(I apologize in advance if talking about the podcast is discouraged. I don't know if that's a joke or if most hexbears feel that way). But anyway, next month marks the two-year anniversary of George Floyd's awful murder. Listening to the show in the summer of 2020, and later reading some stray commentary on this site, it seemed like the podcast kind of whiffed it on the protests. But idk, is that fair to say? I believe they participated in some marches in NYC, but I also remember Matt saying that "defund the police" was dead-on-arrival as a slogan, because cops will always be around as long as capitalism exists. I also remember there being a pretty rancid take about "working class" cops in a Taibbi episode, as well as an episode that dunked on a racial sensitivity/workplace training book. Fair enough about the capitalism opinion, and the book, which was no doubt written by a rich neolib that lacked any material analysis. I understand that CTH is a news commentary/comedy/dirtbag show co-hosted by white people, so it's not going to be the best resource on racial theory. I also understand that a big part of CTH is entertainment. But I'm curious if you have thoughts about Chapo's reaction to the 2020 protests. And thanks for sharing them.
At the height of BLM protests their scepticism about the movement's ability to change anything outside of destroying a couple of statues was considered outrageous, but now, looking back, seems like they've been vindicated.
No, fuck that. Those protests showed that once enough of us get together the police can't stop us. It planted a seed in peoples minds and I don't think it was for nothing.
Tell me the sight of a burning police station doesn't inspire you.
That's exactly why their takes were outrageous. Most leftists felt elated at the prospects, many were saying that we were seeing the birth of "a real movement" in real time.
Oooooh I see what you were trying to say. Lol, sorry.
But yeah, nothing to say it still won't come back as a full on movement, it wasn't that long ago and weirder shit has happened.
You could say I have high high hopes for a living- oww who shot me?
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The sight of that burning police station REALLY inspired me. But when I saw it, I thought it was going to be the first of many. It was the first and the last station that got burned down.
I will say this as someone who was theoretically on the ground in Minneapolis, is that the movement lacked any real coherency or organization with labor or other leftist movements. It had the strength of being grassroots and spontaneous, and the weakness of being grassroots and spontaneous. While I wouldn't say it was a bad thing, it certainly wasn't going to be a change in the status quo and the narrative around it was far too disjointed to have a meaningful impact on anyone but the local community members involved, many of whom are arrested with extraordinary long sentences hanging over their heads. It was a good call very grounded in historicity and actual analysis, something they learned from the loss around Bernie.
Overall having Taibbi and Amber on was weird choice and I wasn't a big fan, but I mostly just skipped that.
There needs to be an org ready to sieze the moment and guide the grassroots movements to power (while earning their trust), a vanguard, if you will.
Revolutionary preconfiguration is a term I've heard for it before.
It was a mess in Minneapolis in part because most of the major orgs that were organizing protests, like CUAPB, are collaborationist. The actual radical orgs tended to also be smart enough to have good opsec, which also means they couldn't have a real widespread and visible presence
have fewer than 10 active members is opsec of a kind
I mean, there are groups where that applies. There's also groups that are larger, about which I'm not going to say more here
Amber.
Cool, I watched woke too
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Less vindication and more self-fulfilling prophecy
ah right, I see what you mean