# Did 1960s radicals really believe that ALL prisoners should be freed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 12, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959 "2011-12-12T21:49:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/21 "2011-12-13T06:03:33Z")
Interestingly enough, the Black Panthers weren’t completely opposed to the idea of imprisonment. As Shodan posted, they wanted all black prisoners currently in prison to be released because they felt they had been imprisoned under an unjust racist legal system. But their future policy was to have a separate legal system for black people in which black people could only be tried by black judges, lawyers, and jurors. But presumably, this black court system could convict black people and sentence them to prison. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/22 "2011-12-13T14:58:13Z")
I am reminded of Richard Prior’s bit about doing stand-up shows in the penitentiary, talkin’ with the brothers in the penitentiary, and all he could say was, “Thank GOD we got the penitentiary!” ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/23 "2011-12-13T16:16:31Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > As **Colibri** says, inasmuch as there was any real purpose behind it at all, it had more in common with trolling than actual political sloganizing. The best-known practitioners of political theater at the time were the [Yippies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yippie), with whom John Sinclair of the White Panther Party was also associated. Although they ran a pig, _Pigasus_, as their presidential candidate in 1968, they most likely did not intend that he really serve if elected. Likewise, few of them really believed they could levitate the Pentagon when they attempted it in 1967. The Yippie candidate for mayor of Vancouver in 1970 promised to “repeal all laws, including the law of gravity.” So it’s likely the White Panther Party’s manifesto was at least partly tongue-in-cheek, especially the part about “total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock and roll, dope, and fucking in the streets.” When Malcolm X said “by any means necessary,” he was implying violence, not sex, dope, and rock n roll. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/24 "2011-12-13T16:19:56Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Reading about the fascinating 60s radicalism, I found a group called the “White Panther Party.” They had a 10-point manifesto stating: > > 1. Full endorsement and support of the Black Panther Party’s 10-point program and platform. > 2. Total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock and roll, dope, and fucking in the streets. > 3. Free exchange of energy and materials—we demand the end of money! > 4. Free food, clothes, housing, dope, music, bodies, medical care—everything free for every body! > 5. Free access to information media—free the technology from the greed creeps! > 6. Free time & space for all humans—dissolve all unnatural boundaries! > 7. Free all schools and all structures from corporate rule—turn the buildings over to the people at once! > **8. Free all prisoners everywhere—they are our comrades!** > 8. Free all soldiers at once—no more conscripted armies! > 9. Free the people from their phony “leaders”—everyone must be a leader—freedom means free every one! All Power to the People! > > Did they really believe in freeing _all_ prisoners? Is this just talking about political prisoners, or do they genuinely mean all prisoners in state and federal prisons? How could anyone really believe the latter? > > Elsewhere in the [article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Panther_Party), it say they were in favor of firearms. Did they believe in total anarchy and every man for himself? I was active in the anti-war movement, but I never heard of this organization. The Black Panther Party was widely known, however. So was Students for a Democratic Society. Back then the new left was ideologically heterogeneous, and the anti-war movement was even more so. To most conservatives the anti-war movement probably seemed like nothing more than a bunch of dirty hippies demonstrating against the United States, smoking marijuana, and practicing free love, but many hippies were apolitical, and many ant-war activists were conventional in their appearance and behavior. The 1960s was an exciting decade to be young, but many of the ideas that were fashionable back then were rather silly. I continue to think that the War in Vietnam was tragically futile, but I believe that the disruptive behavior of many anti war activists prolonged the American war effort by angering many white voters and provoking them to vote for hawks who continued the war. The message of the anti war movement to middle aged Americans should have been, “Your son does not need to fight in Vietnam.” Unfortunately the message many of those people got was, “If your son fights in Vietnam he deserves to die.” What is really depressing to me is the realization that the end result of all the hope, the enthusiasm, the idealism, and yes the silliness of that decade has been a United States dominated by the Republican Party. Much of what we demonstrated against back then, particularly economic inequality and the power of the corporations, has gotten much worse. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/25 "2011-12-13T16:55:54Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Are you implying that the Soviet Union “put them up to it?” Because that is certainly wrong. Don’t be too sure. Just because an idea doesn’t mesh with classical Soviet ideology doesn’t mean they weren’t behind its promotion.[The Soviets were pretty good (and active) at ideological warfare:](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260) > [@ESR](#): > > By contrast, ideological and memetic warfare has been a favored tactic for all of America’s three great adversaries of the last hundred years — Nazis, Communists, and Islamists. All three put substantial effort into cultivating American proxies to influence U.S. domestic policy and foreign policy in favorable directions. > … > But it was the Soviet Union, in its day, that was the master of this game. They made dezinformatsiya (disinformation) a central weapon of their war against “the main adversary”, the U.S. They conducted memetic subversion against the U.S. on many levels at a scale that is only now becoming clear as historians burrow through their archives and ex-KGB officers sell their memoirs. > The Soviets had an entire “active measures” department devoted to churning out anti-American dezinformatsiya. A classic example is the rumor that AIDS was the result of research aimed at building a ‘race bomb’ that would selectively kill black people. > > On a different level, in the 1930s members of CPUSA (the Communist Party of the USA) got instructions from Moscow to promote non-representational art so that the US’s public spaces would become arid and ugly. > > Americans hearing that last one tend to laugh. But the Soviets, following the lead of Marxist theoreticians like Antonio Gramsci, took very seriously the idea that by blighting the U.S.’s intellectual and esthetic life, they could sap Americans’ will to resist Communist ideology and an eventual Communist takeover. The explicit goal was to erode the confidence of America’s ruling class and create an ideological vacuum to be filled by Marxism-Leninism. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/26 "2011-12-13T17:11:13Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Don’t be too sure. Just because an idea doesn’t mesh with classical Soviet ideology doesn’t mean they weren’t behind its promotion.[The Soviets were pretty good (and active) at ideological warfare:](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260) Do you have any actual evidence that the Soviets had anything whatsoever to do with the White Panther Party? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/27 "2011-12-13T17:13:20Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > What is really depressing to me is the realization that the end result of all the hope, the enthusiasm, the idealism, and yes the silliness of that decade has been a United States dominated by the Republican Party. [Moderating] I think that discussion of how the 60s affected modern US politics is a question better dealt with in Great Debates. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/28 "2011-12-13T17:40:58Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > So did they even believe that, say, white racist terrorists who were imprisoned for raping and murdering black families should be released? Did they think that guys like James Earl Ray deserved to be released? Soldiers locked up in military penitentiaries for committing atrocities against civilians? Sociopathic predators who needed to kill people the same way you and I need to eat food and drink water? \ Brother, for the most part those people were already free; especially the first ones. The only people in jail were the poor and the political prisoners. And back then I could have given you the stats and cases to pretty much prove it. I was SDS and not WP, and the tail end of the generation when they were active - I didn’t “believe in” it all but approached it more as “cool thoughts”. There was a certain nihilist bend to it all that in order to build something better, we needed to tear it all down to scratch. I never thought the whole list could be pulled off but to be honest it was fun dreaming and trying. ---
**Author:** ![WreckingCrew](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wreckingcrew/32/4080_2.png) [@WreckingCrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WreckingCrew)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/29 "2011-12-13T19:05:59Z")
No matter what else, the White Panthers had the greatest house band ever. “Brothers, it’s time to testify and I want to know, Are you ready to testify? Are you ready? I GIVE YOU A TESTIMONIAL, THE MC5 !!!” [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ndIbJJ0V-0Y/hqdefault.jpg "MC5 - Kick Out the Jams") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndIbJJ0V-0Y) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/30 "2011-12-13T19:47:37Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Don’t be too sure. Just because an idea doesn’t mesh with classical Soviet ideology doesn’t mean they weren’t behind its promotion.[The Soviets were pretty good (and active) at ideological warfare:](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260) > > > [@](#): > > > > … > > On a different level, in the 1930s members of CPUSA (the Communist Party of the USA) got instructions from Moscow to promote non-representational art so that the US’s public spaces would become arid and ugly… Well, it is nice that some random blogger thinks that, but how do you reconcile it with the now well established fact, that [actually the CIA promoted non-representational art as a way of demonstrating that America and capitalism stood for freedom, creativity and progress](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism#Abstract_expressionism_and_the_Cold_War) of a sort not be found under Communism? Yes, abstract art was a Cold War propaganda tool. But in the opposite way! ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/31 "2011-12-13T20:20:23Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Do you have any actual evidence that the Soviets had anything whatsoever to do with the White Panther Party? Nope. Just wanted to point out that the idea of their involvement should not be summarily dismissed as “certainly wrong”. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/32 "2011-12-14T04:58:33Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Nope. Just wanted to point out that the idea of their involvement should not be summarily dismissed as “certainly wrong”. Let’s just say it was absurdly unlikely. Not because the White Panthers “didn’t mesh with classical Soviet ideology” but because they were so marginal that the Soviets wouldn’t have wasted their time with them (which was my main point). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959/33 "2011-12-14T07:52:56Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Let’s just say it was absurdly unlikely. Not because the White Panthers “didn’t mesh with classical Soviet ideology” but because they were so marginal that the Soviets wouldn’t have wasted their time with them (which was my main point). Also abstract non-representational art went against Soviet ideology. They were into socialist realism. Art was supposed to serve as a means of conveying a clear socialist message to the masses. It was supposed to depict ordinary subjects in a realistic manner. Personally, I think the Soviets were afraid that artists might slip hidden subversive messages into abstract art that the officials might miss. So they dictated a school of art that was simple enough to not contain any ambiguities. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-1960s-radicals-really-believe-that-all-prisoners-should-be-freed/605959.md?page=1)