A group calling itself the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense showed up at a protest this week carrying weapons.
Hopefully good and doesn’t immediately get killed by the FBI or plain infighting also hopefully similar to the original ideologically and not some of the later offshoots.
Excellent optics on this.
Whoever timed this did a good fucking job and picked the right moment.
From what I’ve seen one of the most important things for advancing struggle is doing something with correct timing. The timing here seems to be dialed in.
Here’s to hoping for the resurrection of the original BPP
Things are looking interesting lately in Philly for the left. Here was the org sign on for a recent Hands Off Venezuela Rally:
i never know whether to find it encouraging that all these left groups are willing to work together or discouraging that there are so many tiny left groups that havent really shown signs of uniting in a bigger org yet
Putting an org’s logo on a protest callout is not “working together”. Normally it’s just “hey is [org] ok to have their name on this” “yeah go ahead”, and I imagine that’s the case here.
In any case, the US left is pathetic. It’s not the left that needs to unite, but the working class. Remember that the majority of people who fought for the Red Army during the revolution were not communists; the revolutionary subject is the entire proletariat, not communists.
Maybe I’m misrepresenting some stuff as a lot of this is off memory but from what I heard out of Philly, factionalist infighting was so common there used to “beef” over who had “rights” for protests, rallies etc. Complaints about people trying to “usurp” a protest etc. were common and sometimes it was bad enough to be noticed by those outside of any of the dozen of orgs. A mutual sign-on with most of the common nominal socialist formations which has become more common in the last year or so has seen less of this which is why I found the development interesting. Is it a *strong *development that indicates the US is on the cusp of revolution? Hardly. But I don’t think I know a single person that thinks we’re where we need to be. But it’s an getting past the point of thinking eating paint chips is good nutritional advice.
I also know several of the orgs do work together fairly often. the Philly DSA, FRSO, PSL, WWP, PAAPR (Though for anyone that’s in the know NAAPR org is heavily mixed with FRSO so depending on how intertwined the Philly Chapters are that could be essentially the same membership signed on twice) and Palestine Coalition I’ve heard of working together on various smaller projects to various degrees for a while now, so just being a sign on is something that I don’t know necessarily applies here.
Tangential to the idea, I do believe there is a bit of a focus on “socialist membership” numbers that is an error committed by many on the left here considering much smaller communist organizations did much more under more repressive regimes. But I think that is people trying to cope with the lack of other types mass organizations in the US, and essentially trying to create mass socialist orgs to supplant them. (I’m dubious of that strategy since it lacks the militant power and working class governance experience of labor/tenant unions, the relief and agitation value of mutual aid groups etc. But it’s an observation I’ve had for a while and feels related towards the desire for a singularly encompassing left entity to subsume them all).
What a mood NGL. I often feel the same thing when looking at our current state of affairs.
my hot take is that is the biggest problem for the “left”, there are actually more of us than i thought out there (i saw some poll recently that 2% of americans are willing to call themselves outright communist!) but we are so divided it is nearly impossible to actually 1) measure our strength and 2) actually corral the “left” energy in the masses, PSL seems like the best at it but they dont really seem to be able to do anything with it besides milquetoast peaceful protests. anyways i think a big part of this is so many of us are either unorganized or organized into orgs so tiny they struggle to meaningfully communicate/coordinate with other tiny orgs
This sounds like an excuse, but I think the sprawl of America and it’s car centric infrastructure makes it way harder to organize. When you’re in smaller country with dense, walkable urban centers, worker power is strengthened. I could be coping though. Russia’s population density surely wasn’t that high either.
I wouldn’t say it’s an excuse. I think that formulation is exactly what Marx had when he was writing about the Proletariat. The formation of the proletariat can’t be disconnected from enclosure. Peasants and surfs stripped of their lands and corralled into city centers to work shoulder to shoulder. Sharing their experiences together. In some sectors of the labor force that’s still true, but as we more and more embody a service and information economy, the days of working in tightly packed spaces have faded. No one has idle conversation via work email. You might not even talk to people outside your department in the same company. Capitalism wants nothing more than to atomize all of us, into little work cubes, alone for hours at a time, with no time to stick our head out of the hole and see whose around us, and if they’re ok.
Have you considered the need for my particular Post-Maoist neo-formation as the last bastion of socialism?! /s
In all seriousness, that is the depressing part, from what I’ve seen at a local level where I’m at half the work for things like ICE watch, mutual aid, etc. sees a bunch of different orgs from radlib to commie having to work on finding ways to work together and cooperate on different structures. Something that wouldn’t be needed with something more consolidated or even if there was a more formalized united front. Seems like the squeeze of the current administration is almost forcing these groups closer together, but that has the downside of the ramped insanity of the current administration.
Not a moment to soon.
I’ve also seen the largest group of local panthers since 2020 at the ICE protests (unarmed, at least not open). May their numbers continue to grow.
I have seen a lot of brown berets on TikTok as well though not in person
Real Black Panther Party or weird psy op with Airsoft guns?
They’ve been around and popping up in my feed for a over a year now doing food program stuff. The guns are a new addition though.
Edit: They also have videos advocating for getting black youth that are illegal owners to get into legal compliance and do safety training.
I heard they talk with and have worked with some other left orgs and I’ve heard they’re cool, but that part is like 4th hand info so grain of salt on that.
Well that’s certainly more promising
I’m from the land where the Panthers grew
You know the city and the avenue
(this is seriously a spot of good news)
Say what you will about burgerland, but damn its counterculture is cool as shit.
When your culture is deeply uncool its bound to happen
um no sweetie, counterculture is turning point usa
Conservativism is the new punk rock, ergo Papa John is crust punk
Sometimes I wonder if I’m romanticising US counter culture, but I do feel like it’s way more based than in Europe where it’s incredibly difficult to find principled anti imperialists
I’ve known about this formation from their food program for a bit as well as getting into verbal confrontation with pigs in the past. They’re the first formalized group I know of showing up armed to rallies though. Also thank god for trigger discipline, I wince when I look at pics of the original Panthers sometimes.
There was someone in an armed demonstration in 2020/21 who shot themselves in the leg. Don’t let it happen again pls.
