Did 1960s radicals really believe that ALL prisoners should be freed?

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.

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!”

The best-known practitioners of political theater at the time were the Yippies, 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.

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.

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:

Do you have any actual evidence that the Soviets had anything whatsoever to do with the White Panther 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

<slipping back into my youth> 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.

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 !!!”

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 of a sort not be found under Communism?

Yes, abstract art was a Cold War propaganda tool. But in the opposite way!

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).

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.