I think Guy Miller hits the nail right on the head. Proyect quotes from Malcolm on the OAU, so? I don't see those views in contrast to the Panthers at all. Rather, they embodied the application of that approach to the more radicalized situation of the late 60s. Did the Panthers make mistakes? sure, who doesn't? But to have carped from the sidelines with no roots in the black community was wrong and demoralizing. I note the CP, for all its faults, had a different approach and was in the thick of solidarity with them and made political gains in that milieu. Quite frankly, raising Malcolm against the Panthers came across like Kautsky raising Marx against the Bolsheviks.
I have no doubt whatsoever that Malcolm would not have taken that view and would resent his image being appropriated to themselves by these sectarians whom he would have viewed as trying to make him a miilquetoast "King" figure against "black power" militants (not that that is an accurate take on King at all). Rather he would have been in the front lines of the struggle to defend the Panthers like the CP, Workers World and other activists were. Moreover, that the Panthers didn't embrace orthodox marxism, so what? (what did the Republic door sit in strikers embrace?) History never operates by some orthodox playbook, adherence to which is always an excuse for abstention from what's really going on or for stabbing it in the back. The Panthers were a mass organization thrown up spontaneously by the mass movement. Miller's attitude of solidarity on that is entirely correct. Yeah, they even had a rock/soul group called The Lumpens, so what? What were the demographics of the black community at the time? get real! All this comes from a know-it-all sectarian milieu of intellectuals that had few links to the black community yet presumed to pretentiously lecture it from the sidelines. What did they know about police harassment in Oakland, about Harlem, about the south side of Chicago? maybe they read something about it somewhere? Thus any healthy spirited radical of that era is gonna have a really hostile gut reaction to that bullshit which really represents playing it safe and ducking for cover politically-social opportunism Lenin excoriated Kautsky about: caving into scandalized respectable bourgois public opinion on the basis of idealized orthodox marxism when times get tough and represented their-not the only time they did that-, breaking ranks with the radical movement on a cutting edge issue on that basis. I note however it wasn't always like that with "the trots". I remember the YSA had another poster when I was in high school when Eldridge Cleaver was on the lam: Eldridge Cleaver welcome here. We've seen this before though in the history of the radical movement though when for example the SP wrote the IWW out of the movement or tried to on the basis of sanctimonious orthodoxy when they became just *too radical* for them. The Panthers were an historical vanguard; the trots were and are a sectarian milieu that nobody heard of. Of note, however, is the different attitude of European Trotskyists (who used "ultra-left" as a self-descriptor) and who championed the struggle of the Panthers in that period. _________________________________________________________________ Bing brings you maps, menus, and reviews organized in one place. http://www.bing.com/search?q=restaurants&form=MFESRP&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MFESRP_Local_MapsMenu_Resturants_1x1 ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
