Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.

Last week, Black Lives Matter shut down London City Airport. The London in the UK, not the ones in Kentucky, Texas or Arkansas.

Why? To protest Global Warming.

You might be scratching your head at that one, but according to Black Lives Matter its activists were protesting Global Warming because the weather hurts black people more. But to confuse matters more most of the Black Lives Matter protesters chanting “Climate Change is Racist” in London were white.

That was hardly the only confusing move by the notorious hate group. The left-wing group had vocally endorsed BDS against the Jewish State and denounced charter schools.

What do Global Warming, Israel and charter schools have to do with BLM’s supposed mission of denouncing police brutality? And what does Black Lives Matter’s obsession with gay rights have to do with police shootings.

Nothing. And that’s the point.

Black Lives Matter was always a scam. The protests made it a valuable property. And the payday came in. BLM has scored $130 million in funding plans from Soros, the Ford Foundation and assorted left-wing groups. And they weren’t forking out that kind of cash just to sponsor the occasional race riot.

Last year BLM leaders met with the big moneymen of the left at the Democracy Alliance. And the Black Lives Matter agenda has since expanded to include many more of the left’s pet causes.

NGO Monitor notes that the Movement for Black Lives’ backing for BDS echoes “the demonizing rhetoric of the infamous 2001 NGO Forum of the UN Durban Conference”. That was a special project of the Ford Foundation. And the Ford Foundation is behind the push to raise $100 million for Black Lives Matter.

The anti-Israel group Adalah whose representative helped write the Movement for Black Lives’ BDS position gets money from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The RBF has funded assorted projects promoting BLM. The Ford Foundation helps fund the New Israel Fund which in turns funds Adalah.

And that’s not the only case of ‘echoing’ in BLM’s sudden enthusiasm for the agendas of its masters.

An article by Lance Izumi of the Pacific Research Institute notes that its opposition to charter schools “uses language that seems drawn straight from teacher-union talking points”.

Of course it does. You can’t expect Black Lives Matter to do more than outsource its platform.

The American Federation of Teachers is a backer of the Democracy Alliance. And BLM met with the Democracy Alliance to talk about money. The AFT does not care about black lives. It does care about charter schools. So BLM will jump on that bandwagon without caring about the benefits of charter schools to black students or the outrage in the black community over its betrayal.

One BLM leader quit over the move, saying, “Black Lives Matter has been co-opted. The movement’s been hijacked.”

But Black Lives Matter was never committed to black causes. Instead it exploited black identity politics and grievances to set up yet another front group for the left. Behind the racist rhetoric was the usual coalition of left wing organizations and causes. BLM’s various facades are now echoing those causes.

Black Lives Matter hates Israel because its leftist backers hate Israel. It hates charter schools because its leftist backers do. White activists using its brand shut down an airport in the UK over Global Warming because that too is a major left-wing cause. Black Lives Matter got big enough to become a brand.

And once you’re a brand, you start cashing in on the licensing and franchise opportunities. You solicit investments and figure out how to expand. That’s what Black Lives Matter has been doing.

If you want a hot new way to hate Jews, Black Lives Matter will offer your pet writer a forum under its brand. If you want to denounce charter schools, airline travel or red sweaters, you can get your official pet peeve on BLM stationary, t-shirts or balloons. Like Starbucks or McDonald’s, Black Lives Matter is infinitely expandable. Its true purpose is to provide black labor to tether any left-wing cause to black radicalism. And if black activists aren’t available, angry white ones shouting about racism will do.

There’s a name for that sort of thing. Slavery.

Like a hundred other fake movements before it, Black Lives Matter exists to trick black people into fighting for left-wing causes. Time and time again the passionate black activists turn out to be running a front group for the same old left-wing causes. The Ford Foundation was funding Black Nationalist groups all the way back in the sixties. It’s just keeping the same tired old scam going today.

Left-wing groups get a hip new image for their cause. A bunch of activists cash in on their race to help them do it. It’s common enough in the entertainment industry and advertising. The left attacks such branding efforts that exploit black people and black identity as appropriation. But Black Lives Matter was the biggest appropriation effort in decades. It used black anger as a false front for the left.

The outraged protests over police brutality were nothing but bait for billionaires looking to harness some of that energy and outrage for their pet causes. Black Lives Matter wasn’t fighting for black lives. It was looking to sell them. It was in the slave trade. The chains it used to sell black people to left-wing foundations were invisible. They were forged out of rhetoric and brainwashing.

A cause was manufactured built on hatred and lies. Then its useful idiots were ripe for the slave ships.

The left conducts these periodic rebranding efforts to make its hoary old causes seem fresh and youthful. Occupy Wall Street was a recent attempt at accomplishing the same thing. To young activists, these rebranding efforts are an opportunity to impress George Soros or Rockefeller bigwigs and make it big. It’s the equivalent of Nike or Coca Cola looking to make you the new face of their product.

Black Lives Matter is the new face of the product. The product is a bunch of discredited 19th century ideas about the economy, governance and collectivism that have failed every time they have been tried.

So you can see why it needs a rebranding. Black Lives Matter plays much better than Karl Marx.

What is Black Lives Matter? In the end it’s the left. It always is the left. The names change and the styles differ. But it doesn’t really matter how a Coke can is redesigned. Under the label, it’s still Coke.

Black Lives Matter does not care about black communities. It doesn’t care about black lives. It never did. It’s not a “black” organization in any way other than branding. Just as the left’s Catholic and Jewish fronts are not Catholic or Jewish. They’re more fronts and brands. The left is not black. It is not Catholic or Jewish, Latino or Asian. It exploits identity politics, but its members are expected to be left-wing first.

BLM monetized black outrage. It exploited black fears. It fed on racial division. But Black Lives Matter wasn’t offering black liberation. It was selling more black slaves to the left.