What do you think about Huey P. Newton?

[Bala Perdida]

Many people on here probably like him. I'm not a fan of his apparent misogyny, or his violent outbursts when called 'baby'.
Still I could see why people like him. So what do you think about him, or want to say about him?

[DigitalBluster]

Yes

I don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The Black Panthers were good, and Newton was among the best of them.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

If passing judgement on him is passing judgement on the BPP (Because i'm not really interested in wasting time judging individuals in history without thinking about the context within which they operated) then yes, HPN was positive. The BPP he led were not only revolutionary in aims but radical in their strategies (Although arguably they went horrifically over the top at times with some of their kangaroo justice and in-fighting), and progressive in some of their content (the famous free breakfast programme, for example).

[M-L-C-F]

Yes, he was a positive figure. To say otherwise is not only bullshit, but is treason to our cause. The enemies of the old Black Panthers in the left, like the enemies of Cuba and Venezuela, are my enemies. They should be smacked back down and put in their place, by the legitimate groups in the left, and by workers as well.

Huey P. Newton was a great man until the end. The Black Panthers, and the White Panthers, were both proper revolutionary parties of their time. There's no being nice about any opposition to them in the left. The work they did, and the bullshit that was inflicted on them by the US government and reactionaries, needs to be highlighted more. The Black Liberation Army also deserves more recognition too. Whether it's Huey P. Newton, Robert F. Williams, Bobby Seale, or Assata Shakur. We need to recognize their importance to our movement. Bobby Seale and Assata Shakur still fight to this day, despite the many setbacks they've dealt with. I really think that the kids on this site need to learn more about them. So they can truly understand their relevance to this day.

[Bala Perdida]

The Black Panthers, and the White Panthers, were both proper revolutionary parties of their time. There's no being nice about any opposition to them in the left. The work they did, and the bullshit that was inflicted on them by the US government and reactionaries, needs to be highlighted more. The Black Liberation Army also deserves more recognition too.
What's your opinion of the Brown Berets? I heard they were the Hispanic equals to the BP's. They seemed good, other than their loyalty to the bourgeois Mexican state.
Overall I liked the militancy and effectiveness of these groups.

[Brutus]

Yes, he was a positive figure. To say otherwise is not only bullshit, but is treason to our cause. The enemies of the old Black Panthers in the left, like the enemies of Cuba and Venezuela, are my enemies. They should be smacked back down and put in their place...

It is you who is the traitor, with your championing of bourgeois states that happen to spout r-r-revolutionary rhetoric. I am proud that you consider me your enemy, as it means I stand by the class independence of the proletariat and it's dictatorship, unlike you- the real piece of shit here- who is willing to support any social-democratic state that waves a red flag. Communists don't want a "fairer" capitalism; Communists want the emancipation of the producing class. This doesn't come from Chavismo or social-reforms, but from tearing down the rule of Capital and the conquest of state power by the class-conscious proletariat. Smack me back down, as you say you will, but I have put you in your place: with the social-democrats, with the fools who think Cuba and Venezuela will not be destroyed with the rest of the bourgeois states.

[Devrim]

I don't think that the BPP is in any way an interesting model for revolutionaries in any way at all.

Devrim

[Prometeo liberado]

Brown Berets were and are a joke. They seek a strange and outdated form of nationalism and their members are children of little or no theoretical knowledge outside that of the mythical "Aztlan".

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I don't think that the BPP is in any way an interesting model for revolutionaries in any way at all.

Devrim

Why's that?

[Creative Destruction]

I don't think that the BPP is in any way an interesting model for revolutionaries in any way at all.

Devrim

Bullshit.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I think his contributions were mostly positive but the weird personality cult that still exists around him even today really bothers me. His figure tends to obscure pretty much everyone else from the party without any real justification for it. How many people voting yes actually know anything about him or his thought vs. what they've gleaned from 50 year old slogans?

[Devrim]

Why's that?

To be honest I don't even find it interesting enough to bother discussing. I only posted to show that not everyone on here takes this BPP worshiping point of view.

Devrim

[Creative Destruction]

I think his contributions were mostly positive but the weird personality cult that still exists around him even today really bothers me. His figure tends to obscure pretty much everyone else from the party without any real justification for it. How many people voting yes actually know anything about him or his thought vs. what they've gleaned from 50 year old slogans?

I'm pretty well read in the Panthers, because I think they do offer a model for what a good revolutionary group is supposed to look like, at least platform and action wise. I'm very impressed with Huey P. Newton, though I'm a lot more impressed with Angela Davis and Fred Hampton. I agree that as a figurehead, he overshadows some of the stronger members of the BPP, but his credit is deserved.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

To be honest I don't even find it interesting enough to bother discussing. I only posted to show that not everyone on here takes this BPP worshiping point of view.

Devrim

Not finding it interesting enough to discuss isn't really a valid historical argument. It's akin to 'ignorance is bliss'.

The Black Panthers, taken in historical (and social) context, were a logical product of their time and a genuine reaction to the real failures of the MLK-inspired civil rights movement until the mid/late 1960s. Personally, although I am not a 'Black Panther' in the sense of supporting all of what they did & believed, I think there are a lot of lessons we can learn about how to organise (and how not to organise) tactically from the Black Panthers.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Huey P. Newton on gay, women’s liberation (http://www.workers.org/2012/us/huey_p_newton_0524/)

[DigitalBluster]

^Here's a related anecdote (http://www.ralphmag.org/BB/black-panthers.html):

French writer Jean Genet was asked if his homosexuality had troubled the Panthers, he replied:


It certainly troubled me more than it did them. They found out very quickly that I was a homosexual. But not once did they make a remark, an allusion or a joke. It wasn't by tactfulness. Quite simply, I think they were just short on time and they couldn't have cared less what I am. When a Panther named Zayd came to meet me in Montreal, he had in his hands the first copies of Funeral Rites to come out as a paperback in America. He said to me laughing: "I read it on the plane." That's all he said. Period.

A month later, after public demonstrations by groups of American homosexuals and women's liberation people, the Black Panthers wrote to me, asking for an article on homosexuality because it was a subject they didn't understand very well and one in which I was better qualified to speak than they. Quite simply, I sent David a letter in which I explained to him that, like the colour of one's skin, homosexuality was a matter of faith; that it did not depend on us to be or not to be homosexuals.

By chance, or more likely by intent, Huey Newton, who had just got out of prison, published an article in the party newspaper in which he urged the Panthers to try to understand all minorities, to learn to distinguish between minorities and individuals and to distinguish among individuals who were revolutionaries and those who were not. Newton explained that the important thing was not whether to be or not to be a homosexual, but rather whether to be or not be a revolutionary, for by being revolutionaries, homosexuals could prove themselves potential friends.

[Dr Doom]

Huey and the BPP were a mix of straight up reformism (10 point programme), third worldism, stalinism and black nationalism.

http://www.bobbyseale.com/posters/v3n27-10-25-69.jpg

not sure why anyone, especially anarchists, are particularly enamoured by them. but i have an idea.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Why's that?
Different conception of the role of communist organization. For the most part the Communist left doesn't measure its success by its physical size at a moment nor does it see volunteer activities outside of the direct class struggle as productive. Generally they limit their interventions to the acts of the class with their strategy based on the need for communist organization to intervene and support the class struggle so to be organically involved in the revolutionary process. The Communist left doesn't see strategy in terms of building a party and a movement but rather sees the creation of the party as a organic (spontanous in a sense but not in the sense that it is instantaneous). Hence the strategy of the communist left consists mostly of keeping the proggramme in tact in periods of low class struggle so that it may continue to function in periods of greater class struggle. For them this doesn't consist only of upholding certain theoretical positions but also maintaining organizational discipline, only allowing members who are within this program and are capable of contributing to the organization in the way it is needed, and keeping a level of action within the degree of class struggle already existing. What I presume Dervim finds problematic in the BPP other than it's nationalism is the fact that their programs were outside of the existing level of class struggle, such as the survival breakfasts and such , and attempted to create an artificial revolutionary movement outside of the necessary class basis.


I'm not entirely sure if that's all correct since I'm basing that largely off my readings of the italian left and because I do have my own biases since I'm not a left comm myself so if anyone wishes to correct me they may feel free

[Creative Destruction]

reformism (10 point programme).

lol

[Dr Doom]

lol

you're a tool.

there is no talk of abolishing capitalism within their 10 point programme, only how to administer it in a more fair or just way.

how are you a council communist.

[Atsumari]

you're a tool.

there is no talk of abolishing capitalism within their 10 point programme, only how to administer it in a more fair or just way.

how are you a council communist.
Because theory is more important than giving relief to poor blacks.

[Raquin]

Newton was a worthless drug addled degenerate like most of the Black Panther leadership(and no, the Black Panthers don't offer a good model for what a revolutionary movement should look like, the Black Panthers were probably the biggest failure and humiliation in the history of the American left, for fuck's sake half of people at their meetings were FBI informants, the BPP was a pathetic party that didn't accomplish anything and died an embarrassing death). Really the only Black Panther leader I can think of that was a decent person and not some drug dealing crackhead or gangster murderer was Fred Hampton and conveniently enough Hampton was the only one that was assassinated.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Because theory is more important than giving relief to poor blacks.

Well we sort of uphold the theory because we think it will give relief to poor working-class blacks (among other people). If someone has an incorrect theoretical or programmatic perspective we criticise that, not because we're scared he will "give relief to poor blacks" but because we're sure he won't.

Also this argument could be used to support just about anything. Including that darling of the American "left", Obama ("theory is more important than giving healthcare to poor people").

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I don't think the panthers intentions were reformist at all. You can listen to Cleaver's speeches and he is pretty open about their desire to see BPP type groups formed for every oppressed group, including poor whites, that would then form a united front to overthrow capitalism and what they viewed as American Fascism. Now you you can look at how it panned out for them and yeah its a lot less ambitious than intended, but you know they did have the entire security apparatus of a super power come down on them almost immediately. Their politics were a mess for sure, but I don't think a kinder gentler capitalism for black folks is what they were interested in.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The world is more complicated than the good/bad positive/negative poll question implies. The BPP was a deeply flawed organization, as evidenced by its ultimate collapse, and by its problematic theoretical point of view (third worldism, maoism, etc). It also did a lot to organize a historically marginalized community around revolutionary rhetoric in the US in a way which hasn't been done since. I don't like these black or white polls.

Regarding the brown berets which someone else asked about - I don't think any group which focused its discourse around a mythic sense of national identity is worth taking seriously from a theoretical point of view.


Newton was a worthless drug addled degenerate like most of the Black Panther leadership(and no, the Black Panthers don't offer a good model for what a revolutionary movement should look like, the Black Panthers were probably the biggest failure and humiliation in the history of the American left, for fuck's sake half of people at their meetings were FBI informants, the BPP was a pathetic party that didn't accomplish anything and died an embarrassing death). Really the only Black Panther leader I can think of that was a decent person and not some drug dealing crackhead or gangster murderer was Fred Hampton and conveniently enough Hampton was the only one that was assassinated.

Why hasn't this reactionary Stalinoid been banned yet? This moralistic crap about drug use shows huge ignorance regarding the social, psychological and personal conditions behind addiction, especially in the inner city black communities. It also calls upon the same old rightwing racist bullshit about "crackheads" and "gangsters".

[Luís Henrique]

No.

Rapist.

Luís Henrique

[Sinred]

you're a tool.

there is no talk of abolishing capitalism within their 10 point programme, only how to administer it in a more fair or just way.

how are you a council communist.

BPP were communists and openly embraced revolutionary socialism.
Having a 10 point program for demands within capitalism doesnt make you a reformist.

[Luís Henrique]

Because theory is more important than giving relief to poor blacks.

If the theory's point is not to ammeliorate the life of people, then the theory is absolutely useless.

Luís Henrique

[Creative Destruction]

you're a tool.

there is no talk of abolishing capitalism within their 10 point programme, only how to administer it in a more fair or just way.

how are you a council communist.

You're an idiot. They literally talk about taking the means of production and putting it into the community's hands in the 10 point program. Have you ever actually read it or are you just spouting some bullshit? Here, I'll make it easy for you since you don't seem like you're the bright type able to do simple searches:

http://www.blackpanther.org/TenPoint.htm

They mix immediate demands with revolutionary demands, but that was kind of the point of the BPP. They weren't just circle jerking theoreticians. They knew that organizing for communism in that era wouldn't bring relief to black folks in that day, so this formed the basis for their Survival Programs Pending Revolution actions, which were entirely necessary, not just as a recruitment tool but also to show people that they were fucking serious about what they were doing. It is what earned them the designation as one of the most dangerous groups in the country -- not because they shot some cops, but because they had these programs in place and they exhibited a leadership quality that was unmatched in the American left at the time. They weren't just some "reformist" weenies running around spouting off revolutionary rhetoric.

[Creative Destruction]

Newton was a worthless drug addled degenerate like most of the Black Panther leadership(and no, the Black Panthers don't offer a good model for what a revolutionary movement should look like, the Black Panthers were probably the biggest failure and humiliation in the history of the American left, for fuck's sake half of people at their meetings were FBI informants, the BPP was a pathetic party that didn't accomplish anything and died an embarrassing death). Really the only Black Panther leader I can think of that was a decent person and not some drug dealing crackhead or gangster murderer was Fred Hampton and conveniently enough Hampton was the only one that was assassinated.

Someone ban or restrict this racist piece of shit, please.

[Creative Destruction]

Well we sort of uphold the theory because we think it will give relief to poor working-class blacks (among other people). If someone has an incorrect theoretical or programmatic perspective we criticise that, not because we're scared he will "give relief to poor blacks" but because we're sure he won't.

Also this argument could be used to support just about anything. Including that darling of the American "left", Obama ("theory is more important than giving healthcare to poor people").

This is kind of the gap between theorizing and actually doing something. Doing anything outside this theoretical realm makes it "not good enough" for the revolutionarily pure, so it just sits on the sidelines, points and argues. Which is the state of most of the left today.

The Black Panthers instituted programs that brought relief to poor black folks. They had free medical centers in Chicago, Oakland and New York City and were trying to get them opened elsewhere before the FBI started tearing the organization apart. They had a breakfast program for children before the government even thought to start doing that, and theirs was free and had high quality food for the kids. They had bussing programs to connect community members with their imprisoned loved ones, where they couldn't get to them before for a lack of transportation. They had a maintenance organization to help people out with fixing things around their house they normally wouldn't be able to do; a clothing center, where people got free clothes, etc.

These programs weren't revolutionary, but they weren't meant to be. The Panthers knew that and it is why they called them The Survival Programs Pending Revolution. And, yes, they helped out a lot of people... a lot more than some bullshit pure "revolutionaries" jerking over theory on a message board ever have done.

[Hagalaz]

Brown Berets were and are a joke. They seek a strange and outdated form of nationalism and their members are children of little or no theoretical knowledge outside that of the mythical "Aztlan".

Interesting.
They do seem to be stuck in the 70's.

[Creative Destruction]

third worldism, stalinism and black nationalism.

They definitely had a third worldist and Maoist view, but that was fine for what they were using it for. Just because someone is a Maoist or a third worldist doesn't automatically make them wrong or a leper. Quite a bit of good rhetoric and ideas came out of the derivatives of Maoism. Especially Frantz Fannon's reconsideration of the lumpenproletariat as a class that could be a revolutionary class, which was a great break from Marxist orthodoxy.

A good part of the left were "Stalinist" in this era, so that's not really meaningful. The existed before all the dust settled on Uncle Joe. Again, what their actions were and their rhetoric for the situation they were in matters most. Moreover, they weren't a politically exclusionary organization. They didn't kick anyone out for being anarchists or non-Mao Marxists.

As for "Black nationalism," this charge could only come from someone who was completely ignorant of the Black Panthers and their program. For an extremely brief period in their founding, they flirted with black nationalism. When they turned their backs on it, that led to an exodus and a reformation of the part that we now know as the Black Panthers. All of the leaders and all of the people who wrote their programs and initiated their programs were expressly anti-nationalist of any form. In fact, one of the great schisms in the black power movement was the friction between the Black Panther's anti-nationalism and the more Garvyite black nationalists in the movement. There were even physical attacks on the Panthers that stemmed from this. Bobby Seale flat out said that the Panthers regarded black nationalism as racism and they wanted no part of it.

[Creative Destruction]

Anyway, I wanted to come back and post a link to a book that details the Panther's survival programs:

http://caringlabor.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/hilliard-ed-the-black-panther-party-service-to-the-people-programs.pdf

It's worth a read, especially for the people who are incredibly ignorant of the impact that the Panthers made and why they were an absolutely positive force, ideological purity not withstanding.

[Zukunftsmusik]

how are you a council communist.

I believe it has more to do with co-ops and workplace democracy than the positions of the actual council communist current. As you can see, their organisation is listed as IOPS, and their user title is "Marxist-Pareconist". Case in point:


They definitely had a third worldist and Maoist view, but that was fine for what they were using it for.

[...]

A good part of the left were "Stalinist" in this era, so that's not really meaningful. The existed before all the dust settled on Uncle Joe. Again, what their actions were and their rhetoric for the situation they were in matters most. Moreover, they weren't a politically exclusionary organization. They didn't kick anyone out for being anarchists or non-Mao Marxists.


This is kind of the gap between theorizing and actually doing something. Doing anything outside this theoretical realm makes it "not good enough" for the revolutionarily pure, so it just sits on the sidelines, points and argues. Which is the state of most of the left today.

Ah, yes, the classic argument of "doing something". Ignoring, of course, that this isn't a question simply of theory, but of practice and politics: those who put forward these arguments aren't "jerking off to theory", they are posing real political arguments. Honestly, it's an anti-intellectual argument (if you can stretch the meaning of that word that far) if anything: setting aside any possible points for debate, because, - behold! - they do something!

This something needs of course to be related to the class (and not mystified images of it) in concrete ways: just because the Black Panthers ran soup kitchens doesn't mean they are to be excused for reactionary positions, for example. Whether running soup kitchens, free schools and so on is an important issue for communist organisations is up for discussion, of course, but that's a whole other debate and is not what is being questioned in this thread. You getting all fired up over of these "theory fetishists" gets in the way of the actual point.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

What kind of fucking idiot values circle jerking "theory" over action?

Who gives a fuck what they wrote down on pieces of paper when they went around distributing free supplies and improving their communities and advocating revolution? That seems to qualify as good, don't you think? But of course some pretentious Orthodox people are going to criticize their damn theory. Yeah, Maosim is stupid. Whatever. They did good things.

[Creative Destruction]

I believe it has more to do with co-ops and workplace democracy than the positions of the actual council communist current. As you can see, their organisation is listed as IOPS, and their user title is "Marxist-Pareconist".

I'm a council communist because I feel like that'd be the best way to organize a revolutionary state and, eventually, a communist society. And I don't see parecon as contradictory to this and is, in fact, a fully fleshed councillist vision of what a revolutionary state could look like. (Hint: it's not just "workplace democracy".) Quite a few Panthers would probably disagree with me on this.

But holding that position isn't contradictory to supporting the Panthers as an organization and their actions, especially in light of the fact that they were really the only organization doing anything substantial at that time, in terms of uniting various factions of different political persuasions and organizing them around a.) relief programs pending a revolution and b.) a revolutionary ideal that eschewed division and partisanship and embraced inclusion and coalition building. In other words, as long as you were fucking serious about this shit, you could get down with them. Like I said, they were not an exclusionary organization because more than a few leaders, especially Fred Hampton, thought that was the sure path to factionalism and, ultimately, irrelevance.


Ah, yes, the classic argument of "doing something". Ignoring, of course, that this isn't a question simply of theory, but of practice and politics: those who put forward these arguments aren't "jerking off to theory", they are posing real political arguments. Honestly, it's an anti-intellectual argument (if you can stretch the meaning of that word that far) if anything: setting aside any possible points for debate, because, - behold! - they do something!

What is the "political argument" against the relief programs and their implicit ethic of including as many people as possible? You're glossing over quite a bit of my argument, which is evidenced by your cherry picking. It happens that Dr Doom was factually wrong in his assessment of the Panthers. And, that aside, given how many inroads the Panthers made toward working with other groups on their program, yes, I don't take sideline pissing contests in ideological purity seriously. Sorry. You don't get shit done doing that.


This something needs of course to be related to the class (and not mystified images of it) in concrete ways: just because the Black Panthers ran soup kitchens doesn't mean they are to be excused for reactionary positions, for example. Whether running soup kitchens, free schools and so on is an important issue for communist organisations is up for discussion, of course, but that's a whole other debate and is not what is being questioned in this thread. You getting all fired up over of these "theory fetishists" gets in the way of the actual point.

They didn't "just run soup kitchens", you fucking moron. They organized around ideas, propagandized and actively recruited. You're obviously missing the entire point of their survival programs.

Defend ideological circle jerking all you want...I'm sure you honestly find it to be important. It doesn't matter how many words you use, it's the same damn argument over and again. I don't give a fuck if it's a Stalinist organizing people under a united banner, regardless of political persuasion, and actually doing right by their communities. We can suss out ideological differences later, but existing under the current order -- as we are -- calls for something other than some dumb arguments about how you can't work with or support other people's work just because they're not your preferred ideological brethren. The people who matter aren't going to give two shits about what disagreement Rosa Luxemburg had with Lenin almost a century ago.

[Zukunftsmusik]

What kind of fucking idiot values circle jerking "theory" over action?

No one does.


Who gives a fuck what they wrote down on pieces of paper when they went around distributing free supplies and improving their communities and advocating revolution? That seems to qualify as good, don't you think? But of course some pretentious Orthodox people are going to criticize their damn theory. Yeah, Maosim is stupid. Whatever. They did good things.

Because what they wrote and what hey did are two sides of the same coin. No one in this thread, except in you and rednoise's mind, is "circle jerking over theory". Some has pointed out flaws in your argument, some has made more or less political points. People disagree on thing, both theory and practice, and people discuss things. Should I just throw my hands up and give up any criticism of, say, christian organisations just because they hand out soup to the poor and give them a bed for the night? That's the logical ending-point of your argument, and misses the actual criticism being made.


(Hint: it's not just "workplace democracy".)

I know: it's also democratic control over capitalist functions such as the market and wages.


But holding that position isn't contradictory to supporting the Panthers as an organization and their actions, especially in light of the fact that they were really the only organization doing anything substantial at that time, in terms of uniting various factions of different political persuasions and organizing them around a.) relief programs pending a revolution and b.) a revolutionary ideal that eschewed division and partisanship and embraced inclusion and coalition building. In other words, as long as you were fucking serious about this shit, you could get down with them. Like I said, they were not an exclusionary organization because more than a few leaders, especially Fred Hampton, thought that was the sure path to factionalism and, ultimately, irrelevance.

It might not be contradictory for you - I'm not sure of your political positions on a range of things, but for the council communist current it would be unthinkable. But that's neither here nor there. "Supporting the Panthers as an organisation" obviously includes their political positions, unless what you're arguing (and re-reading your posts I think this is what your trying to get across in between your rants) is simply that your ideal organisation would do the same type of things: "organising people through relief programmes," for example. But this isn't exclusive to the Black Panthers, and is in other words a topic for a different debate: there's been a discussion on centrism recently which deals with some of this.

Honest question: do you think practice trumps theory? Isn't theory just as important as practice? You honestly come across as the diametrically opposed strawman of the strawmen you're attacking.


They didn't "just run soup kitchens", you fucking moron. They organized around ideas, propagandized and actively recruited. You're obviously missing the entire point of their survival programs.

I was being rhetorical. My point was exactly what you're saying: they organised around ideas, propagandised and actively recruited. This begs the question: ...for what? And it's this you can't see: people who are critical of the Black Panthers aren't so out of "ideological cricle jerking" or whatever else you like calling it (for some reason you really like repeating this analogy, don't you?), but out of real differences in politics and strategy. You can't excuse an organisation because they simply managed to organise people. That's what your argument amounts to - unless you're arguing for the wider strategical point outlined above.

All of this is more or less an elaboration on Vincent West/870's point further up, which you wrote off as "jerking over theory" and with that attitude towards people with a different opinion it's no wonder you manage to misread his post. A little less name-calling and misreading (purposeful or not) would be swell.

[Remus Bleys]

Bullshit.

Lol don't you call yourself a councillist? I mean that's the real bullshit.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Interesting.
They do seem to be stuck in the 70's.

The 1470s maybe.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

If the BPP were so useless, then why did the FBI bother going to such great lengths to spy on even minor footnotes in BPP history? Why did Hoover call them the 'greatest threat to America' at the time? Why was cointelpro such a broad program of undercover surveillance and undermining of the black power movement?

We can debate the relative effectiveness of the BPP, the many mistakes they made (including, as LH notes above, letting the rapist Cleaver back into the party) influence, but let's not pretend that they did not effect a fairly radical change in the strength and confidence of African-Americans in rebelling against state racism and informal segregation.

[L.A.P.]

Yeah, can we expand upon Cleaver's role in the BPP? He thought raping white women was an act of "insurrection" and eventually sold out to become a Republican. Why was his membership so valued that he was allowed in? Cleaver honestly seemed like a sociopath. I also read the Newton ordered the beatings of female members as well.

Sent from my RM-845_nam_vzw_100 using Tapatalk

[Creative Destruction]

Because what they wrote and what hey did are two sides of the same coin. No one in this thread, except in you and rednoise's mind, is "circle jerking over theory". Some has pointed out flaws in your argument, some has made more or less political points. People disagree on thing, both theory and practice, and people discuss things. Should I just throw my hands up and give up any criticism of, say, christian organisations just because they hand out soup to the poor and give them a bed for the night? That's the logical ending-point of your argument, and misses the actual criticism being made.

The thing is: the poster I was replying to didn't criticize any of the BPPs or Huey P.'s actions. They criticized what they thought their theoretical stance was, which apparently led to an opinion that they weren't good at all (this was done even when the poster didn't actually know what they were accusing the BPP of.)

If they had said "Hey, yeah, the survival programs were decent but I don't dig on their ideology" -- fine, whatever. Or even if they had presented some cogent criticism of the programs themselves, we could've taken that up. That's not an issue. Wholesale trashing of the organization, though, is pretty shitty, especially when you're coming from a place of complete ignorance about them other than what your ignorant preconceptions are. That's the ideological/theoretical circle-jerking over purity.


I know: it's also democratic control over capitalist functions such as the market and wages.

Wrong again!


It might not be contradictory for you - I'm not sure of your political positions on a range of things, but for the council communist current it would be unthinkable. But that's neither here nor there. "Supporting the Panthers as an organisation" obviously includes their political positions, unless what you're arguing (and re-reading your posts I think this is what your trying to get across in between your rants) is simply that your ideal organisation would do the same type of things: "organising people through relief programmes," for example. But this isn't exclusive to the Black Panthers, and is in other words a topic for a different debate: there's been a discussion on centrism recently which deals with some of this.

Yeah, I know, you've got to follow a particular Purity check-box before you can claim yourself one thing or another. Clique-ism certainly is something. And if councillists are really that exclusionary and ideologically pure, that's probably why they're so irrelevant to the movement at large.

That aside: no, the Panthers weren't the only ones doing this. The Young Lords were, the Young Patriots and other radical groups were, too. However, it was the Panthers that kicked off these programs first and were the most successful at doing them. And part of the reason for that is because they weren't ideologically exclusionary, as I've said continuously before, and which you keep ignoring. There were anarchists, nationalists, run-of-the-mill non-doctrinaire socialists, in addition to Maoists, etc., in the Black Panthers. The leadership had decided on what they would tie their name to, in regards to claiming M-Lism, but that didn't affect their work. They never kicked people out for politics. If you dug what the Panthers were doing, you could join them or create an organization and work with them and they would.


Honest question: do you think practice trumps theory? Isn't theory just as important as practice? You honestly come across as the diametrically opposed strawman of the strawmen you're attacking.

I'm not attacking any strawman. I'm attacking the act of trashing an organization and their work just because you disagree with their official stance. That's ideological purity. That's what I'm criticizing and responding to, directly.

I don't think ideological and theoretical purity should trump action where it would be viable and completely irrelevant to your ideology, especially when people have common aims. I don't think the fact that you're an anarchist should prevent you from working with a communist if there are programs that are working. If you're a communist who doesn't believe in anarchism, but would refuse to work with Food Not Bombs or similar organizations, on the basis that you won't work with anarchists or pacifists, then you're just a whiny prick who's more concerned about maintaining your ideology rather than actually doing something. And you can knock actual action all you want, but the fact of the matter is that's the best way to organize and to show people you're serious about what you're doing, rather than being a jerkoff wannabe academic.

If you dump on the Black Panthers and maintain that they did nothing good or that they were a shit organization, simply because you have an ideological disagreement, then you're just a purist assholes. There's no two ways about it and you probably won't actually do shit of any significance.


I was being rhetorical. My point was exactly what you're saying: they organised around ideas, propagandised and actively recruited. This begs the question: ...for what? And it's this you can't see: people who are critical of the Black Panthers aren't so out of "ideological cricle jerking" or whatever else you like calling it (for some reason you really like repeating this analogy, don't you?), but out of real differences in politics and strategy. You can't excuse an organisation because they simply managed to organise people. That's what your argument amounts to - unless you're arguing for the wider strategical point outlined above.

When they propagandised and organized around their programs, it wasn't to push Maoism. That was their guiding principle, but they were organizing against capitalism and invited anyone who was against capitalism to work with them: hence, Fred Hampton's Rainbow Coalition. Again, this has been brought up before, but you find it more convenient to take things out of context and to cherry pick rather than address the arguments.


All of this is more or less an elaboration on Vincent West/870's point further up, which you wrote off as "jerking over theory" and with that attitude towards people with a different opinion it's no wonder you manage to misread his post. A little less name-calling and misreading (purposeful or not) would be swell.

Maybe a little bit of reading comprehension and less out-of-context quoting from you would be swell, also. Let's see if you're capable of doing that first.

[Creative Destruction]

Lol don't you call yourself a councillist? I mean that's the real bullshit.

lol, well, you can go fuck yourself, you stupid jackass.

[Creative Destruction]

Yeah, can we expand upon Cleaver's role in the BPP? He thought raping white women was an act of "insurrection" and eventually sold out to become a Republican. Why was his membership so valued that he was allowed in? Cleaver honestly seemed like a sociopath. I also read the Newton ordered the beatings of female members as well.

Sent from my RM-845_nam_vzw_100 using Tapatalk

Newton had some personal beliefs that bordered on misogynistic, but I don't ever recall him "ordering" the beating of female members. That would've been a pretty difficult thing for him to do considering women accounted for about 40%, probably more, of the Panthers' membership. If you've got a link to this, I'd be interested in reading it.

Cleaver, I'm less enthusiastic about. Soul On Ice had some good stuff in it, and he renounced his view that raping white women was an act of insurrection, but he never felt bad about it, either, which was really shitty. The dude obviously had a reactionary strain, though. Ironically, given palpable dislike of him by quite a few militants, if anyone was to lead the Panthers into an armed struggle, it would have been Cleaver. His role in the Panthers, though, probably stemmed from the fact that he was -- by all accounts -- a great organizer in the Bay Area.

[Luís Henrique]

Newton had some personal beliefs that bordered on misogynistic, but I don't ever recall him "ordering" the beating of female members. That would've been a pretty difficult thing for him to do considering women accounted for about 40%, probably more, of the Panthers' membership. If you've got a link to this, I'd be interested in reading it.

We recently had a few cases of rape involving leftist organisations, such as the Swedish RS. It seems to me that the atmosphere of secrecy and conspiracy that so often plagues leftist organisations has to do with that, as well as what another poster called "nepotism" (which isn't actual nepotism, but is a system of clique-esque domination over organisations, that isn't actually better).

I venture that the climate in the BPP was way worse than in the RS in such respect, which, given we don't live in a vacuum, but within a patriarchal society, cannot fail to lead to mysoginistic events.

I don't know if there were beatings of female members, much less if Newton would condone those things if he knew of them, much less ordering it.

The closest thing is that Betty van Patter was assassinated, and it looks quite unlikely that the BPP leadership didn't at the very least know about the murder and opted not do prevent it.

If that was just because she had found evidence of embezzlement, or whether her being female has some relation to it, I can't know.

Anyway, such "revolutionary" cliques can't fail to produce some kind of horror, and then couple it with (usually not very competent) attempt to deny the thing and destroy evidence.

Luís Henrique

[Creative Destruction]

I venture that the climate in the BPP was way worse than in the RS in such respect, which, given we don't live in a vacuum, but within a patriarchal society, cannot fail to lead to mysoginistic events.

I'm not so sure about that. I've heard of these rape allegations in recent socialist parties and then they build shrouds around the allegations, but I haven't heard of the same thing happening with the Black Panthers. I'd say that one reason for that kind of circling-of-the-wagons in recent socialist parties is because of how male dominated they are. That wasn't the case with the Black Panthers, where at least half (and maybe most) of the membership were women. If there was some shit going on like that, I'm sure it would've leaked out from the Panthers. Panther women weren't docile and they didn't take shit from the men in the organization.

This was a pretty good article that came out a few months ago that reassesses women in the BPP. There's no disputing that women faced an up-hill battle in the Panthers initially, and many left the party because of it, but those who stayed (and made up a majority of the membership) changed the party and the culture within it:

http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/women-key-shaping-black-panther-party


I don't know if there were beatings of female members, much less if Newton would condone those things if he knew of them, much less ordering it.

Well, I've heard the allegation a few times before from people not involved with the party or who have barely done cursory research on the party. None of them can produce any evidence -- not even anecdotal -- that this happened. It's just something they heard. Until something can crop up, I'm going to regard it as nothing more than a malicious whisper campaign against Newton's legacy.


The closest thing is that Betty van Patter was assassinated, and it looks quite unlikely that the BPP leadership didn't at the very least know about the murder and opted not do prevent it.

If that was just because she had found evidence of embezzlement, or whether her being female has some relation to it, I can't know.

The only people who accuse the Panthers of Betty van Patter's death are former leftists turned extreme right wingers, namely David Horowitz and Christopher Hitchens. They offered no evidence, just rumors and when you do a search about the case all roads usually lead back to Horowitz and whatever he says. Sometimes they insinuate that Bobby Seale hinted that the Panthers killed her, but he never did anything like that. He talks a lot of shit about Marxism and the later years of the Panthers but he's never said that the Panthers copped to that. I don't know how he would have any solid knowledge about it, either, considering, iirc, he left the Panthers before van Patter was killed, and he left them on not-so-good terms.

[Remus Bleys]

If the BPP were so useless, then why did the FBI bother going to such great lengths to spy on even minor footnotes in BPP history? Why did Hoover call them the 'greatest threat to America' at the time? Why was cointelpro such a broad program of undercover surveillance and undermining of the black power movement?

This is stupid. Really stupid. Just because x is hated by the bourgeois state doesn't make it good. "The state convicts rapists, murderers and drug dealers" now of course they in the end force rapists, drug dealers and murderers top exist through capitalism etc, but it is undeniable that the state *does* these things. So tell me, if they aren't a force of holiness and goodness and communism then why on earth does the state attack rapists and murderers?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

This is stupid. Really stupid. Just because x is hated by the bourgeois state doesn't make it good. "The state convicts rapists, murderers and drug dealers" now of course they in the end force rapists, drug dealers and murderers top exist through capitalism etc, but it is undeniable that the state *does* these things. So tell me, if they aren't a force of holiness and goodness and communism then why on earth does the state attack rapists and murderers?

Rapists, murderers etc. don't tend to have a revolutionary program alongside their practical actions, and don't tend to inspire emancipatory confidence in other people.

Open your eyes, seriously. Terrible strawman.

[Remus Bleys]

Rapists, murderers etc. don't tend to have a revolutionary program alongside their practical actions, and don't tend to inspire emancipatory confidence in other people.

Open your eyes, seriously. Terrible strawman.

Okay I really didn't want to bring this one up but what about fascists? Obviously the bpp wasnt fascist but fascists were opposed by the liberals, and liberals by the fascists. The bourgeois is not a unified class whose interests all align.

[Five Year Plan]

If the BPP were so useless, then why did the FBI bother going to such great lengths to spy on even minor footnotes in BPP history? Why did Hoover call them the 'greatest threat to America' at the time? Why was cointelpro such a broad program of undercover surveillance and undermining of the black power movement?

We can debate the relative effectiveness of the BPP, the many mistakes they made (including, as LH notes above, letting the rapist Cleaver back into the party) influence, but let's not pretend that they did not effect a fairly radical change in the strength and confidence of African-Americans in rebelling against state racism and informal segregation.

I think a distinction should be drawn between "threat to bourgeois order, which might in the future coalesce into a revolutionary Marxist one" and "a presently revolutionary Marxist threat to bourgeois order." The BPP talked a lot about revolution. So did the Weather Underground, who were also targeted by US intelligence. So did SDS, from which WU splintered. So did the Gay Liberation Front. They were all also of deep concern to the government, and targeted for counter-intelligence and disruption. The reason things escalated to the level of violence they did with the BPP was that the BPP advocated armed self-defense: an important precondition to a revolutionary proletarian movement, but certainly not the only precondition.

Having said that, I think there's a lot of value to the stuff Huey Newton wrote, especially in Soul On Ice. And the movement the BPP was helping to lead was an important one, even if programmatically problematic in certain ways. Criticisms of the group are important to level, but they should be leveled within the context of broad agreement with what the group was attempting to accomplish, and had gone further in accomplishing than so many of the other New Left political orgs.

[DigitalBluster]

I think there's a lot of value to the stuff Huey Newton wrote, especially in Soul On Ice.

Just a point of fact: that was Cleaver (you probably knew that).

[Creative Destruction]

Okay I really didn't want to bring this one up but what about fascists? Obviously the bpp wasnt fascist but fascists were opposed by the liberals, and liberals by the fascists. The bourgeois is not a unified class whose interests all align.

jesus, dude, read the post again. his point wasn't to say that everything that is opposed by the bourgeois state was good. it was to bring to light the fact that the BPP were considered the most dangerous because of their programs and their ability to organize a lot of people around revolutionary rhetoric.

in fact, the hatred against the BPP was pretty uniform in the bourgeois class. elite liberals didn't want them around and did more to bring them down than conservatives did.

[Five Year Plan]

Just a point of fact: that was Cleaver (you probably knew that).

This is what comes with dotage.