control, enabling violent narratives to flourish unchecked.

Democrat Party rhetoric has further escalated this danger. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 labeling of ICE as a “deportation force” aligns with Marxist anti-state rhetoric, undermining law enforcement justice. President Joe Biden’s September 1, 2022, “red speech,” with its ominous lighting and vilification of MAGA Republicans as a threat to democracy, mirrors Marxist class warfare, inciting hate. For over a decade, leaders like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and legacy media outlets (CNN, The New York Times) have branded “extremist MAGA Republicans” as enemies, a narrative that justifies violent resistance. Gavin Newsom’s September 26, 2025, press office labeling of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller as “a fascist” intensifies this rhetoric, directly fueling hate-driven acts. The White House’s September 2025 Executive Order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization and National Security Memorandum, targeting left-wing terrorism and antifa under Miller’s guidance, acknowledges this threat, yet its reactive nature underscores the Left’s entrenched influence. My columns-“Unleashing the Full J. Edgar”, urging the FBI’s revival against Leftist radicals, and “Soros: Your Kingdom Must Come Down”, exposing George Soros’s funding of Marxist causes via the Open Society Foundations-further illuminate this pervasive ideology.

Mangione’s December 2024 murder of Thompson, driven by a manifesto critiquing corporate power, and Robinson’s September 10, 2025, assassination of Kirk, motivated by broader Leftist rhetoric against conservative figures, embody this violence. Both acts, labeled “left-wing assassinations” by President Donald Trump, reflect Marxist ideology. I argue that transgender advocacy, aggressively promoted by the Left, serves as a communist recruitment drive, exploiting identity politics to radicalize vulnerable youth, a trend that may have influenced Robinson’s act. The CTU’s post, Waters’ letter, Parler’s suppression, Democrat Party rhetoric, and my columns trace this violence to the 1960s-70s Marxist terror, unchecked until Musk’s intervention. Left-wing attacks far outpace far-right incidents with ghoulish celebrations of Joanne Chesimard reinforcing it.

Joanne Chesimard encapsulates this argument. Her 1973 crime, 1977 conviction, 1979 escape, and 2025 death in Marxist Cuba, celebrated by the CTU, reflect the Left’s Moloch-like glorification over justice, driving today’s murders. A full-court response-legal action against radical institutions like the CTU, political defunding of such entities, and cultural pushback through Musk’s free-speech model-is essential to dismantle this ideology. This must include prosecuting those who incite violence, severing taxpayer funding to Marxist-aligned organizations, and amplifying voices that challenge this narrative, ensuring that justice prevails over the Left’s sacrificial altar.

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James K. Bishop

James K. Bishop is a conservative writer and raconteur hailing from Texas, known for his incisive and often provocative takes on political and cultural issues. With a staunch commitment to originalist constitutional principles, he emphasizes limited government, individual liberties, and traditional American values. Active on X under the handle @James_K_Bishop, he frequently engages his audience with sharp critiques of progressive policies, media narratives, and overreaches by the federal government. His style is direct, often laced with humor and wit, which resonates strongly with his conservative followers.