I may need to backtrack and do A GANG of research but off the top of my head (from what I've heard) I wouldn't say they were not hateful.
I've never understood people who try to speak on topics they have no knowledge about. Fall back and pay attention.
I never said I had no knowledge, no that I had never read anything on them, etc. That's your assumption. I will say that I haven't been tacking up posters of HPN over my bed, either.
The guys had pros and cons, and it's not +/- as someone previously said. But, once again, these guys weren't handing out lollipops or some shit.
And, just for once, have certain members of the Soulstrut population considered attempting to A.) not be insulting when someone presents a conflicting viewpoint, B.) not come off as crybabies because everyone doesn't agree with you, and C.) present something of substance that may cause the other side to see your point of view?[/b]
Actually, I'm going to call out Bambouche[/b] (amongst others), who seems to feel that he is up on his Black Panther history, to do just this (C.).
I don't know how much oil people think we have, but the Black Panthers were a great organization and most of the violence that was attributed to them should be viewed in perspective with the massive multi-dimensional violence that owning class people have inflicted on poor people. As well the FACT that the organization was heavily infultrated by agent provocatuers should be taken into account. Racism is the lynch pin holding this cycle of violence and poverty in place.
Black and white people make blunders and triumphs. Arguing the merits of actions of an organization 3 decades ago is so abstract and useless. Spend some time getting involved with something meaningful today. Leave your CPU and make some friends who you never would think to make; and hang in there with the friendship when it gets tough. I'm not saying go out and make friends with OSAMA or Cheney, find someone with some of their humanity intact.
It's not easy being uncomfortable but we will never be able to have real freedom unless we take the first step towards peace. Building trust and friendship across class, and cultural lines is a great step.
There is no scientifically viable definition of race.
Racism should die.
PS I find it hard to believe that there is so much oil inder the earth. You need to get out of your SUV and walk off some of that sixpack. That shit's getting the better of your reasoning ability.
The oil crisis is not with the "amount of oil" present on the earth but with the ability to meet the oil demand with current technology. We need too much oil too fast, there is enough, but we don't have the technology to suck it out, process it, then deliver it in time. This is what they are talking about when they mention 2010 (or so I have read, it's been a while but this makes logical sense).
I think it was AP who said that America went into Iraq because they wanted to horde oil so prices could rise. He is absolutely correct. But not only to do this, but to control the flow of oil and to have another supporting power in the Middle East aside from Isreal which is slowly being discredited for being very undemocratic and in a terrible position with regards to Palestine.
Sorry to distract when the thread seemed to finally get back on topic
Actually, I'm going to call out Bmboch[/b] (amongst others), who seems to feel that he is up on his Black Panther history, to do just this (C.).
I'd encourage you to read the books, and hear what the Panthers themselves had to say, rather than what I think of what the Panthers had to say. You'd get more out of it that way. And I'm not interested in this prospect as it rings of a typical "how big is yours" game. Vitamin seems to be on to something, though. Channeling, in fact.
I'm not claiming to be "up on" my Panther history as much as claimintg I am sure that you are not. People posting on shit they know little about runs rampant around here.
The guys had pros and cons, and it's not +/- as someone previously said. But, once again, these guys weren't handing out lollipops or some shit.
Does handing out breakfast to poor kids count?
Unfortunately, I am not the one to pull out truly insightful facts either as I have forgotten much of what I have read. Follow Bambouche's idea and read their books.
It is safe to say a truly unbiased history of the Panthers cannot exist, so it is up to each of us to piece together a history we can accept from whatever sources we have. The average history book is clearly less informed and might be more biased than a book by someone who was involved
Actually, I'm going to call out Bmboch[/b] (amongst others), who seems to feel that he is up on his Black Panther history, to do just this (C.).
I'd encourage you to read the books, and hear what the Panthers themselves had to say, rather than what I think of what the Panthers had to say. You'd get more out of it that way. And I'm not interested in this prospect as it rings of a typical "how big is yours" game. Vitamin seems to be on to something, though. Channeling, in fact.
I'm not claiming to be "up on" my Panther history as much as claimintg I am sure that you are not. People posting on shit they know little about runs rampant around here.
All bullshit aside, I was serious.
The whole point here is that it's not feasible to go and read a stack of books on every subject that may come up, if you know what I mean. If you've read up on the subject and you feel that I'm wrong on certain points, then feel free to interject and throw up a little summary of why you think so.
I understand people talking out their ass. It's annoying. However, I have done some reading on occasion; I actually have a booklet on the 1969 Cleveland riots that were triggered by an incident involving the Black Panthers. (Don't go reading into that, it's too much to summarize right now) Not that that's particularly special, but my point is that I didn't just start talking with absolutely zero background.
So, I was giving my impressions from some of the reading I have done, but I certainly wouldn't qualify myself as a specialist on the topic. So, for those that may have done a little more, feel free to correct. The "how big is yours" is irrelevant, just toss out some knowledge if you think you have it. It's ok.
Anyway, my point is that it's ok to be wrong. I have certain impressions on things, and if they're wrong, just drop something solid that refutes it. In all honesty, it's not a topic I really feel like spending an assload of time on. I don't need to know the nuances of the group. Give me the broad stroke from your perspective.
It's ok to be wrong, and it's ok to have an opinion. I just don't see any good is trying to shoot down others because they don't feel the same way you do.
Do I even want to jump back into this thread? There's so many topics now I can't even keep up with half of them. I'll just try to address the ones off the top of my head that I can remember and hopefully I'm not misrepresenting anything I read earlier.
1) On the Panthers being violent. They talked the talk of violence, but never really did much against the government. The fact that they did talk the talk however, led to their demise because the local police and federal government were never going to let black folks talk and act like that in America. Where the Panthers were violent were with other blacks and former members. There are a lot of dirty secrets about the Panthers that get covered up by the nostalgia and reverence that surrounds them, but they extorted money from Oakland business, got a cut of the drug trade in the city, got in a shoot-out with the US organization in LA, did some beat downs on former and current members of their own organization because there were so many factions after a while. Huey Newton himself shot the cop that he went to trial for, and after he became a drug addict in jail and got released lost his mother fuckin mind for a while and did all kind of shit like having Bobby Seale whipped naked in his apartment by his bodyguards, pistol whipped a tailor and beat up a prostitute.
2) On the merits of the non-violent civil rights movement versus the revolutionary black nationalist/black power movement I would say hands down the non-violent civil rights movement did far, far more. case in point, after SNCC took its black power stance it kicked out all of its white members, withdrew most of its grass roots work over voting and empowerment in the South and eventually broke up into bitter factions about whether to take culturalist or political nationalist stances, etc. One could argue that they became speech givers after a while, rather than actually moving forward with plans and actions that actually DID things for people other than inspire people at a rally or in an interview. And what exactly were the violent threats from blacks that existed in the 1950s, especially in the South, when the civil rights movement began? Besides the Deacons for Defense that provided security at certain events in one state (can't remember which) I've never really heard of armed groups or anything like that happening in the South. The Nation of Islam didn't even hit the headlines until the early 60s. Maybe people don't understand the oppression blacks were under in the South, but 10 black people couldn't even get together after a while in the South and talk politics without the cops following them, having their license plate numbers taken down and their photographs taken by police, the Klan and the like, and probably getting intimidated on the way out or the way there. Try toting guns or threatening violence in that environment. The non-violent Civil Rights movement ended legal segregation, removed barriers to voting like poll taxes, tests, etc., De facto segregation still exists in our country along with all kinds of injustices, but I'd put up that list of accomplishments against anything the black power movement did. Yes, MLK was becoming more radical towards his later years and began addressing a whole slew of new issues such as poverty, racism in the North and the Vietnam war, but the guy was not going to start talking about revolution or black power akin to the Panthers, SNCC, etc.
3) On wars, I'm not opposed to them. I supported the war in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda attacked us, they were shacked up in Afghanistan with open support of the government. I had no problem attacking that country to root the Taliban and Al Qaeda because you weren't going to get rid of one without the other. I call that a defensive war because we got attacked. (I could go into a long rant about how we've been fucking up in Afghanistan since the invasion, but this thread already has enough tangents)
On Iraq I began to oppose the idea on 9/11 when I heard former CIA chief Woosley, a neocon, say on CBS news with Dan Rather I believe that we should attack Iraq now. Rather asked, "But do we have any proof they were involved?" To which Woolsey replied, "No, but it doesn't matter we should attack Iraq now." They used 9/11 to push forward an agenda they'd been pushing for since the 1st Gulf War. It was a war of choice and was wrong on so many levels. I don't believe democracy can come from a barrell of a gun. I thought Iraq probably had some WMD left over, but they were not a threat. (Something supported by the U.S.'s own died in blue ally, England in the secret Downing Street memos that got released). I thought because the U.S. was doing such a bad job reconstruction Afghanistan that they were going to fuck up royally in Iraq which had much bigger problems, namely the threat of the country breaking up into religious and ethnic factions. It turns out I was right on every single point. Iraq went from one bad situation, living under a dictatorship, to another with an occupying power, the U.S., that didn't know what the fuck it was doing after the war ended, terrorists, and a civil war if everything keeps going like it's going.
I think I'll stop at 3 responses, the magic number.
P.S. - Vitamin, good to see you posting from Egypt! On the other hand, the Kurds were pretty free in the North before the invasion with the no fly zone, etc. Now they're showing that they can be as bad as the Arabs were to them with forcing Arabs out of Kirkuk, running secret detention centers, carrying out mass arrests of Arabs in anti-terrorist sweeps, etc. Not to mention they're not helping with the "democratic process" in Iraq by having something like 90% of the Kurds calling for an independent state, having the ONLY effective Iraqi army battallion that happens to refuse to wear the Iraqi flag on its uniforms and will only act with an OK from the Kurdish leadership, and trying to lay claim to large pieces of terrirtory where they are no Kurds really, but lots of oil.
suspect someone who writes it off with a "why should i listen to him, he was a rapist?" might not have actually finished it. there's a reason those articles are loaded at the front of the book.
It was a while ago but I think that was the case. I better go and finish it.
I did finish it...twice and I don't remember him feeling any remorse for what he had done. He expressed the idea of feeling love which did paint him as human but the lingering thought of him raping multiple women still remained.
I love books that deal with human redemption, hell the Autobiography of Malcolm X is in the most literal and spiritual sense my personal bible. But I didn't get any siilar vibe from Soul On Ice.
Maybe you can tell me what you walked away from the book with to give me another perspective
Guzzo, I think Cleaver clearly admits in "Soul On Ice" that he was crazy at the time he was committing those rapes, and that he was glad that he was caught and put away. He didn't seem too proud of those things to me. Writing those things out was brave on one point, plus it added a dimension to his theoretical writing about the race-sex formations that he comes to later.
3) On wars, I'm not opposed to them. I supported the war in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda attacked us, they were shacked up in Afghanistan with open support of the government. I had no problem attacking that country to root the Taliban and Al Qaeda because you weren't going to get rid of one without the other. I call that a defensive war because we got attacked. (I could go into a long rant about how we've been fucking up in Afghanistan since the invasion, but this thread already has enough tangents)
Motown, Wouldn't the position of going after the perpetrators of the crimes against the US make more sense? The members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda who were a part of the crime should be made to pay, not the citizens of Afghanistan who may or may not be associated with those groups. I realize it's a delicate situation, but what good does starving and bombing citizens do?
There would have been little protest, from Americans or others, if we made it clear we wanted to capture those responsible (in funding, planning, conspiring, etc.) and try them under the strongest international laws.
For example, when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma, we didn't starve the people of Junction City where he was known to live. We didn't shoot everyone who had bought a copy of the Turner Diaries. We didn't drop smart bombs on everyone who had ties to anti-government or survivalist movements. We investigated the crime and charged those responsible. That is, after all, the precedent for how "justice" works.
The attack on the US was terrible, but why stop all food aid to Afghanistan; starving millions? Why bomb entire cities? Why punish the people of Afghanistan, and the survivors here, with indiscriminate, widespread death? Killing the children of Afghanistan only fuels the strength of radical fundamentalists.
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts, as your offerings in these matters are always logical and well-thought. Please know I am not trying to saddle your acceptance to everything that has happened in Afghanistan, but it pangs me to read your "I had no problem attacking that country", as, to me, it seems a sign that we are accepting the administration's definition of democracy domination with waning attention on its victims.
I understand your point, why punishes the many to get a few, but from a practical view I don't think it would've been possible to just take out Al Qaeda without taking down the Taliban as well. You had a government that openly supported Al Qaeda. If, for example, we were to send in a Special Forces attack on just the Al Qaeda training camps, we'd probably get some of them, but not all of them, plus this would be considered an act of war against Afghanistan. You'd have to have constant raids into the country, which would be war in everything but name. That's just from a practical view. We could go into details about how the U.S. screwed up trying to capture Bin Laden when we actually invaded, but that's another story.
Great topic and for the most part an interesting discussion. I orignally wanted to post on the Panthers visa vie violence, which is a complicated subject. To my understanding the Panthers never advocated the violent overthrow of the gov't but rather armed self-defense of ghetto communities by their inhabitants. Hence the monitoring of police by squads of pistol packing leather clad Afro-Americans. But as Motown so clearly pointed out discipline was not a Panther strong suit (shit these guys were all very young and unseasoned) and things got out of hand in some cases.
Just down the street from my house sat an old McDonald's that was bombed by the Panthers after they refused a polite invitation to join the local breakfast program. When McDonald's rebuilt the store, beret wearing brothers in raybans were regularly seen leaving the premises with sacks of potatos. Their lack of discipline also made them easy targets for the wicked ministrations of the likes of Hoover and the rest of the COINTELPRO thugs in our gov't, who of course weren't (and are not) at all debating the morality of using violence.
As regards violent vs non-violent struggle I think it's a matter of practicality. Armed struggle for the oppressed is not often an option as was the case for blacks in the US. In the case of the Palestinians I think you could make a very good argument that violence (terrorism, the 1st infitada) created the possibility of a state. Just as was the case with Jews in getting the British to give up on Israel. Our own revolutionary experience shows that violence can lead to something worthwhile. Likewise, the ANC never renounced violence as a tactic and used it sporadically in their struggle to overturn Apartheid. I personally believe that violence is warranted in some situations. I too supported the Afghan invasion because it was the only real sure way to insure that it couldn't be used as a base for further terrorist plotting. By the same token I have always believed that Iraq was a sham. Sadly, we have recreated much the same problem we had before we went into Afghanistan and now there really is no end in site.
Eldridge was unquestionably a misogynist and a homophobe (his criticism of Baldwin is very ugly stuff). But these are problems that really weren't on thinking peoples' screens yet (and still aren't on the hip-hop community's). I think his analysis of race and class issues was pretty dead on as were Seale's and Newton's.
To make this all record related, check out Cleaver's passionate embrace of Bob Dylan as a revolutionary voice. Brother was feeling Mr Zimmerman.
Oh and I forgot to rep Powderfinger over in the Neil Young thread so I'll do it now.
One last note. I truly find many people's treatment of Vitamin unfortunate. I can't think of an argument of his that I agree with (save for his appreciation of some backpack type hip hop) but I find him to be thoughtful, articulate and mostly repectful. I really like to hear his take on things because most of the conservatives I know couldn't put two sentences together. Granted I never heard his raps but I still think we could show more civility here.
Comments
I never said I had no knowledge, no that I had never read anything on them, etc. That's your assumption. I will say that I haven't been tacking up posters of HPN over my bed, either.
The guys had pros and cons, and it's not +/- as someone previously said. But, once again, these guys weren't handing out lollipops or some shit.
And, just for once, have certain members of the Soulstrut population considered attempting to A.) not be insulting when someone presents a conflicting viewpoint, B.) not come off as crybabies because everyone doesn't agree with you, and C.) present something of substance that may cause the other side to see your point of view?[/b]
Actually, I'm going to call out Bambouche[/b] (amongst others), who seems to feel that he is up on his Black Panther history, to do just this (C.).
The oil crisis is not with the "amount of oil" present on the earth but with the ability to meet the oil demand with current technology. We need too much oil too fast, there is enough, but we don't have the technology to suck it out, process it, then deliver it in time. This is what they are talking about when they mention 2010 (or so I have read, it's been a while but this makes logical sense).
I think it was AP who said that America went into Iraq because they wanted to horde oil so prices could rise. He is absolutely correct. But not only to do this, but to control the flow of oil and to have another supporting power in the Middle East aside from Isreal which is slowly being discredited for being very undemocratic and in a terrible position with regards to Palestine.
Sorry to distract when the thread seemed to finally get back on topic
I'd encourage you to read the books, and hear what the Panthers themselves had to say, rather than what I think of what the Panthers had to say. You'd get more out of it that way. And I'm not interested in this prospect as it rings of a typical "how big is yours" game. Vitamin seems to be on to something, though. Channeling, in fact.
I'm not claiming to be "up on" my Panther history as much as claimintg I am sure that you are not. People posting on shit they know little about runs rampant around here.
Does handing out breakfast to poor kids count?
Unfortunately, I am not the one to pull out truly insightful facts either as I have forgotten much of what I have read. Follow Bambouche's idea and read their books.
It is safe to say a truly unbiased history of the Panthers cannot exist, so it is up to each of us to piece together a history we can accept from whatever sources we have. The average history book is clearly less informed and might be more biased than a book by someone who was involved
All bullshit aside, I was serious.
The whole point here is that it's not feasible to go and read a stack of books on every subject that may come up, if you know what I mean. If you've read up on the subject and you feel that I'm wrong on certain points, then feel free to interject and throw up a little summary of why you think so.
I understand people talking out their ass. It's annoying.
However, I have done some reading on occasion; I actually have a booklet on the 1969 Cleveland riots that were triggered by an incident involving the Black Panthers. (Don't go reading into that, it's too much to summarize right now) Not that that's particularly special, but my point is that I didn't just start talking with absolutely zero background.
So, I was giving my impressions from some of the reading I have done, but I certainly wouldn't qualify myself as a specialist on the topic. So, for those that may have done a little more, feel free to correct. The "how big is yours" is irrelevant, just toss out some knowledge if you think you have it. It's ok.
Anyway, my point is that it's ok to be wrong. I have certain impressions on things, and if they're wrong, just drop something solid that refutes it. In all honesty, it's not a topic I really feel like spending an assload of time on. I don't need to know the nuances of the group. Give me the broad stroke from your perspective.
It's ok to be wrong, and it's ok to have an opinion. I just don't see any good is trying to shoot down others because they don't feel the same way you do.
Do I even want to jump back into this thread? There's so many topics now I can't even keep up with half of them. I'll just try to address the ones off the top of my head that I can remember and hopefully I'm not misrepresenting anything I read earlier.
1) On the Panthers being violent. They talked the talk of violence, but never really did much against the government. The fact that they did talk the talk however, led to their demise because the local police and federal government were never going to let black folks talk and act like that in America. Where the Panthers were violent were with other blacks and former members. There are a lot of dirty secrets about the Panthers that get covered up by the nostalgia and reverence that surrounds them, but they extorted money from Oakland business, got a cut of the drug trade in the city, got in a shoot-out with the US organization in LA, did some beat downs on former and current members of their own organization because there were so many factions after a while. Huey Newton himself shot the cop that he went to trial for, and after he became a drug addict in jail and got released lost his mother fuckin mind for a while and did all kind of shit like having Bobby Seale whipped naked in his apartment by his bodyguards, pistol whipped a tailor and beat up a prostitute.
2) On the merits of the non-violent civil rights movement versus the revolutionary black nationalist/black power movement I would say hands down the non-violent civil rights movement did far, far more. case in point, after SNCC took its black power stance it kicked out all of its white members, withdrew most of its grass roots work over voting and empowerment in the South and eventually broke up into bitter factions about whether to take culturalist or political nationalist stances, etc. One could argue that they became speech givers after a while, rather than actually moving forward with plans and actions that actually DID things for people other than inspire people at a rally or in an interview. And what exactly were the violent threats from blacks that existed in the 1950s, especially in the South, when the civil rights movement began? Besides the Deacons for Defense that provided security at certain events in one state (can't remember which) I've never really heard of armed groups or anything like that happening in the South. The Nation of Islam didn't even hit the headlines until the early 60s. Maybe people don't understand the oppression blacks were under in the South, but 10 black people couldn't even get together after a while in the South and talk politics without the cops following them, having their license plate numbers taken down and their photographs taken by police, the Klan and the like, and probably getting intimidated on the way out or the way there. Try toting guns or threatening violence in that environment. The non-violent Civil Rights movement ended legal segregation, removed barriers to voting like poll taxes, tests, etc., De facto segregation still exists in our country along with all kinds of injustices, but I'd put up that list of accomplishments against anything the black power movement did. Yes, MLK was becoming more radical towards his later years and began addressing a whole slew of new issues such as poverty, racism in the North and the Vietnam war, but the guy was not going to start talking about revolution or black power akin to the Panthers, SNCC, etc.
3) On wars, I'm not opposed to them. I supported the war in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda attacked us, they were shacked up in Afghanistan with open support of the government. I had no problem attacking that country to root the Taliban and Al Qaeda because you weren't going to get rid of one without the other. I call that a defensive war because we got attacked. (I could go into a long rant about how we've been fucking up in Afghanistan since the invasion, but this thread already has enough tangents)
On Iraq I began to oppose the idea on 9/11 when I heard former CIA chief Woosley, a neocon, say on CBS news with Dan Rather I believe that we should attack Iraq now. Rather asked, "But do we have any proof they were involved?" To which Woolsey replied, "No, but it doesn't matter we should attack Iraq now." They used 9/11 to push forward an agenda they'd been pushing for since the 1st Gulf War. It was a war of choice and was wrong on so many levels. I don't believe democracy can come from a barrell of a gun. I thought Iraq probably had some WMD left over, but they were not a threat. (Something supported by the U.S.'s own died in blue ally, England in the secret Downing Street memos that got released). I thought because the U.S. was doing such a bad job reconstruction Afghanistan that they were going to fuck up royally in Iraq which had much bigger problems, namely the threat of the country breaking up into religious and ethnic factions. It turns out I was right on every single point. Iraq went from one bad situation, living under a dictatorship, to another with an occupying power, the U.S., that didn't know what the fuck it was doing after the war ended, terrorists, and a civil war if everything keeps going like it's going.
I think I'll stop at 3 responses, the magic number.
Now the rest of you try.
Guzzo, I think Cleaver clearly admits in "Soul On Ice" that he was crazy at the time he was committing those rapes, and that he was glad that he was caught and put away. He didn't seem too proud of those things to me. Writing those things out was brave on one point, plus it added a dimension to his theoretical writing about the race-sex formations that he comes to later.
Motown,
Wouldn't the position of going after the perpetrators of the crimes against the US make more sense? The members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda who were a part of the crime should be made to pay, not the citizens of Afghanistan who may or may not be associated with those groups. I realize it's a delicate situation, but what good does starving and bombing citizens do?
There would have been little protest, from Americans or others, if we made it clear we wanted to capture those responsible (in funding, planning, conspiring, etc.) and try them under the strongest international laws.
For example, when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma, we didn't starve the people of Junction City where he was known to live. We didn't shoot everyone who had bought a copy of the Turner Diaries. We didn't drop smart bombs on everyone who had ties to anti-government or survivalist movements. We investigated the crime and charged those responsible. That is, after all, the precedent for how "justice" works.
The attack on the US was terrible, but why stop all food aid to Afghanistan; starving millions? Why bomb entire cities? Why punish the people of Afghanistan, and the survivors here, with indiscriminate, widespread death? Killing the children of Afghanistan only fuels the strength of radical fundamentalists.
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts, as your offerings in these matters are always logical and well-thought. Please know I am not trying to saddle your acceptance to everything that has happened in Afghanistan, but it pangs me to read your "I had no problem attacking that country", as, to me, it seems a sign that we are accepting the administration's definition of
democracydomination with waning attention on its victims.With respect...
Enduring Freedom,
~B
I understand your point, why punishes the many to get a few, but from a practical view I don't think it would've been possible to just take out Al Qaeda without taking down the Taliban as well. You had a government that openly supported Al Qaeda. If, for example, we were to send in a Special Forces attack on just the Al Qaeda training camps, we'd probably get some of them, but not all of them, plus this would be considered an act of war against Afghanistan. You'd have to have constant raids into the country, which would be war in everything but name. That's just from a practical view. We could go into details about how the U.S. screwed up trying to capture Bin Laden when we actually invaded, but that's another story.
Indeed. And let's not go into details... We're probably only a few posts from GODWIN STATUS up in this byeatch!
Just down the street from my house sat an old McDonald's that was bombed by the Panthers after they refused a polite invitation to join the local breakfast program. When McDonald's rebuilt the store, beret wearing brothers in raybans were regularly seen leaving the premises with sacks of potatos. Their lack of discipline also made them easy targets for the wicked ministrations of the likes of Hoover and the rest of the COINTELPRO thugs in our gov't, who of course weren't (and are not) at all debating the morality of using violence.
As regards violent vs non-violent struggle I think it's a matter of practicality. Armed struggle for the oppressed is not often an option as was the case for blacks in the US. In the case of the Palestinians I think you could make a very good argument that violence (terrorism, the 1st infitada) created the possibility of a state. Just as was the case with Jews in getting the British to give up on Israel. Our own revolutionary experience shows that violence can lead to something worthwhile. Likewise, the ANC never renounced violence as a tactic and used it sporadically in their struggle to overturn Apartheid. I personally believe that violence is warranted in some situations. I too supported the Afghan invasion because it was the only real sure way to insure that it couldn't be used as a base for further terrorist plotting. By the same token I have always believed that Iraq was a sham. Sadly, we have recreated much the same problem we had before we went into Afghanistan and now there really is no end in site.
Eldridge was unquestionably a misogynist and a homophobe (his criticism of Baldwin is very ugly stuff). But these are problems that really weren't on thinking peoples' screens yet (and still aren't on the hip-hop community's). I think his analysis of race and class issues was pretty dead on as were Seale's and Newton's.
To make this all record related, check out Cleaver's passionate embrace of Bob Dylan as a revolutionary voice. Brother was feeling Mr Zimmerman.
Oh and I forgot to rep Powderfinger over in the Neil Young thread so I'll do it now.
One last note. I truly find many people's treatment of Vitamin unfortunate. I can't think of an argument of his that I agree with (save for his appreciation of some backpack type hip hop) but I find him to be thoughtful, articulate and mostly repectful. I really like to hear his take on things because most of the conservatives I know couldn't put two sentences together. Granted I never heard his raps but I still think we could show more civility here.