What else is there to say?
Fight the power!
Good to see others getting armed.
How much you wanna bet certain conservative people start talking about gun control, or imposing restrictions on being armed at protests or something?
Hell yeah, the Black Panthers are exactly the heroes we need right now.
This is so surreal.
It’s like opening up your browser to be reading about The Weather Underground or the SDS or something…but then again, about 20 years ago, I don’t think I was thinking we’d have a Nazi sympathizer in the fucking White House, either, so I also thought Nazis were largely a part of history that would stay in the past.
SDS
Funny you say that, there’s also a be SDS org that has been around since the US invasion of Iraq, but got a lot of press recently during the campus protests over Gaza
It’s really wild how all these things are coming back around again.
It’s especially wild because it seems lately the mediascape has been practically saturated with stuff (most of it seemingly from very misinformed/uninformed people that are much younger than the boomers) that tries to paint “boomers” as one big monolith.
In some moments, I actually start to nearly buy into this nonsensical rhetoric.
And then I remember this is the generation where things like the Panthers, the Weather Underground, the SDS, and so much else was going on as well. The people kind of mindlessly spewing stuff about boomers would probably do well to zip their lip for a bit and actually learn something about that generation.
Operation Paperclip. You’ve had multiple Nazis in the white house, the last one repeatedly lied about seeing 40 beheaded children to justify funding and shielding a genocide.
Trump is just the first fascist Nazi. But America has been totally fine synopsizing with Nazis.
Weather Underground is just a distributed/crowd sourced weather app now full of individual weather stations. I love it both in function and name.
The Weather Underground
Do you mean the Underground Railroad?
Huh, TIL
The Weather Underground had another round in the headlines when Obama was running. The far right (and the “liberal media” really didn’t help much, of course) tried to smear Obama by some kind of much later association of Obama with Ayers.
The whole thing was hella stupid, of course. Obama was born in 1961, FFS, and would have been 16 years at the oldest when the Weather Underground was even still active.
But being idiotic is what the far right does best, often with a big assist with dumb dumbs in the “liberal media”.
I think YT is great. You just have to be selective. And using things like Invidious help a lot, because watching YT normally is just filled with ads.
Oki has an Eraserhead poster behind him - I’m sold.
Also, I should have mentioned MOVE (and the bombing by the cops)…it’s also more geographically relevant, too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE_(Philadelphia_organization)
Good. I’m willing to bet jackbooted thugs are less likely to shoot someone when there’s a visibly armed protestor nearby.
Think of a bully if someone stronger stands up to them they will run a way. I would like to see vets, blank panthers and others stand and protect the protesters. Having black panthers and vets unite for one common cause would send a powerful message.
Not specifically for vets, but the Iron Front is very popular with a lot of the antifascist vets I know, including myself.
Edit - The Sons of Liberty are specifically a vet organization
Thanks for the link for iron front and the fact that they have Blue sky is better
You’re welcome!
I’m not sure if it’s crazier that statement was made or the fact that I read it and agreed with it before I even thought how crazy of a time this is.
1960’s all over again.
But probably worse.
At least they aren’t super soldiers with ray guns
Hard agree on that front. The world is absolutely crazypants batshit right now.
A specific part more than others though
Sure, if you don’t count the unrest in Iran, the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese genocide of the Uyghurs, the Israeli genocide in Gaza, etc etc etc
Then sure, the world is a rosy and wonderful place other than the US.
Didn’t say the world is a rosy and wonderful place. But unrest in Iran, Russian imperialism, Chinese suppression and Israel killing Palestinians has sadly been the status quo for the last few decades. I interpreted batshit crazy as very different than it was before. But you’re right, there is a lot more places where life has gotten harder.
If it makes it any better this has happened repeatedly historically. Though it only really works when the ones you’re protesting against are gormless cowards, so it should be rather effective.
I understand black Panthers or for blacks folks. But it’s it also open to other folks like Hispanics?
There’s a lot of vets that are Hispanic that could and would help, but again I understand if this is only a black folks only thing.
Historically, there were a few contemporaneous Panthers equivalents for other minority groups. The Hispanic one was The Young Lords
The real Black Panthers? They would… probably still prefer it to be a sister org to focus on the African American community but they would very much be allies.
These Black Panthers? Who the hell knows?
Because the thing people forget is that the reason The Black Panthers were so effective wasn’t because they were walking around locked and loaded. It was because of all the community outreach they did. So when the (white) cops and government came knocking? The neighborhoods locked arms because these were people who had been protecting them and who cared about them.
So, in the article it very specifically highlights their many community programs like the food program they’re doing in several locations.
Hispanic protestors used to have the Young Lords and the Brown Berets, who the Panthers have partnered with in the past.
Both, as far as I know, are no longer active, but I’m sure there would be support for reviving them today.
There was also the White Panther Party back in the 60s-70’s formed mostly of white college kids following the Panther model. Essentially a more explicitly revolutionary alternative to SNCC, which was itself highly influential in the anti-war movement at the time.
These days there are several Panther groups doing smaller scale community self defence and mutual aid across the country, many of them led by second and third generation Black Panthers.
Wow I did not know that. Thank you for providing some info about it.
The United Panther Party is another small modern Panther org. The UPP is mixed and Anarcho-Pantherist in political philosophy.
Wasn’t MC5 part of the White Panthers?
When people talk about “the boomers” as one big monolith, I have to chuckle because they are clearly overlooking things like this…
MC5 kickout the jams band? Did not know that.
I could be wrong, but I think there was also a white panthers party that they were part of.
❤️
History repeats itself
Rhythm and poetry
