Sunday, August 16, 2015

Just because you are right doesn't mean you are not stupid

"I don't give a fuck about the white gaze, I don't. I literally don't." -- Marissa Janae Johnson
"What's true about this moment is that it's not about the tactics. If you're caught up in tactics you're missing the point." -- Alicia Garza 
"Myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories." -- Patrisse Cullors (in response to an interview question citing a "loving critique" from Jalil Muntaqim)
"When I use Assata’s powerful demand in my organizing work, I always begin by sharing where it comes from, sharing about Assata’s significance to the Black Liberation Movement, what it’s political purpose and message is, and why it’s important in our context." -- Alicia Garza, "Herstory of Black Lives Matter"
"I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one." -- Assata Shakur
"The Black Liberation Army was formed after the repression began to come down on the Black Panther Party and people in the Party were seeing that there had to be a clear separation between military apparatus and aboveground apparatus and they were waiting on the leaders to make this decision. But by then, it seemed like the leaders had sold-out to get out of jail and for $600 apartments, such as Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, so that they weren’t interested in making decisions to save the movement. So that people began to take it on their own since they were the ones getting killed in the process, they were getting framed up and getting arrested and driven underground all around the country." -- Sundiata Acoli, trial testimony quoted in Unearthing the Underground: A study of radical activism in the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, PhD dissertation by Gaidi Faraj
"The McGovern people were afraid that the Yippies were endorsing McGovern as a way of destroying him. We had to reassure them that no, this was really on the level, and then they said if you really want to help McGovern stay away." -- Stew Albert
"The fact that Abby [sic] Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Angela Davis, among others, support McGovern should be widely publicized and used at every point." -- Richard Nixon to John Mitchell  
"Assata's legacy represents a mandate to broaden and deepen anti-racist struggles." -- Angela Davis
The "broadening and deepening" of incarceration.
Sandwichman is not a true believer in the emancipatory efficacy of "revolutionary armed struggle." But setting aside my own idiosyncratic old, white, male weirdo populist economic determinism objections to adrenaline and testosterone-fueled adolescent action fantasies, I'm even more skeptical of political posturing that makes dog-whistle allusions to a legacy of armed resistance while denouncing armchair critics for being "caught up in tactics" and "missing the point."

Unless I am mistaken, the "point" of armed struggle has nothing to do with the audience "getting it."

Sandwichman, for one, hasn't miss any point. On the contrary, I find the profusion of points rather fascinating. Here's a few odd ones:

Naomi Klein:
That’s my hope for 2015. That we get off defense and put forward this very clear vision, bringing all of our movements together, because they are mobilizing in incredible ways. Some of you may have read the piece I wrote trying to connect the #BlackLivesMatter movement with the climate justice movement, because so much of what we are fighting for is based on the principle that black lives matter, that all lives matter. The way our governments are behaving in the face of the climate crisis actively discounts black and brown lives over white lives. It is an actively racist response to climate change that we should expose. I think we have to not be afraid to bust down these barriers if we really mean it when we say that if we’re going to change everything, it’s going to take everyone.
Peter Linebaugh:
As concerns Black Lives Matter and the movement, that so far, I think, this year 464 people have been killed by the police, this is sending force against people without trial by jury, not in accordance with the law of the land. And so, when Black Lives Matter began, after the—last August, after the killing of Michael Brown, many of us remembered that slavery itself came to an end thanks to Frederick Douglass’ references to Magna Carta. So Magna Carta has played a major role in American history in the freedom struggle led by former slaves and the African-American population. This is why Black Lives Matter is so important, not only against the racist power structure and the forms of white supremacy that exist in so many ruling institutions, but it’s also a recovery of this long tradition of struggling against sovereignty in the name of habeas corpus, trial by jury and prohibition of torture.
Fucking monomaniacs, eh? Sandwichman eagerly awaits the happy day when Black Lives Matter joins the struggle to eradicate the menace of the bogus "lump-of-labor fallacy" claim. 
"We believe that people should fuck all the time, anytime, whomever they want. This is not a program demand but a simple recognition of the reality around us." -- Abbie Hoffman, "Revolution towards a free society:Yippie!" manifesto, Chicago, 1968.