These guys are wild. They'd be funny if they didn't do so much damage to the concept of leftism. There's something to be said for optics, and a bizarre cult following the Shining Path is not, in fact, it.
Yes. They follow "Gonzaloist" thought, who they say refined M-L-M to its highest form (I honestly can't make myself type MLM without thinking of Amway BS).
Used to be called Maoism, but nowadays it's often called Mao Zedong Thought, to differentiate from the MLMs who try to claim the term because they're a higher synthesis of blahblahblah...
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoism
Yeah that’s pretty much my understanding as well except I think that is a western perspective, because I could be wrong but I’ve been under the impression that it was always referred to as Mao Zedong 思想 (thought) in China as opposed to an “ism”. (For reference, Marxism-Leninism, is Marx-Lenin 主义 (doctrine). Mao wasn’t putting himself on the same level as Marx and Lenin.
The Peruvian Communist Party claims to have synthesized Marxism-Leninism-Maoism the same way that it could be said that Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism or whatever. Although I’m not that well versed in what the actual doctrinal differences are between MLM and Mao Zedong Thought.
There were western Maoists using the term since before the shining path were a thing, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Its Maoism according to the Communist Party of the Phillipines
any left wing group worth noting is going to be infiltrated by FBI agents. History and COINTELPRO have proved that. Unfortunately the FBI is really good at infiltrating these groups now and often their agents can acquire leadership positions with few difficulties. I would not doubt the FBI is involved.
their agents can acquire leadership positions with few difficulties
"Christ this is a ton of work and I'm only organizing part time. Hey, Jim From The Office-looking motherfucker, can you handle the website and maybe schedule a few events? Christ, so glad I've got Jim. I swear, it's like it is his job to be here."
They also stay on when infighting (that they often cause) happens and everyone else gets frustrated and leaves, giving them seniority, and making the electoral pool smaller when it comes time to elect people to positions. Not to mention that all of the plants strategize to vote en bloc.
"damn Jim always donates so much money to our events, of course we can trust him with leading a few projects."
There's a difference, though, between informants being in the org and informants leading the org. Everything the Austin MLM club does, when they actually do stuff, hurts the left and the "hoods" they claim to protect.
Even the good stuff they apparently did was, from what I've heard from someone who was in Austin at the time, largely taking credit for others' accomplishments. Like announcing a skirmish in advance, gaining the attention of reactionaries, not showing up, then claiming victory when reactionaries picked fights with neighborhood members and lost.
When the government shutdown started, they "disbanded". When the shutdown ended, they "reformed" or whatever.
Redguard sus
I remember hearing that but didnt see any evidence of it do you have their statement of disbanding and reopening or something like that saved anywhere?
"The project has reached its conclusion" on 12/17. The shutdown was officially on 12/22 but people were bracing for it beforehand.
https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1994676970618447&id=722986724454151
https://redguardsaustin.wordpress.com/2018/12/17/important-notice/
As for when they reformed, I'm having a hard time finding that, because their "news service" has had, like, two or three different names from then to now. AFAIK they're technically not the red guards anymore, but they're still the fucking red guards.
Yeah, I think tribuneofthepeople.com is their current name for their "news service".
Anyways, their blogs are always so amusing to read, both because they talk of their "accomplishments" as if someone else did them, they just noticed (which is better opsec, 🤐 is best) and they try to tie their stuff into a greater global proletarian movement. So, it reads like:
Brazil: Thousands of people rebel against the oppressive Bolsonaro regime.
Chile: Masses stand up to undo the horrors of the Pinochet regime and its legacy
Austin: Some people tag "Elections No! Revolutions Yes!" on the side of a bridge.
🎶One of these things is not like the others🎶
Currently, yes.
I was trying to find a statement of formation from after RGA dissolved. Which I think would be Incendiary News, but I'm not 100% certain.
I don't think Incendiary ever published a refounding/re-formation notice. I did just pop over to it, and I'd forgotten how cringe-inducing their final article was.
Yep. You used to be able to read between the lines, because when every post is 2500+ words, there's a lot of lines to read between. But their posting had slowed down by then.
They're not an op. They're a sketch comedy act for the Zeta-Reticulans who visit our planet for tourism.
I'm on the Op side. They made numerous spinoffs when they broke up. They are named things like "Serve the People", "Protect our Hoodz" (actually spelled like that). One is the Mike Ramos Brigade named after a victim of police brutality who's family disavowed the group. They apparently chastised the family saying they didn't understand what needed to be done. Back in June, they organized a march against APD which was basically a rival march of the Austin Justice Coalition which had one the next day. The Mike Ramos Brigade then made a Facebook event to protest Target after the one in Minneapolis got looted. That was so sus.
Before they started nailing pig heads everywhere, and fighting with DSA members, and were known for fighting fascists, I had some respect for them.
Until a comrade who was locally active at the time told me that it was a fiction and they rarely ever defended anything.
A few took pot shots and ran, which ain't a bad thing, tbh. But mostly they did shit to invite the fash into the neighborhoods then took credit for what happened afterwards.
And also a lot of what they did, like in your march example, piggybacked off of other movements, causing confusion and sapping their strength.
Yeah. A friend of mine said they got the shit beat out of them by fash when the Red Guards were armed.
They realized nobody was getting the message so this time they chose a library, a place where people go specifically to read
That's how you attack the imperial underbelly. Hit the libraries. That'll show the forces of capital.
As a socialist, there is nothing I hate more than a centralised distribution point for the things people need as they need them in some sort of efficient and non-profit way. I hate the working class educating itself.
"Precisely at the present time, when no such organisation yet exists, and when the revolutionary movement is rapidly and spontaneously growing, we already observe two opposite extremes (which, as is to be expected, 'meet'). These are: the utterly unsound Economism and the preaching of moderation, and the equally unsound 'excitative terror', which strives 'artificially to call forth symptoms of the end of the movement, which is developing and strengthening itself, when this movement is as yet nearer to the start than to the end'"
-Lenin in What is to be Done? on the subject of flashy, clandestine terrorist cells and their tactics in Russia, of which his brother was a part of (Narodnaya Volya) and was executed as a result
Holy fuck. For those that don't know, RAICES is an organization dedicated to giving legal aid to immigrant communities, including undocumented and DACA; especially near the border. It wouldn't be exaggeration to describe them as the legal frontline against ICE atrocities, directly helping those victimized by ICE and helping prevent such victimization. They'll literally walk people to court and make sure ICE doesn't take and detain them. IMO one of the best non-profits in the country.
I'm going to edit my post and explain the full story. I also remember them crashing an Abby Martin event for Gaza Fights for Freedom. All the Palestinians there thought they were Zionists
All the Palestinians there thought they were Zionists
Oh my god, wtf :agony-yehaw:
This red guard thing has to be an op, there is no other explanation
Excluding the Butthole Surfers has anything good ever come out of Austin? I hate the term poser, but Austin is entirely posers.
Clearly you've never been to Portland. Posers of posers, with an extra layer of capitalism on top of the first layer of capitalism Austin applied first.
Add jesus lizard, the dicks, elevators and maybe we can count Doug Sahm and townes van zant. I lived there about 15 years ago and it was pretty cool. Was fairly cheap, some good music (mostly at beerland), good movie theaters and book stores. I could get by without a car. And there were plenty of ok paying service jobs. Not a lot of posers back then tbh. A lot of pretty legit and real people. It started to get really expensive around 2010 and tech bros were taking over etc. I basically got priced out at that point. Always bums me out to go back there because austin does have a certain magic to it but mostly that's gone
Whomst even is the Red Guard? The only things that I know about them is what I've read in this thread, and I can't say they're a... upstanding leftist organization?
They are a bunch of Gonzalo inspired, very online, predominatly white Maoists who spend most of their time attacking other left orgs for being 'social fascist'.
Of all of the buildings in one of the largest cities in one of the largest states of the U.S. you could vandalize, why go for arguably one of the LEAST capitalist institutions in modern American society? I'm REALLY trying to not sound like a lib here, but what the fuck are you accomplishing?
It was a voting center and they were protesting voting, I think.
However you slice it, this shit was incoherent. But that makes it slightly less incoherent.
