#good theory (prairie fire is required reading in my book) but they made a lot of stupid mistakes with their actions and one of the more | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

leonardcohenofficial · 3 months ago

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huey newton really nailed it when he said (in regard to marx) "in every discipline you find people who have distorted visions and are at a low state of consciousness who nonetheless have flashes of insight and produce ideas worth considering"; it's such an obvious and basic tenet when it comes to ways of approaching critical thought but it's a good reminder when it comes to considering the impact(s) of both theory and praxis and the ways we can critically discuss orgs and individuals without either offering uncritical total praise or flattening accomplishments for the sake of over the top criticism

#i've been really thinking about this in regard to the weathermen/weather underground because i think that they had actually quite a lot of #good theory (prairie fire is required reading in my book) but they made a lot of stupid mistakes with their actions and one of the more #egregious things they actually didn't follow through on was any type of tangible support for the panther 21 (weather was totally silent and #did not do any type of organizing around them despite their initial aim to coalition build with the panthers)#but so much of the theory that came out of their organizing absolutely is on the money—i do think their whiteness ultimately got in their #own way and fucked up their initial aims which like. circling all the way back around to newton's quote there is so much of that in the new #left groups of the mid sixties who kinda lost the plot in the early seventies when people had to go underground #also let alone the messiness of many of the panther leaders etc. etc.

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