• Muad'DibberOP
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      3 years ago

      The full quote from Hampton:

      “We believe that the Weatherman action is anarchistic, opportunistic, individualistic. It’s chauvinistic, it’s Custeristic. And that’s the bad part about it. It’s Custeristic in that its leaders take people into situations where the people can be massacred — and they call that a revolution. It’s nothing but child’s play, it’s folly. We think these people may be sincere but they’re misguided. They’re muddleheads and they’re scatterbrains.”

      This was a common thing in especially the later BPP tactics. In the early days they did a lot more actions that provoked police attacks (such as the police the police actions), so many of the founders and top leaders were jailed or killed, even while the BPP was experiencing a boom in membership. They realized that they needed to shift efforts more to their serve the people programs, and build their numbers and strength, rather than engage in anarchistic adventurism like the weathermen.

      There was a really good reddit comment about this in regards to occupy that I can’t find right now.

      Anyways anarchistic adventurism and “terrorism” only hurts the movement, and invites attack. Surprisingly good essay by Trotsky about this on Why Marxists oppose individualist terrorism.