> What happened is that King and the black power movement began to converge.
> This is one of the reasons he became a target of terrorism, besides his
> opposition to the Vietnam war.
Martyrs draw many claimants. We also hear, with more credibility, that King was killed because of his move towards labor and foreign policy. It's hard to see King as a black power advocate. This is the first I've ever heard that one too.
I don't think King's murder was a policy decision of the ruling class. I think some awful people where the racist right shaded into national law enforcement bodies hatched the plot.
> . . .
> The black nationalist movement came into existence because the
> civil rights
> movement was ineffectual against the institutionalized racism and de facto
> Jim Crow in the North. I would say that the main gain of the black
This is nonsense. Much was accomplished in the north in the areas of employment/housing/higher ed discrimination, school desegregation, etc. Some has rolled back and more remains to be done.
I do agree that black power was a creature of frustration over the extent and pace of gains from civil rights. That doesn't mean anything more was possible, however, or that black power was the best way to go.
> nationalist movement was the creation of anticapitalist consciousness in
> this country. Malcolm X especially identified racism as rooted in the
> capitalist system. Since I am interested in overthrowing this system, this
> is much more important to me than it is to you.
If the chief product of nationalism was "the creation of anticapitalist consciousness", this has been very well concealed. It's also hard to verify and thus hard to disprove.
I would take the opposite tack: the chief contribution of nationalism was the impetus to self-help, entailing participation in the market system, which can have positive dimensions. This is consistent with the roots of nationalism in the doings of Booker T. Washington, as Harold Cruse (a nationalist) explained quite well a long time ago.
That racism is rooted in capitalism is not an insight on which nationalists have a patent. Once again you try to take mainstream ideas and positions and redefine them as originating in nationalism, then try to use that to validate nationalism. You define nationalism through your own eyes, which nationalists would take a pretty dim view of. You're not the only one. That's a reason nationalists, both good and bad, have shunned the left.
>
> The FBI targetted SNCC at a time when the left was in crisis. Carmichael
> did not screw up SNCC, nor did Huey Newton screw up the Panthers. The
> explanation of the failure of these groups was that they were
> launched in a
> period of very deep ultraleftism and Maoism. It was virtually impossible
How was SNCC ultra-leftist? It disintegrated as a black power group.
I never said Newton screwed up the Panthers, but they're another story. Here indeed there was a combination of some maoism and other foolishness within, plus some people who had no business being in a political organization, and the FBI from without. I don't see it as material to this thread.
> . . .
> After replying to you yesterday, it dawned on me that your charge of
> "antisemitism" was very possibly your interpretation of one of
> Carmichael's
> attacks on the Zionist state. Can you remember whether he said that "all
> Jews should be killed" or "the land of Israel was stolen from the
> Palestinians?" The difference is important.
I know the difference between anti-zionism and anti-semitism, since I've always been critical of zionism. My family tree is rooted in East Europe and the Bund, not Israel.
> >Now you've got me in bed with that prick Sleeper?
> >Jesus Christ on a bike.
>
> I apologize. I should have said Todd Gitlin.
There's probably an in-joke there somewhere, but it's lost on me. I'm not privy to the gossip of the NYC left terrarium. Why, I don't even read The Nation!
We do seem calmer, which is all to the good.
MBS