James Carr.

"Jimmy was the baddest motherfucker..." - George Jackson.

A look at the life and times of James Carr and the Black Panthers and their rela
tionship to the prison struggles and wider social movements of the 1960s.
Afterword to Bad: the autobiography of James Carr, Pelagian Press, UK, 1995. Bad
is reviewed here.
Taken from the endangeredphoenix.com website
====================
New Afterword on "Bad" 1993
- On the General Context and Some of the Hidden Connections Between Then and Now
.
(BM Blob/News From Everywhere)
Bad, the superb autobiography of James Carr, the ex-Black Panther and co-founder
of George Jackson's "Wolf Pack" in Soledad Jail, was put together by situationi
st-influenced participants of the former "Contradiction" group in California. It
was published in 1975 by Herman Graf Associates of New York. As soon as it was
published, the California Department of Corrections threatened major law suits o
n behalf of several employees who, they contended, the book libelled. A deal was
struck not to list the book in 'Books in Print', the definitive catalogue for b
ooksellers. Thus, no-one could order the book unless they already knew about it
and took the initiative to contact the distributors. Nevertheless, most of the p
rint run of 110,000 sold, having a wide circulation not only in bookstores but i
n general consumer kiosks - Greyhound bus terminals/ freeway junk food outlets/
airport lounge reading counters etc. Any books that remained have long since bee
n pulped. The suppression of the book was an easy task and there was a loud sile
nce from the dissident liberal/left enclave in America who hadn't liked Bad in t
he first instance, undermining as it did a lot of the hallowed icons of the time
. This reprint of a most subversive book challenges, after so many years, both A
merican leftism and the weighty edict of the Department of Corrections.
Bad is one of many books written by prisoners who have become radicalised by the
ir experiences in American jails. However it stands out from a lot of the others
because it avoids portraying the prisoner as a passive victim of social injusti
ce - and also refuses the martyr role that liberals and leftists try to impose o
n convicts as a vehicle for their own fantasies and careers (whether as social w
orkers, sociologists, politicians or "professional revolutionaries"). Freed from
all these limitations James Carr was able to tell his story, warts and all, wit
hout worrying about what might or might not alienate liberal/leftist support. So
, there is no glossing over his involvement in gang rapes, protection rackets or
any of the more horrific aspects of his daily life in jail - nor are there any
useless guilty apologies for his past. (Anyway, the story of his development mak
es clear his eventual understanding of why the prison regime deliberately encour
aged this kind of divisive behaviour.)
The book shows how and why he eventually went beyond the moralistic practice and
ideology of the 60s "New Left" in all its forms, ranging from the legal reformi
sm of the white liberals (and leftists often of a Maoist character) to the armed
reformism of the Black Panthers. There was in any case quite an overlap between
them all. Although The Wretched of the Earth, written by the Algerian psychiatr
ist Franz Fanon was often quoted by the Panthers, it could be said that a Stalin
ism made more militaristic as filtered through Mao, Che Guevara and Castro was v
ery effectively publicised by fellow traveller sacked white academics like John
Gerassi. Using their glamorous notoriety and intellectual status they encouraged
the spread of this simplistic ideology with its deadly consequences - particula
rly among many brave ghetto blacks and prisoners who were at the time casting ar
ound for a way forward from the impasse of the southern civil rights movement an
d had been inspired by the Watts rebellion of 1965 (1). One difference concernin
g James Carr was that he had a dialogue - though a few years later - with less s
acrificial, more clued-in and subversive American whites than the likes of Geras
si, privileged though they were in comparison with ghetto blacks. It was an over
lap that could really have gone somewhere if the State in particular hadn't deva
statingly intervened. This kind of black/white and now latino practical/theoreti
cal overlap flowing both ways would seem to be a necessary ingredient eventually
in any future struggles that emerge in and against American society.
****
Carr came out of jail and into the Panther scene with automatic status as being
close to George Jackson and with a reputation as being one of the baddest guys a
round. But he quickly became disillusioned with their macho posturing and hierar
chical cult of leadership plus their reformist social and political program, rea
lising all this to be an obstacle to the revolution he desired. In his Conclusio
n, he illustrates how the "guerrilla ideology" that gradually came to dominate t
he party ("the purely military resolution of power relations") is ultimately sui
cidal and futile both in and outside prison, and he blames the left, in part, fo
r their role in encouraging this "false consciousness" in radical cons and ex-co
ns. In particular he refers to the murder of George Jackson and the Attica priso
n massacre of 1971 as examples of the practical consequences of this ideology. A
s he says, "Guerrilla ideology reduces all revolutionary questions to quantitati
ve problems of military force" and "nothing could please the reactionary prison
official more than a fight to the finish." George Jackson's book Blood in My Eye
, although having some flashes of illumination, repeats this message over and ov
er - believing it necessary to immediately create an elite warrior caste of prof
essional revolutionaries who will be the vanguard that leads the masses to revol
ution (2). This strategy could seem feasible from within the prison walls, partl
y because the radical con's view of the outside world was largely conditioned by
his leftist allies' description of it, and as usual they would exaggerate their
own importance and influence on society at large. Coming out of jail "expecting
to find a Red Army ready for revolutionary war", Carr must have been disappoint
ed to find the Panthers posing and lending street credibility to the dinner part
ies of uptown New York's young and trendy social elite. It became the done thing
amongst the very rich to hold "Radical Chic" fund-raising social events in thei
r luxury apartments for various topical leftwing causes (including several for t
he Panthers). As Radical Chic became this season's latest fashion it became both
desirable and trendy for those hosting these events to dismiss their regular bl
ack servants and temporarily replace them with whites - this could save both hos
ts and guests much guilt and embarrassment (3). But in pointing this out one mus
tn't be too glib by dismissively putting the Panthers down: there were many fine
individuals amongst them who were sincerely seeking radical change and contempt
uous of those seduced by status and fame, or who merely traded on the Party imag
e.
****
"In the 1960's I was part of a number of Black revolutionary movements including
the Black Panther Party, which I feel partially failed because of the authorita
rian leadership style of Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale and others on the Central C
ommittee. This is not a recrimination against those individuals, but many errors
were made because the national leadership was too divorced from the chapters in
cities all over the country, and therefore engaged in 'commandism' or forced wo
rk dictated by leaders. But many contradictions were also set up because of the
structure of the organisation as a Marxist-Leninist group. There was not a lot o
f inner-party democracy, and when contradictions came up, it was the leaders who
decided on their resolution, not the members. Purges became commonplace, and ma
ny good people were expelled from the group simply because they disagreed with t
he leadership. Because of the over-importance of central leadership, the nationa
l organisation was ultimately liquidated entirely, packed up and shipped back to
Oakland, California. Of course, many errors were made because the BPP was a you
ng organisation and was under intense attack by the state. I do not want to impl
y that these internal errors were the primary contradiction which destroyed the
BPP, the police attacks on it did that, but if it were better and more democrati
cally organised, it may have weathered the storm. So this is no mindless critici
sm or back stabbing attack: I loved the Party. And anyway neither myself nor any
one else who critique the Party with hindsight, will ever take away from the tre
mendous role that the BPP played in the Black Liberation movement of the 1960's.
But we must look at the full picture of our organisations from that period, so
that we do not repeat the same errors.
I think my brief period in the Panthers was very important because it taught me
about the limits of, and even the bankruptcy of, leadership in a revolutionary m
ovement. It was not a question of a personality defect of a particular leader, b
ut rather a realization that many times leaders have one agenda, followers have
another."
From Anarchism and the Black Revolution by Lorenzo Kom'Boa Ervin, MonkeywrenchPr
ess/IWW, Philadelphia, 1994.
****
Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, the party founders, were ghetto youths who had acqu
ired a college education but still hung out with friends from their neighbourhoo
d. On campus the black political scene was dominated by intellectuals headed for
professional occupations and cadre roles in the system. The politics of these s
tudents was a narrow Afro-cultural black nationalism, which Seale and Newton gre
w dissatisfied with as it offered few solutions and little or no help to those l
iving in the ghetto. Rejecting the politics of the campus professional cadres, t
hey set about recruiting, politically educating and organising the ghetto popula
tion - in particular the young unemployed "brothers on the block" or "lumpen ele
ments". Although of a finer calibre than the aspiring bourgeois black nationalis
ts, self-appointed "Chairman" Seale and "Minister" Huey still retained a politic
al cadre mentality typical of vanguard organisations. In his book, "Seize the Ti
me", Seale tells of his experiences as a foreman/supervisor on a poverty program
me workfare-type scheme for ghetto youth, shortly before the Panthers were forme
d. He alternated his role between being "one of the boys" and using his authorit
y to discipline the youths - docking their pay for breaking the rules or being w
ork-shy, while Seale was on a comfortable $650 a month compared to their measly
$1.35 an hour. Undoubtedly he encouraged the youngsters to try and make sense of
their social situation and their own history, but generally in a patronising wa
y and from a position of power over them (4).
These attitudes were carried over into the Panther vanguard ideology and hierarc
hical structures - i.e. Huey Newton with a guru role, all the false separations
between leaders and followers, thinkers and doers, consciousness and practice et
c. As the party grew, the hierarchical form could only amplify and favour the pe
rsuasive authority and articulation of those more educated - just as it favours
them in society in general.
****
"Instead of the usual banter and conversation of inmates coming out of their cel
ls to line up for the march to breakfast, officers were greeted by sombre inmate
s who moved silently out of their cells and lined up in rows of two with a Black
man at the head of each row; many of them wore black armbands. They marched sil
ently to where they took their usual places around the tables, but did not eat.
Inmate participation at the morning meal was far from universal, and many of tho
se who participated in the fast were unsure of the reason for it. By noon howeve
r, all knew they were observing a day of mourning and protest over the death of
George Jackson. For the young correction officers who found themselves in the me
ss hall with 700 silent, fasting inmates wearing black armbands, the very silenc
e and mood of unreserved hostility was the most threatening and frightening expe
rience in their memory..."
- The Official Report of the New York Special Commission on Attica, describing t
he scene in the dining area of Attica State Prison on the morning of 22nd August
, 1971 - the day after the murder of George Jackson by guards in San Quentin Pri
son.
"We are men. We are not beasts, and we will not be treated as such!" - The Attic
a Prison Rebels.
In the 1960s, the U.S. prison system was in crisis, with revolt on the inside fu
elled by rebellion on the outside. The ghetto riots that swept through most majo
r cities, student unrest, a massive anti-war movement against U.S. involvement i
n Vietnam - all this was reflected on the inside by a growing militancy and poli
ticisation of prisoners. George Jackson played a highly subversive role in this:
he was instrumental in beginning the breakdown of the racial divisions amongst
the prison population that the guards used as their control mechanism. Eventuall
y Jackson was murdered by guards at San Quentin in an escape attempt - the next
day there was a multi-racial silent protest against his murder in the yard of At
tica Prison. This was followed two and a half weeks later by the full-scale Atti
ca Prison revolt that ended in a massacre of prisoners and their guard hostages
by the State. Black Panther Chairman Bobby Seale acted as one of the mediators b
etween prisoners and authorities during the revolt, but for all their revolution
ary phrases and forecasts of imminent revolution, the Panthers could offer no pr
actical support to the rebels.
In a sense the militant image of the BPP could only play with fire. On the one h
and guns were really being used (5), on the other hand a TV-style taunting of th
e bourgeoisie sporting the image of so-called "communism" (in reality state capi
talism) of Russia, China and Cuba: the fevered antichrist/devil the American rul
ing class feared the most. To an extent it was an ID-kit designed to wind up the
American State without subverting it. That was part of the BPP's tragedy: they
really did take all their self-appointed pompous titles, from military Field Mar
shals to Ministers, seriously. (In some ways one whimsically wonders if it would
have been better to have used King, Count, Earl, Duke, like the earlier jazzmen
!) Moreover, there was a conflict within the Panthers about the over-emphasis on
guns. It was a tactic that rapidly became a media image which then got complete
ly out of hand. On similar lines, David Hilliard, the Panthers' Minister of Info
rmation, later noted how quickly the "Little Red Book" was abandoned for Mario P
uza's "The Godfather" once the Zeitgeist images changed. For sure, all this mili
taristic Leninism was never seriously thought through as is shown by the way Bob
by Seale - probably in a casual, off the cuff kind of way - wanted to appoint Be
n Morea, of the anarcho-situationist (often splendid, but just as often a sacrif
icially militant, confused and contradictory group) Up Against The Wall Motherfu
cker, to some kind of position in the BPP - a position Morea laughingly turned d
own (6). Seale was probably jesting anyway because, for certain, he'd never have
got such a proposal through the Central Committee!
Basically, the Panthers wished to remain an American Black organisation but were
constantly forging alliances with other rebels in American society whom they of
ten learned from and who were often widely at variance with the Party's paste-on
Leninism. The BPP's breakfast and health program came into existence influenced
by the activities of Emmet Grogan's revolutionary hippie group, the Diggers. In
itially, Grogan delivered food for free distribution to the Oakland Panthers hea
dquarters in a take it or leave it, unpatronising way, which the Panthers respec
ted because there was no guilty white liberal bullshit in the gift. Grogan, of c
ourse, didn't have to behave like that as he was a white, working class, tough s
treet kid anyway (7).
There was little vision among the Panthers, or the rest of the "New Left" of the
60s, of a world freed of the most fundamental capitalist institutions and power
relations such as wage slavery and all kinds of cops and prisons, although in a
nebulous but palpable way all this was there in the active contestation of the
period. In practice the Panthers were a movement of armed reformism seeking full
and equal rights on a par with whites; their demands for decent jobs and housin
g, community control of the police(!) (8), greater black political representatio
n and appeals to the United Nations for justice echoed the pleas of the earlier
Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King. The essential difference was th
at whereas the Civil Rights movement leaders put faith in the bible and the mora
l righteousness of Christian/Ghandian non-violence, the panthers would rely on a
revamped gang structure armed with Mao's red book and a gun.
Later on, once the ferment of the times had been crushed, some former leaders mo
ved on to become more acceptably straight career cadre of the American dream. In
no time at all, Eldridge Cleaver was marketing Cleaver Jeans only to be followe
d by an even worse performance on the campuses supporting Reagan. And something
of the same goes for Bobby Seale with his attempts at local government electione
ering, his cuisine business and now a lefty college lecturer role - wheeled out
like a frozen icon of the 60s' with plenty of entertaining tales about the old d
ays, but with nothing new to say or of much relevance to what's happening now -
ironic for a man who once wanted to seize the time. As others have said, they be
came Panthers in the zoo and not in the urban jungle. Huey Newton apparently suf
fered harassment for years afterwards, although accusations of dubious practices
from former Panthers have been many and varied, their real value is difficult t
o quantify (9). Whatever, Huey got fucked up on crack and other hard drugs and w
as possibly murdered by a junkie over a crack deal in 1989. We say possibly beca
use long festering police revenge cannot be ruled out as Huey Newton was murdere
d less than a block away from where he'd been accused of shooting Oakland patrol
man John Fry in the late 60s. We will deal, further in this Afterword, with othe
r possible reasons for Newton's death.
****
The U.S. state machine is always scared at the prospect of the street gang syste
m becoming united and radicalised. George Jackson stopped the bloody racial gang
wars between prisoners by appealing for unity against their common enemy - the
prison authorities. In response, he was put in solitary confinement. Panther lea
der Fred Hampton was seeking a merger between the Chicago Panther chapter and th
e Blackstone rangers, a South Side street gang with several thousand members, as
well as with other local black gangs and, most amazingly, Latino groups like th
e Young Lords and poor immigrant Appalachian whites. For a brief moment there wa
s some success: this is why the American State was so scared of Fred Hampton. (I
t was Fred who coined the term "the Rainbow Coalition" - just one of his imagina
tive characterisations - that Jesse Jackson was later to rip off.) A counter-ins
urgency COINTELPRO-BPP (10) operation - conducted by the FBI under the express o
rders of the boss, J. Edgar Hoover in 1967, to "exploit all avenues of creating
dissension within the ranks of the BPP" - with the help of the infiltrator Willi
am O'Neal successfully prevented these mergers and encouraged instead violent co
nflicts between these organisations. And, throughout the years, this has been th
e pattern. But things might be changing. Two days prior to the start of the mass
ive L.A. riot of 1992 a leaflet was circulated between the two main L.A. gangs,
the Bloods and the Crips, calling for unity against their common enemy - the L.A
. Police Department - and an end to inter-gang rivalry. In fact the truce was th
e result of delicate negotiations that had started quite awhile before the riot,
as a response to yet another murder by the LAPD - in this case, of a well-respe
cted Crip member. In South Central and Downtown L.A., the areas at the heart of
the rioting, graffiti appeared calling for "unity between Crips, Bloods and our
Mexican brothers". "Unity", of course, can be a meaningless, leftist, abstract c
oncept but in the atomisation of present day America it really is something. The
Crip/Blood gang pact is still largely holding but, so far, it has not been poss
ible to bring the other ethnic gangs into the truce. Mexican/Chicano inter-gang
warfare is as bad as ever and escalating, claiming 18 deaths in one weekend in e
arly '93. Unity-in-riot, and consciously so after, might be the ingredient that
begins to put an end to the hellish civil war between and amongst black, latino
and other gang youth, which has contributed to the 24,000 black deaths on the st
reets of America in 1991 alone - a higher cull of blacks than occurred during th
e worst years of the Vietnam war. The L.A. uprising seems to show that social wa
r can begin to bring peace and unity between the gangs - while social peace can
only perpetuate murderous gang warfare confirming that at the point of revolt is
the starting point for the realisation of any real community (11).
One thing's for certain though; the situation will not remain static. Whereas in
the 60s it was the black churches that produced a reformist political leadershi
p, could it be that in the 90s some gang members will step into a mediating role
, administering pie-in-the-sky to their own flock? With Clintonomics promising g
reater state intervention, there may be attempts to absorb and integrate the gan
g leadership into the local state apparatus; some gang leaders have already show
n themselves eager to add the wielding of political power to their weaponry. (Fo
r example, two once rival gang leaders accepted the invitation to Clinton's pres
idential inauguration, whilst others acquired publicity agents and went on the c
ollege lecture circuit - but it is just as likely that they are only temporarily
being used as pawns in the power games of black and white politicians (12).) Bu
t could they rely on the continued loyalty of their members, or would there be c
ries of "sell out"? Who knows what is fermenting at the rank'n'file level of gan
g members? Those left behind, in an imploding fit of rage, could just revive all
the horrors of recreational slaughter. But they could take a more radical direc
tion - giant steps could be taken and connections made if other forces start to
move in American society. There are reports that since the '92 rebellion several
informal radical study groups have emerged in black and chicano areas, partly w
ith the purpose of recovering their own history in the light of changing conditi
ons. One group has suggested organising in the ghettos along the lines of the or
iginal IWW/Wobbly structure - a better starting point than any notions of party
vanguardism.
In fact the origins of the Crips and especially their expansion ("cripping") is
linked to the rise and defeat in the early 70s of the Black Panthers - Crip orig
inally meant "Community Resource Independent Project". The Panthers sought to ho
mogenise black gangs throughout America's ghettos, turning their internecine war
ring tendencies into a united revolutionary assault force against the real enemy
. The successive Crip absorption of smaller gangs reflected this but with a dire
ction the Panthers would not have approved of, in spite of the false models of r
evolution the Party chose to emulate. Unable to break free of gang rivalry, whic
h was given official encouragement by COINTELPRO-BPP, Panther ideology remained
an undercurrent and the aim of revolutionary transformation (no matter how disto
rted this became in the hands of Panther ideologues) was lost sight of. What hap
pened next is nightmarish, as the social fabric of Central L.A. began to unravel
and disintegrate; "solidarity lost out in a razor fight with survival". It's im
portant to stress the cause and effect relationship between massive government d
isinvestment and privatisation policies imposed on inner city America and the gr
owth of increasingly impoverished and antagonistic social relations in the ghett
os. The desperation created by health, employment, housing, education and social
security cuts have created an increasingly privatised individual, forced to com
pete to survive in the war of all-against-all for shrinking resources. The rise
of the drug economy (for many the only available source of employment) and its r
elated gang warfare is but one symptom of the effects of this devastation. Inner
 city America is now increasingly being bankrupted and abandoned to Third World
conditions by federal disinvestment, as funds have been rechanneled to service a
nd protect the newer suburban "Edge Cities" where the majority of (mainly white)
American voters - both Democratic and Republican - now live and work (13). Endl
ess grim accounts detailing this catastrophe also supplied a good sales pitch. A
nd so it was that NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" (and into the money) could func
tion as a promo for disintegration (horror as a quasi Utopia - a recurrent L.A.
theme), a "telling it like it is", a money spinner, designed to scare. As a more
profound explanation was never on offer - i.e. telling why it is and where it c
ame from - all the memories of the thwarted revolutionary impulses of the 60s an
d 70s were obliterated, including especially that of James Carr's more coherent
rejection of the Panthers. COINTELPRO-BPP was successful in a brilliantly grim w
ay, so it comes as no surprise that again this tactic is being used with FBI inf
iltrators fermenting conflict by spraying up fake ethnic and rival gang hate gra
ffiti.
****
Who killed James Carr, and why? The two hired killers who fired the shots were t
ried and convicted but it has never been proved who hired them. Both had previou
sly been involved with the Black Panther Party, but whether as genuine members o
r police informers (or both) is not known. The whole American left scene of the
60s and 70s was so riddled with informers and agent provocateurs that "it is imp
ossible to distinguish with any certainty between information and disinformation
, fact, fantasy, wish-fulfillment and lie (14)." Carr could have been killed by
the state, by the Panthers, or some other outfit. Former Panther Minister of Inf
ormation David Hilliard, in his recent book "this Side of Glory" (15), implies t
hat "supreme commander" Newton himself was responsible for Carr's murder, having
surrounded himself with "The Squad" - a violent internal security gang within t
he party, who were into offing anybody who criticised Huey. The Squad were parti
cularly uptight about the cons around George Jackson's recently formed Black Gue
rrilla Family, who wanted to be the military wing of the Panthers. It seems that
the Family in their wildest moments wanted to eliminate the whole Central Commi
ttee; this must have fuelled Newton's paranoia to fever pitch. Was this the reas
on for Carr's murder? It's logical to think his closest loyalties would remain w
ith his prison comrades. In 1989, Tyrone Robins of the Black Guerrilla Family wa
s arrested for Newton's murder - a factional party feud still being played out n
early 20 years later in revenge for the likes of James Carr? Inevitably, Carr wa
s not immune to getting caught up in the web of intrigue and paranoia spun by CO
INTELPRO-BPP intensifying the leadership power struggles typical of hierarchical
groups; in the unlikely event that the full truth could ever be told it's doubt
ful that Carr or anyone else would come out smelling entirely of roses. The diff
erence was that he used his first-hand experiences to make a lucid and useful cr
itique of Panther ideology and practice.
One more possibility is that Carr was a target for PRISAC. As one recently relea
sed prisoner tells it: "...from 1971 to 1973, the U.S. government instituted a p
rogram called the Prison Activist Program, PRISAC for short. This program was ai
med at tracking the political prisoner while they were in prison, and determinin
g who were their friends and their relationships and their visitors, so that whe
n they came out of prison, when these other prisoners they educated came out, th
ey could be targeted for neutralisation. Many of the brothers that we got out of
prison in the early 70s and 80s were mysteriously assassinated by, we believe,
government officials. And to this day, many of their murderers have never been b
rought to justice." (16)
But what were the immediate reasons for Jimmy's murder? Again, more speculation.
The State was using its informers and police agents among the left to stir up p
aranoia and conflict between the various groups. One of its techniques, "bad jac
keting", was to spread false rumours about individuals, encouraging the belief t
hat they had become creeps, informing on their comrades. Carr could easily have
been a victim of this, leading to his death (17). But jacketing, at the time, wa
s a veritable epidemic. Although the forces of law 'n'order were, according to o
ne estimate, responsible for 28 dead, many Panther deaths were victims of "frien
dly fire", via internal conflicts (some no doubt manipulated by the cops), with
those involved all too easily accusing each other of being informers/FBI agents
etc.
Indeed even now, over two decades later, there are still Panthers such as the L.
A. Panther Geronimo Pratt and others in jail, victims of frame-ups. It seems COI
NTELPRO set them up but even today courts in America, afraid of the FBI, are sti
ll loathe to release them though much evidence points to the fact that they were
n't involved in the crime they've been indicted for (18).
****
The revolt in the 60s in America died, on the one hand, in a hail of police and
army gunfire, (Attica, Kent and Jackson State University, the Panther murders, p
lus - on a lesser level - 5.5 million people arrested in 1969) and on the other
hand in a glut of recuperation (19). Absurdly, by 1971, Up Against the Wall Moth
erfucker had become an Up Against the Wall carpet ad on a New York subway. Altho
ugh Europe was more advanced in terms of wildcats strikes and a generally more c
oherent theoretical grasp, in America the revolution of daily life was more out
in the open. Subsequently, it was in the U.S. that the counter-revolution of dai
ly life was most rapidly applied. Not just fiendish FBI provocations but State c
ollusion in the trade (Haight Ashbury was the first drop-out/marginal neighbourh
ood in the world to be tormentedly pacified by heroin). Moves towards free sexua
lity and love were diverted from all sides. The demands of the Black Power, Wome
n's, and Gay movements - which in their most radical forms had begun to challeng
e the totality of capitalist social relations by questioning the imposed divisio
ns of race, gender and sexuality - were turned into single issue reforms for lib
eral politicians and bureaucrats to pay lip service to and build careers out of.
And to add insult to injury, an 80s free market individualism inverting the rev
olutionary tendencies of earlier times. The last 20 years in the States has expe
rienced an ever gloomier descent into darkness dominated by, amongst other miser
ies, a media induced "social amnesia" which has ruled far stronger than anywhere
else in the world. Memories of past defeats and victories have been all but for
gotten in a paralysis of history and memory where real development has been chok
ed off in the passive consumption of fashion, videos and fads - with culture fun
ctioning as an increasingly potent social tranquilliser.
Now that "social amnesia" (a somewhat psychoanalytical term coined by the Americ
an dissident Russell Jacoby in the 70s) is itself crumbling, there's a return of
the repressed but with the late 60s appearing in images and words as frozen tim
e, starting almost from where it left off but with pitifully few new analyses or
simple, honest insights. Figureheads vie with each other for leadership, positi
on and media attention without attempting to unscramble what happened and, more
essentially, to sort out what is different in contemporary times. The growing in
terest of recent years in the 60s Black Power movement has, predictably, been se
rviced by the media and politicians through a repackaging of the broad social mo
vement. They would like us to forget that history is not merely consumed, but ac
tively made - and that our history is not over yet. Historical awareness, a deve
loping radical consciousness and its practice are by nature social creations, ma
de and held in common. The space that they need to grow is exactly the common gr
ound that was lost in defeat and must be regained in order to again advance.
And the relevance of Bad today, nearly 20 years later? None of the radical movem
ents of the 60s could fulfil their promise. Black militancy was co-opted and tur
ned around; the U.S. state encouraged the development of a black professional mi
ddle class of mediators and representatives (some American middle class suburbs
now have a black majority) while at the same time it used austerity measures to
cut the living standards in the ghetto below that of some "Third World" countrie
s. We are certainly not publishing this book to serve as any kind of "role model
" for young ghetto blacks today. This is how the black politicians, middle class
social workers and made-it-out-of-the-ghetto rap and graffiti artists generally
see themselves, as examples that young blacks should aspire to. Some rappers, w
hile flaunting some of the biggest gold chains on the block (ghetto status symbo
ls made from gold mined by South African blacks) advocate a specifically Black C
apitalism - but obviously they will jealously defend their privileged position w
ithin it, because (contrary to the illusions they sell to youth) there ain't muc
h room at the top or too many routes out of the ghetto. They need a permanent ca
ptive ghetto audience as a basis for their privilege and black capitalist wealth
- those who market rebellion need the obedient exploited consumer to buy it (20
).
The black role in the American cultural spectacle is one of individual achieveme
nt: sport, music and to some extent film and literature, have been the tradition
al "ladders to success" for blacks. This individual achievement is often seen as
a source of collective pride; role models to aspire to and identify with (encou
raging advancement through individual, as opposed to group, dedication) and an i
ntegration into the dominant values of society - both in pure economic terms, as
consumers, and by directing energies towards upward mobility in either the blac
k or mainstream white world. Nevertheless, because only limited numbers can move
upwards regardless of individual effort, the spectacle masks a lie that is expo
sed on the level of collective daily experience.
Rap emerged from the U.S. ghetto much the same as reggae toasting did in Jamaica
. The emphasis on words over music is part of a reduction of music to its basic
components (the Punk ethic is similar). With a record deck and a microphone anyo
ne could be a rapper, and techniques like scratching and sampling were dismantli
ng pop music, stripping it down to its component parts and making them interchan
geable, like some mass market atonality. This was logical, seeing as pop recordi
ng studios had long since become conveyor belt corporation production lines. It
was admitting that the social function of one pop record was equivalent to any o
ther; also that the cult of individual originality (i.e. guitar heroes, speciali
sed musical skills etc.) could largely be replaced by technology. Yet what the f
orm implied was denied by the content and by speedy commercialising. Some of the
early, more subversive rap scene, when the mike was passed around and freely av
ailable to anyone who had anything to say, would perhaps have been "too real" an
d unmarketable. (Perhaps a continuing link with the "call and response" song tra
dition that the slaves brought with them from Africa, and, via the communal work
songs of the fields, was passed on through blues, jazz, gospel and soul?) This
openness and "democracy" was quickly submerged/suppressed by the individualising
influence of the whole star-making process when record companies came around fl
ashing cheque-books and contracts - passports out of the ghetto. Despite being p
reoccupied with words, rap records have most often been a vehicle for either mac
ho boasting or simplistic black nationalist ranting and sloganeering repeating t
he mistakes and limitations of the 60s civil rights/black power movements. Anywa
y, in time it will become clear that, behind the image that teases with rebellio
n ("Burn Hollywood Burn" was used to good effect by the L.A. insurgents of May '
92), Public Enemy, NWA (Niggers With Assets?) etc. are just as much part of the
cultural bourgeoisie/pop establishment and in real terms no more radical than th
e Rolling Stones or Michael Jackson. Perhaps the recent attack on Spike Lee, whi
le he was filming his biography of Malcolm X movie, by hundreds of black youths
in Harlem who accused him of commercialising and profiting from the man's memory
is the beginning of a critique-in-action of commercial black culture and its ro
le in the containment and recuperation of rebellion.
****
Something is made today of a need to repeat the Black Panther experience. There
are reports of a Milwaukee Panther fundamentalism again on the streets attractin
g hundreds - with no lessons learned from past mistakes but now directing their
military attentions towards drug dealers instead of the police. But we shall see
... for surely the time has passed for such pastiche? In Britain, the new "Panth
er UK" organisation is nothing more than a Trotskyist front, uncritically applau
ding the past of the Panther movement without referring to its often sordid demi
se. If anything, the return of the BPP is going to be as Hollywood glitz, with f
ilms perhaps on Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver et al, after a Malcolm X film m
ore in line with "Buy Any Jeans Necessary" than "By Any Means Necessary". Moreov
er, the recent uprisings in America were, unlike much of Watts, Detroit and Newa
rk in the 60s, a rainbow coalition of the poor. It's worth remembering that the
Panthers regarded spontaneous rioting as subordinate to the redundant notion of
the armed party, yet it's just that type of spontaneity everywhere, in the workp
lace or the streets, that is needed more than ever; and whatever organisation co
mes about, it will be bred from the needs and conditions of the times.
We hope this edition of Bad may come in useful to all those picking themselves u
p from mistakes and defeats of a generation ago. We've tried in this afterword -
sometimes ranging far and wide in a kind of purposefully disjointed way indicat
ing the dismembered character of the times - to expose some hidden connecting ho
okups between then and now, set in the conditions of further big trouble inside
the USA.
James Carr was a shrewd man - that's why, against the odds, he survived for as l
ong as he did. His story (like others of its kind) is inspiring and illuminating
because he was among the "wretched of the earth" who rebelled, but with a growi
ng subversive intelligence of the kind that will be sorely needed in our future
battles as we destroy all the ghettos and prisons.
News From Everywhere and BM Blob.
(And thanks to others who helped. Completed June 1993.)
=========
FOOTNOTES
1) See The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy by the Situationi
st International, included in the Situationist Anthology, 1981. - Bureau of Publ
ic Secrets, PO Box 1044, Berkeley, California 94701, USA.
2) It's interesting to note that the Black Panther Party published and distribut
ed Nechayev's Catechism of the Revolutionist and that Jackson and other leading
Panthers acknowledged it as a strong influence on their theories of political 'v
anguard' organisation - the same concepts that had also appealed to the early Bo
lsheviks. Jackson later revised his opinion - "Though I no longer adhere to all
of Nechayev's revolutionary catechism (too cold, very much like fascist psycholo
gy; revolution should be love inspired)...". Authorship was originally thought t
o be Nechayev's and Bakunin's together, but recent research claims it to be Nech
ayev's work alone, with the possibility of a little help from Bakunin. Catechism
of the Revolutionist Segei Nechayev, published by Violette Nozieres Press, Acti
ve Distribution and A.K. Press, 1989.
3) See Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe; Bantam Books,
1971.
4) Seize the Time by Bobby Seale; Arrow Books, London, 1970 - pages 56-61.
5) It seems one must make some kind of distinction concerning the use of guns in
 the struggles of the American proletariat. They're never that far in the backgr
ound and fine sounding words aren't going to change that visceral resort to the
bullet, as the appallingly long jail sentences handed recently to Pittston miner
s and Greyhound bus strikers who resorted to the gun testify. Unfortunately the
Panthers' strategy of barrel to barrel confrontation with the police was a very
narrow conception of revolution and one that could never win.
6) After Panther leader Huey Newton came out of prison in August 1970, some new
ingredients were added to the Panthers' ideological stew. While the basic stock
remained Leninism, Newton began adding new elements, stating that the party was
now "to take the philosophy of Marx to its final goal. That is , to create a wor
ld that has an absence of statehood...that is why I emphasise we are no longer r
evolutionary nationalists. We don't believe what's commonly called Nationhood fo
r America. We believe that America must now subscribe to strict internationalism
... We think we have taken Marxism-Leninism to an even higher level than it's ev
er been in history, because history has not yet created the communist world, it
has only created a socialist world, which is also based on statehood. So the nex
t stage would be a communist world where statehood no longer exists. We will tak
e the banner of the people's struggle, the black and red banner, to final victor
y."
Confusingly, in the same interview, he rejected black capitalism in favour of a
"proportional representation in a socialist framework that is to expropriate and
nationalise the private industries." (Our emphasis.) Perhaps the (partial and c
onditional) rejection of statehood reflects some influence of libertarian tenden
cies in the atmosphere at the time, or perhaps dialogue with the anarcho-situati
onist "Up Against The Wall Motherfucker" group? (For more information see Black
Mask and Up Against The Wall Motherfucker; Unpopular Books and Sabotage Editions
, London 1993.)
7) See Ringolevio - A Life Played For Keeps by Emmet Grogan. Published by Heinem
ann, Mayfair, London, 1972. It's an egotistical, over-the-top, can't put it down
type of book. Before founding the Diggers, Grogan had been a burglar, convict,
saboteur and clinically certified (by the U.S. Defense Department) schizophrenic
.
8) Ironically, there are now cities in the U.S. with majority black populations
ruled by black administrations and black police chiefs - and they are of course
every bit as cruel, corrupt and repressive as their white counterparts.
9) See Spitting in the Wind by Earl Anthony - a total asshole who unapologetical
ly describes how he worked for both the FBI and the CIA (the latter as a recruit
er for pro-western guerrillas in Africa) and then, with a crocodile tear at the
end wistfully laments that trying to make revolution is like "spitting in the wi
nd". There are plenty of "interesting details" - mainly a long list of vile bull
shit this guy was involved in. (Published by Roundabout Publishing, Malibu, CA,
1990.)
10) "COINTELPROs: FBI domestic Counter Intelligence Programs designed to destroy
individuals and organisations the FBI considers to be politically objectionable
. Tactics included all manner of official lying and media disinformation, system
atically levying false charges against those targeted, manufacturing evidence to
obtain their convictions, withholding evidence which might exonerate them, and
occasionally assassinating "key leaders". The FBI says COINTELPRO ended in 1971;
all reasonable interpretations of FBI performance indicate that it continues to
day, albeit under other code-names."
"FBI infiltrator William O'Neal rose rapidly through the ranks of the Chicago BP
P to become Chief of Security and Fred Hampton's personal bodyguard. O'Neal prov
ided a detailed floor-plan of Hampton's apartment used by police in the Panther
leader's assassination. O'Neal is also suspected of having drugged Hampton prior
to the raid, rendering him defenceless." (See Agents of Repression by Ward Chur
chill and Jim Vander Wall, South End Press, Boston, MA., 1988. O'Neal eventually
committed suicide.)
11) For more information and analysis read the excellent "The Rebellion in Los A
ngeles: the context of a proletarian uprising" in Aufheben magazine - c/o Unempl
oyed Centre, Prior House, 6 Tilbury Place, Carlton Hill, Brighton, Sussex, UK. (
Also at www.geocities.com/aufheben2).
12) "There is , of course, an eerie indistinguishability in all the military int
erventions, 'humanitarian' or extremist, of the Reagan-Bush era. The fuzzy video
s of the Marines or 82nd Airborne in the streets of Panama City, Miami, Los Ange
les, Grenada, or Mogadishu all look alike and the prone figures on the ground ar
e always Black. But the rapid deployment of federal combat troops to South Centr
al L.A. was only one leg of the tripod of policies - an iron-fisted 'Bush Doctri
ne' for troubled U.S. cities - unveiled last May. Wielded into action with equal
ly impressive speed, for example, was an unprecedented taskforce of federal law
enforcement agencies mandated to track down and prosecute riot felonies. The lar
ge FBI and INS components of the taskforce were later reorganised as permanent a
nti-gang units in line with Attorney general Barr's dictum that the Crips and th
e Bloods, together with criminal illegal aliens, have replaced Communism as the
major domestic subversive threat. This is also the official legitimisation for t
he third leg of the tripod: the "Weed and Seed" program that ties neighbourhood-
level spending (the 'seeds') to active collaboration with the war against the ga
ngs (the 'weeds')." (Mike Davis in "Who Killed L.A.?" New Left Review 197, 1993.
)
(Although no-one doubts Davis' remarkable welding together of all kinds of facts
and information on America in books like "City of Quartz", he usually fails to
deliver the punch line, finally falling back on a belief in left reformist polit
ics and anti-art art from Keinholtz's L.A. environments to recent L.A. novelists
to Rap. No wonder - reasonably at ease with himself - he can maintain his lectu
rer role at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.)
13) "To take Los Angeles as an example, almost the entire white working class of
the older south east industrial belt - some 250,000 people - moved out to the j
ob-rich, suburban fringe during the 1970s and early 1980s. They were replaced by
328,000 Mexican immigrants, primarily employed in non-union manufacturing and s
ervices. Indeed, in Los Angeles the counterpart to the Latinisation of manual la
bour has been the virtual disappearance of traditional blue-collar strata from t
he urban core." (Mike Davis in "Who Killed L.A.?", ibid.)
14) Quoted from Who Killed George Jackson? By Jo Durden-Smith; Knoph, NY. 1976.
The same book quotes rumours that James Carr could have been pressured by police
threats into becoming a police informer. Bear in mind that this rumour could ha
ve been circulated as part of a COINTELPRO operation against him. As the above q
uote shows, there is food for endless speculation but no concrete proof at all o
n this point; this allegation is based on the claims of Louis Tackwood, a self-c
onfessed police informer and infiltrator who was once a paid lackey of the FBI.
15) This Side of Glory by David Hilliard; Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 1993. T
his book is, so far, the most fascinating reflection on the Panthers and their t
imes and what happened afterwards to have appeared. Although not a critique, Hil
liard is so damned honest that it's got all the ingredients of one. Hilliard, un
like other former Panthers, has no apparent axe to grind. Maybe this has to do w
ith him merely being a casualised union longshoreman for a long time on the Oakl
and waterfront and having no corner in the system to defend; but maybe things wi
ll now change with the success of his book and his entrance onto the college lec
ture circuit.
16) Interview with Dhoruba bin Wahad in Clash no. 4, November 1991, Holland.
17) Another related theory is that Carr's death is related to the Angela Davis t
rial that began shortly after his murder. One of the most famous black militants
of her time and facing charges of murder and kidnapping, those involved in her
legal defence are said to have considered the State prosecution evidence as bein
g very weak and speculated that there might be a surprise star witness that the
prosecution were going to use in the trial against her. Some apparently thought
that James Carr would be that surprise witness. Carr's release from prison after
being returned there for breaking his parole conditions was interpreted by some
as evidence that he had made a deal to get back out of jail. The speculation is
endless. (or so the story is told in Who Killed George Jackson?, for what it's
worth.) It's just as likely, though, that these speculations could have been put
out by the Panthers to undermine what Carr was putting out about them - not to
the cops but to rebellious youth. These included the allegations that some Panth
ers were into racketeering - that, for instance, much of the money they collecte
d to fight sickle cell anemia went into the Central Committee's cocaine fund, wh
ile ostensibly the Panthers were campaigning to get hard drugs out of town. Cert
ainly there's a fair number of Americans who believe these revelations about the
Panthers were the motive for his murder. But there's something of an understand
ably fearful silence on the subject in a country where the murderous tendencies
of the secret services have such a long, unforgiving and lethal memory. It's dou
btful even after a revolution in the U.S. that their many murders will be clearl
y revealed, simply because most of those who pulled the triggers never knew who
was pulling their strings, and all the information pinpointing the real culprits
will have been shredded or erased from the computer long ago.
18) FUSPPP, PO Box 565, Madison, W1.53701, USA, or LONDON Anarchist Black Cross
(no postal address but can be contacted through internet) are two prisoner suppo
rt groups who can provide more information for anyone who is interested.
19) Briefly, partly meaning to reincorporate a subversive tendency back into the
present system so as to neutralise its effects.
20) To further clarify; although black capitalist wealth uses the black communit
y for its original accumulation, its true that the main consumers of black rappe
rs and artists are now middle class whites.

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