- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
I’d been looking for this quote!
I will say that it should never be easy for them to destroy us. If you start with Malcolm X and count all of the brothers who have died or been captured since, you will find that not even one of them was really prepared for a fight. No imagination or fighting style was evident in any one of the incidents. But each one that died professed to know the nature of our enemies. It should never be so easy for them. Do you understand what I’m saying? Edward V. Hanrahan, Illinois State Attorney General, sent fifteen pigs to raid the Panther headquarters and murder Hampton and Clark. Do you have any idea what would have happened to those fifteen pigs if they had run into as many Viet Cong as there were Panthers in that building. The VC are all little people with less general education than we have. The argument that they have been doing it longer has no validity at all, because they were doing it just as well when they started as they are now. It’s very contradictory for a man to teach about the murder in corporate capitalism, to isolate and expose the murderes behind it, to instruct that these madmen are completely without stops, are licentious, totally depraved — and then not make adquate preparations to defend himself from the madman’s attack. Either they don’t really believe their own spiel or they harbor some sort of subconscious death wish.
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Both of his books are great reads. Sad to think of how much he could have written and accomplished if he wasn’t murdered so young
Panthers did have shootouts with cops, but I do agree that nobody ever seems to be quite ready for the violence. I think it is actually some liberalism seeping through. You know the enemy is violent and would kill you if they could, but a little voice in your head says, “but not now, we haven’t even escalated yet” or “surely they’ll jail us first or give a warning”.
Never, ever underestimate liberals’ tolerance and even enthusiasm for violence against us, and the licence this gives to pigs. (Over)reaction and no expectation of consequences are the historical trend.
Organize as if your mutual aid group or protest is actually a target of violence and your anonymity has value. Expect and prepare for a greater threat than seems reasonable. Rather than emphasize fear, let preparation give you a sense of security and help build good habits so that when lightning strikes and it’s time for action (and reaction), you’re 100% ready to go.
Yeah, this is my big takeaway from it and my concern over the western left. For the most part, we’re all still a bunch of
not taking things seriously while Social Murder picks us off, let alone armed violence.
I mean, this is comically unfair to the movement Hampton was running. Daycares and public kitchens are a very different animal than a full guerilla residence movement.
And let’s not casually forget the atrocities committed on the Vietnamese people. From zippo raids to agent orange bombings, the horror of war inflicted on Vietnam fully eclipsed anything the FBI managed on Hampton.
If Fred had been Vietcong and Edward Hanrahan had been an Army Major, he’d have been killed with attack helicopters and poison gas rather than barbiturates and revolver fire. He’d be just as dead.
Not every revolution succeeds. Just ask Zachariadis or Arbenz or Gadaffi. Militarism isn’t a magic bullet.
George Jackson and Fred Hampton were both Panthers. This is self-crit by George Jackson for the BPP’s failure to protect Hampton if anything. And he had a point. And the BPP understood he had a point because the BLA was formed a little after Hampton got assassinated, where they got the reputation for being cop killers.
the BLA was formed a little after Hampton got assassinated, where they got the reputation for being cop killers
An organization that lasted a decade and got its leadership just as locked up or dead as the original Black Panthers. Militarism was not a panacea.
🖕🏿🐷🏴🏴🏴
Isn’t there a problem with this reasoning that if the average VC could’ve left the jungle to go home to a social democracy in the wealthiest country in the world, some of them at least might’ve done that? I mean that’s basically why Marx’s idea that revolution would begin in the industrialised West never worked out. But there is also the problem, what is a Western revolutionary going to die for? Because a Vietnamese communist might figure, even if I die, at least we have a chance of winning the war and my comrades will be free. Historically slaves have submitted more often than they’ve rebelled, even when their situation is hopeless. Where there’s been organisation and a chance of success, - as with the servile wars in Ancient Rome for example - they have rebelled. What chance of success did communists have in the US?
