The protests changed me in a lot of ways. One way was, I was by no means a class reductionist before. But the protests really woke me up to the real struggles of oppressed communities in the US and importantly, the revolutionary potential in those communities. I remember listening to Rev Left in my car and had to pull over for a minute to absorb it when Breht said something to the effect of "what did white socialists in America ever give us?! Bernie Sanders!? Fuck that! The real revolutionary potential is with oppressed communities."
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It's not that I think it's perfectly foolproof so much as I think it has a better chance at being able to scale up. BLM couldn't take on new protest angles or present a unified front that makes its demands clear and actions coordinated. A more centralised effort would be better at those two things. That opens up the activists to assassination like Ferguson sure, but the protests are over those same people being killed regardless of what they do. Without any direction toward something bigger or even the ability to listen to a mass line for direction, what do those deaths accomplish? Another empty spasm of protests that confront the people funding police only through minor vandalism. Socially-focused sentiments that are turned into lawn sign platitudes by those same libs whose politics result in black people being shot.
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Both are valid and complement each other, but I have to contrast BLM against a project like the Black Panthers in their original form. They faced the same persecution but held it off in growing militias which coordinated internationally. They constantly engaged with the local communities to build up parallel structures which gave it cover. We got theory out of it, multiple similar groups and a widening spirit of radicalism, and if not for Reagan and the 80s/90s boom for white Americans they would have been some significant infrastructure for a wider revolutionary movement. There are still radical groups like that around BLM protests but nothing funnels people into them. PSL leaders in Denver were being arrested for the riots but walking around in daytime I didn't see any mention of PSL or NFAC or the SRA or even the DSA. There were some mutual aid setups like water tents and community orgs but none of those build the capacity for escalation or can muster a large enough crowd around a single focus. The depoliticised ones had their funding tied to the state that was surveilling them and the wealthy who abhorred the property damage. The politicised ones could fall in behind the actual BLM org if they're even the ones coordinating the daytime protests, but that group's big tent strategy only gave them as much wiggle room as democrats allow socialists. Whatever organising we do on the more radical fringe, it's still subservient to the movement orchestrating things and setting the terms of affiliation.
Thats an oxymoron
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We need both centralized and decentralized efforts. Without the former, libs will co-opt any movements not directly destroyed by the state. Without the latter, a few well placed bullets could kill our efforts.
We need people explicitly elevated to raise class consciousness, as well as a pool of leaders ready to step into their shoes at a moment's notice.
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No centralized or decentralized revolutionary party in america will gain power through a revolution against the state or through electoral means imo. I think the point is for the revolutionary organization to be the most ready to act, efficient, ideologicaly coherent and with an approach in mind to try and take and yield political power on whatever scale ,connected to the masses and able to protect itself when the entire thing collapses and when everything is under chaos in much more unpredictable and unstable conditions compared to now .
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