That’s back in the day when J. Edgar Hoover had death squads, and the FBI and local peace officers decided to exterminate the Black Panther Party with the most extreme prejudice, and we wondered who they’d get to after that. So how much has the shit changed in four decades? Don’t look at me, motherfucker. I just report the news…
“Today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. On December 4th, 1969, Chicago police raided Fred Hampton's apartment and shot and killed him in his bed. He was just 21 years old. Black Panther leader Mark Clark was also killed in the raid. While authorities claimed the Panthers had opened fire on the police who were there to serve a search warrant for weapons, evidence later emerged that told a very different story: That the FBI, the Cook County State's Attorney's office and the Chicago police conspired to assassinate Fred Hampton. We speak with attorney Jeffrey Hass, author of "The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther.” (Click here for more.)
The secret word is Solidarity
“Today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. On December 4th, 1969, Chicago police raided Fred Hampton's apartment and shot and killed him in his bed. He was just 21 years old. Black Panther leader Mark Clark was also killed in the raid. While authorities claimed the Panthers had opened fire on the police who were there to serve a search warrant for weapons, evidence later emerged that told a very different story: That the FBI, the Cook County State's Attorney's office and the Chicago police conspired to assassinate Fred Hampton. We speak with attorney Jeffrey Hass, author of "The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther.” (Click here for more.)
The secret word is Solidarity
It's US vs. THEM and has always been thusly. I'm going to metaphorically clock the next idiot who whines about never wanting to hear about the 1960s again. If one merely follows the decline of a powerful underground (aka counterculture) and places the chronology of that decline against the events of the last 40 years, it's obvious that we were right, we were right, we were right.
ReplyDeleteMunz, it doesn't have anything to do with it being the 1960's, people don't want to hear about it because it is history.
ReplyDeleteMost people don't give a damn about history & supposedly that's why we're all doomed to repeat it... Then again, I've always had a hard time taking doom-sayers seriously. I think it's because the hero always defeats the villain & the world or universe always gets saved, even the post apocalyptic genre suggests that there is no end in sight, no matter how awry things may go... back to the history nobody gives a damn about & it seems the dinosaurs didn't survive the apocalypse, just the creatures dwelling in the deep.
Shouldn't we have largely opted to burrow underground at that discovery? Why are we still on the surface of the earth if history says it puts our species at a distinct disadvantage?
I can only think, a friend of mine wrote on his 25th birthday, "A quarter of a century & all I've learned is that people are stupid." ... I've got a little more than six months until I'll find myself at the same mark, I want to have more to say, yet, I just don't know... I'm working on it, but time seems thin.
History might have been served if the link to the full story had been hot. My bad. Now it's fixed.
ReplyDeletex_S,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your pep talk. It does indeed make one feel less alone, as does the very existence of Doc 40.
Me, I'm 4 months away from hitting 55 and I'm restless. Having lived through a renaissance, the last 40 years, particularly 29, starting with Reagan erection in '80, have been MISERABLE. As much as I blame the right-wing, the Palinskis, Bushwa, teabaggers and birthers, I also blame those liberals who engage in servile reasonableness, those who warn us not to go overboard in our critique and action, those who -- as Nina Simone would crack -- urge us to "go slow."
We want the world and we want it now. And if that's the sentiment of a spoiled baby boomer, so be it. When radicals controlled the spin, society was on a route of transcendence. That got derailed by the wee, twee, mewlings of liberals. Today's brand include the guy with the Ramones t-shirt and a stock portfolio. Fuck 'em all. I'm in a foul mood.
wv (appropriately): glumberf
(Nos vamos pa' Cochabamba hermano)
ReplyDeleteA Cochabamba me voy
a Cochabamba señores
cantarán los ruiseñores,
a Cochabamba me voy
¡Inti!
Inti pa' allá
Inti pa' acá
Inti pal norte
Inti pal west
Cuidado con la CIA
que vienen los gusanos
no maten a Régis
y vámonos hermano.
Ratatatatá, se les perdieron
ratatatatá, aparecieron
ratatatatá, era mentira
que se acabaron las guerrillas.
¡Salpica tu sangre negro!
(1968)