HOLD THE HIGH THE BANNER OF OF OF INTERCOMMUNALISM INVINCIBLE SUPREME BLACK THOUGHTS COMMANDER P ARTY. P. NEWTON

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

  • 8/6/2019 HOLD THE HIGH THE BANNER OF OF OF INTERCOMMUNALISM INVINCIBLE SUPREME BLACK THOUGHTS COMMANDE

    1/7

    LET US HOLD HIGH THE BANNEROF INTERCOMMUNALISM

    AND THE INVINCIBLE THOUGHTS OFHUEY P. NEWTON.J MINISTER OF DEFENSE

    AND SUPREME COMMANDER OFTHE BLACK P ANTHER P ARTY.

  • 8/6/2019 HOLD THE HIGH THE BANNER OF OF OF INTERCOMMUNALISM INVINCIBLE SUPREME BLACK THOUGHTS COMMANDE

    2/7

    IB. LET US HOLD HIGH THOF INTERCOMMUNALISM

    AND THE INVINCIBLE THOUGHTS OFHUEY P. NEWTON-, MINISTER OF DEFENSE

    AND SUPREME COMMANDER OFTHE BLI1CK PANTHER PARTY.

    I~

    ,;

    THE MINISTER OF DEFENSE ANDSUPREME COMMANDER OF THE, BLACK PANTHER PARTY, HUEY P.NEWTON'S MESSAGE AT BOSTONCOLLEGE -NOVEMBER 18, 1970

    c;;4:Power to the peoPle, brothers andI sisters. I would like to thank you formy presence here tonight because youare responsible. I would be in a maxi-mum security penitentiary if it weren'tfor the power of the peoPle. So you'reresponsible, and only you.I would like to petition you to do thesame for Bobby Seale, our Chairman,I for Ericka H1iggins for Angela Davis,for the New York 21 and the SoledadBrothers. For all political prisonersand prisoners of war. Free the peoPle.The 28th and 29th of November we will, have a People's Revolutionary Consti-, tutional Convention in Washington, D. C.

    We cannot have that convention if thePeople do not come. Because, afterall, the peoPle are the makers ofworldI history. The peoPle are responsiblefor everything. So how can we have aconvention if we have no peoPle ? SomePeople think that we can have a peo-ble's convention without the peoPlebeing there. I think that, that was thecase in 1777.

    Tonight, I would like to outline foryou the Black Panther Party's programand also explain how we arrived at ourideological position and why we feel itnecessary to institute a Ten-pointPro-gram. ~ p~ P.r~2ram that isn2!-!:evo~ona~ in it~elf, ~~.!~t. It's a s~ry~~Qgr~-~. Wefeel that we, the people are threatenedwith genocide because racism and fas-cism is rampant. Not only in thiscountry, but thro1lghout the world. Andthe ruling circle in North America arethe responsible parties. We intend tochange all of that. In order to changeit, there must be a total transforma-tion. But until such time that we canachieve that total transformation, wemust exist. In order to exist, we mustsurvive, so, therefore, we need a sur-I vival kit. The Ten-Point Program is a

    I survival kit, brothers and sisters. Inother words, it is necessary for ourchildren to grow up healthy, with mindsthat can bejlJ.nctional and creative. Theycannot do this if they do not get theI correct nutrition. That is why we have abreakfast p'rugTam jar children. Wealso have com"/",ii,, h,'lff, Yograms.

    We have a bussing program. We callit the bus for relatives and parents ofprisoners. Because we realize that thefascist regime who operate the prisonsthroughout America would like to dotheir treachery in the dark. If we getthe relatives and the parents and friendsto the prisons, they can expose thetreachery of the fascists. So this toois a survival program.We must not take our survival pro-grams as an answer to the problem.We don't even claim it to be a re-volutionary program. Because revolu-tions are made of sterner st1.iff. Wedo say that if the peoPle are not here,then, of course, revolution cannot beachieved because the people make re-volution. The peoPle make revolutionand only the people. The theme of ourPeople's Revolutionary ConstitutionalConvention is "Survival Through Ser-vice to the People." At our conven-tion, we will present our total survivalprogram. The survival program worksvery much like a first-aid kit, or per-haps the kit that is used when a Planefalls and you find yourselfin the middleof the sea on a rubber raft. And you' IIneed a few things such as a first-aidkit and a few protein tablets in orderto last until you can get to the shore,until you can get to that oasis whereyou can be haPPy and healthy. If youdo not have those things necessary toget you to that shore, then possiblyyou will not exist. At this time, theruling circle threatens us to the ex-tent that we're afraid that we mightnot exist to see the next day or seethe revolution. The Black Panther Partywill not accept the total destruction ofthe people. Matter of fact, we havedrawn a line of demarcation and we willno longer toleratefascism, aggression,brutality and murder of any kind. Matterof fact, we will not sit around and allowourselves to be murdered. Each personhas an obligation to preserve himself.If he does not preserve himself, thenI accuse him of suicide. I accuse himof reactionary suicide because a re-actionary set of conditions will causehis death. I repeat, if we do nothingwe might die the death of a reactionarysuicide. That is, by doing nothing weare accepting the situation. Thesituation is a condition of reaction, so,therefore, a reaction will cause ourdeath. We will not accept that. Matterof fact, we say that if the alternativesare very narrow, we still will not sitaround. We will not die the death of

    the Jews in Germany. We would rQ;therdie the death of the Jews in Warsaw.Yes, because we feel that wherethere is courage, where there is self-respect and dignity, there is a pos-sibility that we can change all of theconditions and that we can possiblywin. And this is called revolutionaryenthusiasm and it is the kind of stuffthat is needed in order to guaranteea victory. We say that if we must die,then we will die the death of the re-volutionary suicide. The revolutionarysuicide that says that if I am putdown. if I am driven out, I refuse tobe swept out with a broom. I wouldmuch rather be driven out with a stick,because with the broom, when I amdriven out, it will humiliate me andI will lose my self-respect. But if Iam driven out with the stick, then atleast I can remain with the dignity ofa man and die the death of a man,rather than die the death of a dog.Of course, our real desire is to live,but we will not be cowed, we will notbe intimidated.I would like to explain to you themethod that the Black Panther Partyused to arrive at our ideologicalposition. and, also more than that, Iwould like to give to you a frameworkor a proces's of thinking that mighthelP us solve the problems and thecontradictions that exist today. Todaythe world is very complicated. Thereare many things in operation at thesame time. It reminds me of a littlesaying, "When I was a boy, what wasso was so, what was not was not. NowI am a man, things have changed alot. Some things nearly so, others,not. It is a puzzlement". How do wesolve this? We must approach the pro-blem attempting to get a clear pictureand a clear image of really what'sgoing on, really what is going on di-vorced from our attitudes and emotionsthat we usually project into a situation.In other words, we will attempt to beas objective as possible. We will be asobjective as possible without acceptingdogma; we will let the facts speak forthemselves. But we will not remaintotally objective because knowledge andfacts are no good if we do not putthem to good use to serve our in-terests. So we will become subjectivewhen we aPPly the knowledge that wereceived from the exterool world usingthe scientific method. But at that time,we will admit that we will be subjective,

    continued on next page

  • 8/6/2019 HOLD THE HIGH THE BANNER OF OF OF INTERCOMMUNALISM INVINCIBLE SUPREME BLACK THOUGHTS COMMANDE

    3/7

    c.continuedrom ast pageLET US HOLD HIGH THE BANNEROF INTERCOMMUNALISM

    AND THE INVINCIBLE THOUGHTS OFHUEY P. NEWTON.. MINISTER OF DEFENSE

    AND SUPREME COMMANDER OFTHE BLACK p ANTHER p AR TY.

    because once we aPPly this knowledgeand will a certain outcome, our ob-jectivity ends and our subjectivity be-gins. We call this integrating theorywith practice. And this is what the BlackPanther Party is all about.Some peoPle criticize the BlackPan-ther Party. They call us many names.They call us revisionists, they call ushoodlums. They call us everything butthe child of man. But tonight we willanswer those peoPle. And I would hopethat all of them have a .front seatbecause I would like to have a dia-lectical argument with them.

    You know, in order to understand agroup of forces operating at the sametime, science developed what is calleda discipline. One of the characteristicsor properties of this discipline is, first,to be disinterested. Not to be disin-terested in the sense that you Uk]nt towalk off .from the problem, but disin-terested in the particular outcome. Inother words, you will not promote anoutcome, you just want to know thefacts. The other thing is that sciencestarts off with a basic premise that isvery important. And .from time to timeI will ask you to stiPulate a few thingswith me. You see that even sciencestarts off with a basic belief. Mostbasic premises start out with a beliefbecause it is very important. Andbecause it is very difficult to test yourfirst premise. But after we agree orstipulate a first premise we then canhave an intelligent argument becausethen we would just require each otherto be consistent down to a valid con-clusion. So tonight I would ask youto stipulate that an external worldexists. An external world exists in-dependently of us, in spite of whetherwe are around or n:>t. In other words,the external W{)rld is a reality. Thesecond thing that I would like for youto stipulate is that things are in aconstant state of change, or trans-

    formation, rather. In otherwords,flux,flux, all is ftux. After we agree to that,we can go on with our discussion.You know, the scientific mathodrelies heavily on a concept they call~~Piricism. But the problem with ~m-Piricism is that it tells you very lzttleabout the future, it only tells you aboutthe past. In other words, it can only

    tell you about what ~e~J.b.rQUghobservation and experience and tha isal s as e. 0, therefore, a manby the name of Karl Marx integrated atheory developed by Immanuel Kant

    caned T.!!~e. lfant called his br~-cess oJreasoni~'.ro'r"onQan..-b-.ecau.Se~J! s ~easU!1~~di~ ~t deb~~~e~1I'n(l1 uzarld,It only depended on con-s~. It only iIepended upon diiifingw!~h symbO,s tn SUCha UN1~wherey-ou,!!anibulated them to cDm42~ aE-onclusion based ubon reaso1CFor ex-ample, "If the sky is above my head,when I turn my head UpUN1rds, willsee the sky". There is nothing wrongwith that. MJ.tter of fact, that is thetruth. But I haven't said anything aboutthe existence of the sky. I said "if."And that is why with rationale we do nothave to depend upon the external world.With empiricism we can tell very littleabout the future. So what win we do?In order to understand what is hap-pening in the world, Marx found itnecessary to integrate rationale withempiricism and he came up with a con-cept caned dialectical materialism, be-cause aft42r we integrate these two con-cepts or these two UN1ysof thinking,not only are we in touch with that worldoutside us, but we can also explainthat constant state of transformationand, therefore, make some predictionsabout the outcome of the phenomenathat is not only in constant change butalso in conflict, attempting to reachsome harmony.You know also, that Marx, as a socialscientist, criticized other socialscientists because he felt that some ofthem attempted to explain phenomena,or part of phenomena, by taking it outof its environment, isolating it andputting it into a category, and not,letting anyone know about the fact thatonce he took it out of its environment,once he took this particular set ofconditions out of its environment thephenomena UN1Sransformed. It UN1Sotthe same. In other words with a dis-ciPline such as sociology where wewould study the activity of groupsand how groups hold together and howgroups fan apart without understandingeverything else that is happening andeverything that is connected to thegroup, we would get a false conclusionabout the nature of the group. So whatMarx attempted to do was to develop away of thinking that would explainphenomena.In the physical world, when forcescollide, they are transformed. Inphysics, I think that they say that whenatoms collide, that they divide intoelectrons, protons and nutrons, if Iremember correctly. What happened

    to the atomi' it was transformed. Inthe social world the same thing happens,or a similar thing. We can aPPly thesame principle. In sociology, when twocultures collide a process occurs or acondition occurs which I believe thesociologists call acculturation, wheretwo cultures are modified because OJcontact. Well Marx called the sociallforces, when the socialforces collided, Ior classes, he called that a contra-diction. In the physical world, whenphysical forces collide sometimes wecall it just that, a collision. For ex-ample, when two cars meet head on,trying to occupy the same space at thesame time, both are transformed.Sometimes other things happen. Matterof fact, had those two cars been turneaback to back and sped off in oppositedirections, they would not be having acontradiction, they would be contrary,covering different spaces at differenttimes. Sometimes when peoPle meet,we argue and we miss each other. Wemiss each other because, in the firsf Iplace, we think we're having a contra-diction when we're only being contrary.For example, I would say the wall isten feet tall and you would say thewall is red, and we would argue allday thinking we're having a con-tradiction when actually we're beingcontrary. When people argue, whenoneoffers a thesis and the other offersan antithesis, we say there's a contra-diction, and we hope that if we arguelong enough, provided that we agree onone first premise, that probably we hopethat we can have some kind of synthesis.And tonight I hope Icanhavesomeformof agreement or synthesis with those Iwho have criticized the Black Panther .Party.I think that the mistake is either thatsome peoPle have taken the apparentas the actual fact, in spite of theirclaim to scholarly research and inspite of their claim that they followthe discipline of dialectical ma-terialism. They fail to search deeper ,like the scientist is required to do. Toget beyond the apparent and come upwith the more significant. I know you Ionder how this connects with the BlackPanther Party. I'll explain that. TheBlack Panther Party is a Marxist-L eninist Party because we follow thedialectical method and we also integratetheory with practice. What we are not-We aye not mechanical Marxists andwe're not historical materialists. Some

    continued on neKt page

  • 8/6/2019 HOLD THE HIGH THE BANNER OF OF OF INTERCOMMUNALISM INVINCIBLE SUPREME BLACK THOUGHTS COMMANDE

    4/7

    ID.

    decline, because theyployables and, therefore, swellranks of the Lumpens, who areemployables. UnemPloyablesthe rulingany more. So everypardy because of the

    probably carry

    a small industrialwhothey called themusing Marx's theory, saw thebecause he was not a historical ma-terialist, he was a dialectical mater-ialist, and, therefore, he was very in-terested in the ever changing status ofthings. He saw that while the prole-tarianswere a minority at that time,in 1917, they had the potentiality tocarry out a revolution because theirclass was on the upsurge and the pea-santry was on the decline. That wasone of the conditions. The proletarianswere destined to be a popular force.They also carried the necessary pro-perties to carry out a revolution thatresembled a socialist revolution.

    slave

    continued from lasr pagepeople think they are Marxists whenactually they are following the thoughtsof Hegel. Some peoPle think they areMarDsts-LeniTists and they rej;l.se tobe creative. So, therefore, they're tiedto the past. They're tied to a rhetoricthat does not aPPly to the present setof conditions. They are tied to a setof thoughts that edges upon dogma, andwhat we sometimes call, jlunkeyism.

    Marx attempted to set up a frame-work. Just as in mathematics you de-velop certain equations to understanda certain phenomena, and after youleam some things about a particularset of conditions, then )rOU ry to moveon and al-.'ply that framework to otherthings, or those principles. And you'renot afraid of the outcome because youknow that things change andyou're willing to acknowledge the\ change because you're objective. Be-cause you realize the method that you'reusing, if you're using the method ofdialectical materialism, you don't evenI expect to find the same thing even oneminute after you found it the last time,because then that's history. And if

    I things are in a constant state of trans-formation, we will not expect for themto be the same. So, therefore, wordsthat we used to describe the oldI phenomena perhaps will be useless todescribe the new. And if we use theold words to describe events past thenwe might conj;l.se peoPle. They mightthink that things are static and there-I fore contradicting the theory of dia-lectical materialism.In 1917, an event occurred in theI Soviet Union that was called a revolu-tion. Two classes had a contradictionI and the whole country was transformed.In this country, 1970, the Black Pan-ther Party issued a document. OurMinister of Information, EldridgeI Cleaver, who now is in Algeria, wrotethe pamPhlet and it was called "Onthe Ideology of the Black PantherParty". In that work, Eldridge Cleav-er stated that the proletarians in thiscountry at this time, or the industrialworker, does not carry the potential-ities for revolution. He claimed thatthe left wing of the proletarians, the

    lumpen-proletarians, carry that revolu-tionary potential and infact would carrythe peoPle of the world to the finalclimax of the transformationofsociety,and, therefore, will act as the van-guard. It has been stated by somepeoPle, by some parties, by some or-ganizations, by Progressive LaborI Party that it is impossible. How canthe lumpen-proJetarians carry out asuccessful socialist transformationwhen they are only a minority? And

    state tofor ain ~

    or the in-class can possibly be

    in this country, the Black PantherParty taking careful note of the dia-lectical method, taking careful note ofthe social trends and the ever changingnature of things, see that while thelumpen: proletarians are the minorityand the proletarians, the majority, wealso see that technology isat such a 'l:apid rate that we'll

    would not disappear, theytake on other attributes.The attribute that I'm interested in isthe fact that the ruling circle wouldnot need him, and if the ruling circleis in control of the means ofProduction,then he will be called an unemPloyableor a lumpen. So, I think that's logical,I think that's dialectical. I think itwould be very strange to say only theslave class could disaPPear.

    over the ~y. If themains in power, it seems tothey would go on developing their tech-nological machinery. They w.')uld go ondeveloping their technological ma-chinery because at the capitalist'shands and the ruling circle's hands,they're not interested in the peoPle.So, therefore, 1 would expect from him

    in fact how can they do it when his-tory shows that only the proletarianshave carried out a successful socialrevolution ? I would agree that it isnecessary for the peoPle who carry outa social revolution to represent thepopular majority's interests. It is ne-cessary for this group to represent thebroad masses of the peoPle, I wouldagree to that. In the Soviet Union, 1917,we analyzed what happened there. Iwould agree that the lump en prole-tarian$ are actually the minority in thiscountry. No disagreement. It seems thatrve contradicted myself. It only goesto show that what's apparent might notactually be a fact. Sometimes we think athing is reallya contradiction and it'sonly paradoxicul. It might seem whatit's not, you see. So what we will dois tear this thing apart; we will analyzeit. In the Soviet Union, in 1917, theSoviet Union was basically an agricul-tural society, that of a very large pea-santry. There was a set of social con-

    the logic that he's always followed.That is to make as much money aspossible and pay the peoPle as littleas possible, unless the people demandmore and finally demand his head. Atthis time, if revolution does not occuralmost immediately, and I say almostimmediately because the trend is thattechnology is making leaps, (It made a leap all the way to the moon.) and ifthe ruling circle

  • 8/6/2019 HOLD THE HIGH THE BANNER OF OF OF INTERCOMMUNALISM INVINCIBLE SUPREME BLACK THOUGHTS COMMANDE

    5/7

    ~

    rHE BLACK p ANTHER p ARTY.about a limitation and every limitati"onbrings about a determination. In otherwords, while one force may give riseto one thing , it might crush other thingsor even itself. In other words, we mighthave a concept we call the negation ofthe negation. Meaning, we might saythat while in 1917 the ruling circlErcreated an industrial base and used thesystem of capitalism they were alsocreating the necessary conditions forsocialism. They were doing this be-cause it is necessary in order to havea socialist society to have some cen-tralization of the wealth, we would haveto have some equal distribution of thewealth, we would have to 'lave som~harmony between the peop(e.First I will roughly give you somecharacteristics that any peoPle who callthemselves a nation should have. Theseare economic independence, culturaldetermination, control of the politicalinstitutions, territorial integrity andsafety.In 1966, we called ourselves, that is,the Party, a Black nationalist Party.We called ourselves Black nationalistsbecause we thaught that nationhood wasthe answer. Shortly after that we de-cided that what was really needed wasrevolutionary nationalism, that is, na-tionalism plus socialism. After an-alyzillg the phenomena a little more,we found that it was impractical andeven a contradiction. So, therefore, wewent to a higher level of consciousness.We saw that in order to be free--and this is what we really want, tobe free--we thought the nation wouldmake us free--we saw that in orderto be free we had to crush the rulingcircle and, therefore, we had to unitewith the peoPles of the world, so wecalled ourselves Internationalists. Wesought solidarity with the peoPles ofthe world. We sought solidarity withwhat we thought were the nations of theworld. But then what happened? Wefound that because everything's in aconstant state of transformation andthat because of the development oftechnology, because of the developmentof the m1ss media, because of the firepower of the imperialist, because ofthe fact that the United States is nolonger a nation but an empire, thatnationhood did not exist, because theydid not have the criteria for nation-hood. Because their self-determinationwas destroyed, because their economicdetermination was destroyed, becausetheir cultural determination was trans-formed--and I would like for you tostrike "destroyed", I would like foryou to put in "transformed". Excuseme--all of the nations were trans-

    continued on next page

  • 8/6/2019 HOLD THE HIGH THE BANNER OF OF OF INTERCOMMUNALISM INVINCIBLE SUPREME BLACK THOUGHTS COMMANDE

    6/7

    continued from last page LET US HOLD HIGH THE BANNEROF INTERCOMMUNALISM

    AND THE INVINCIBLE THOUGHTS OFHUEY P. NEWTON-, MINISTER OF DEFENSE

    AND SUPREME COMMANDER OFTHE BLACK p ANTHER p AR TY.

    formed at the hands of the imperialistand the ruling circle in the interestsI of the imperialists. So we found thatin order to be an internationalist, wehad to be also a nationalist, or atj 'east acknowledge nationhood. So allinternationalists are also nationalists,because, if I understand that word,"inter" means some inter-relationshipI between things and "nationalism" or

    "nationhood" means the interrelation-ship between a group of nations. Nowif no nation is in existence and in factthe United States is an emPire, thatwould make it impossible for us tobe internationalists. We are no longerinternationalists,we're not afraid aboutthat. Matter of fact 'we will try toshed light upon it, and we will definethe new transformation and thephenomena, and we will call ourselves, , ntercommunalists". Because nationshave been transformed into com-munities of the world.So tonight, the Black Panther Partywould like to disclaimlnternationalismand support Intercommunalism. WeI have a problem. You know Marx andILenin felt with the information thatthey had, that when non-state finallycame to be a reality, it would be caused,or ushered in by the peoPle and byCommunism. A strange thing happened.

    I The ruling reactionary circle throughthe process of being an imperialist,I transformed the w:>rld into what wecall reactionary intercommunalism.They laid seige upon all the com-munities of the world, dominating theinstitutions to such an extent that thepeoPle are not served by the institu-tions in their land. The Black Pan-ther Party would like to reverse thatand lead the peoPle of the world intothe age of Revolutionary Intercommun-alism. This would be the time whenthe peoPle seize the means of pro-

    I duction, distribute the w.3alth and theI technology in an egalitarian way to themany communities of the world.We see very little difference in whatj happens to a community here in NorthAmerica and what happens to a com-munity in Vietnam. We see very littledifference in what happens, even cul-turally to a Chinese community inSan Francisco and a Chinese com-munity in Hong Kong. We see verylittle difference in what happens to aBlack community in Harlem and aBlack community in South Africa, aBlack community in Angola and Mozam-

    bique. We see very little difference.So what has actually happened, thatnon-state has already been ac-comPlished, but it's reactionary. Acommunity by way of definition is acomprehensive collection of insti-tutions which serve the peoPle who livethere. It differs from a nation, be-cause a community evolves around agreater structure that we usually callthe state and the state has certaincontrol over the community. It alsoserves the community if the adminis-tration represents the peoPle or if theadministration happens to be the peq-pie's commissar. It's not so at thzstime, so there's still something to bedone. I spoke earlier about the ne-gation of the negation. I spoke earlierabout the fact of redistribution ofwealth. We think that it's very im-portant to know that in the world todaythat socialism in the United Stateswill never exist. Why? It will not existbecause it cannot exist. Also I wouldsay, socialism cannot at this time existany place in the world. Because social-ism would require a socialist state,and if state does not exist how couldsocialism exist? So how do we definecertain progressive countries such asthe People's Republic of China? Howdo we describe certain progressivecountries, or communities as we callthem, as the Democratic People's Re-public of Korea? How do we definecertain communities as North Vietnamand the Provisional Government in theSouth? How do we explain these com-munities, if in fact they too cannotclaim nationhood. We say this: we saythey represent the people's liberatedterritory. They represent a communityliberated. But that community is notsufficient, it is not satisfied, just asthe National Liberation Front is notsatisfied with the liberated territory inthe South. It is only ground for pre-paration for the liberation of the world,seizing of the wealth from the rulingcircle and equal distribution and pro-portional representation in an inter-communal framework. This is what theBlac.~ Panther Party would like toachieve with the helP of the power ofthe peoPle because without the peoPlenothing can be achieved.

    I stated that in the United Statessocialism would never exist. I say thatin order for a revolution to occur inthe United States, you would have to

    have a redistribution of wealth not ona national level, but an internationallevel, not on an international level, buton an intercommunal level, and this isbecause how can we say that we haveaccomplished revolution and re-distribute the wealth just to the peoPlehere in North America when the rulingcircle itself is guilty of trespass debonas as per tadas. That is, they'vetaken away the goods of the peoPle ofthe world, transported them toAmerica, and used them as their veryown. That is a tort.

    Iow remember in 1917, when the re-volution occurred, you had a redistri-bution of wealth on a national levelbecause nations existed. Now, if youhave to think in terms of planning an Iconomy on a world wide level, on anIntercommunal level, that says some-thing. That says that the peoPle have :been ripped off and it's very much like ~he peoPle in one country being rippedoff. And when the peoPle seize the meansof production then they redistribute. Sowe say this: we say reparation will noteven serve because the people have notonly been robbed of their raw ma-ter~als, their raw materials have alsobeen invested, their raw materials havebeen made into a technologicalmachine--the peoPle are responsiblefor that--so the peoPle of the worldwill have to have control of that, notfor X amount of time, not for a limited Imount, but it's theirs. So all I cansee in order to plan a real Intercom-munal economy is that we will have toacknowledge how the world is hooked Ip together. We'd also have toacknow-ledge that some time ago, nations couldexist because technology had not ad-vanced to the level it is now.Some people will argue that nations Itill exist because of the cultural dif-ferences. By way of definition, justfor practical argument, culture is a

    Iollection, or learned patterns of be-havior. We see that here in the United Itates, Black peoPle, Africans, wereraped from the mother country, werebrought here, and we've literally lostIost of our African values. Perhapswe still hold onto some survivingAfricanisms, but by and large you cansee the transformation. This wasachieved through a long stay, but alsothrough the high technological societythat has a tremendous mass mediaand indoctrination center. We see that

    continued on next page

  • 8/6/2019 HOLD THE HIGH THE BANNER OF OF OF INTERCOMMUNALISM INVINCIBLE SUPREME BLACK THOUGHTS COMMANDE

    7/7

    continued from last pagethe ruling circle has also launchedsatelites in order to put the beamacross the world to indoctrinate theworld. We see that while there mightbe what we call cultural differences,the difference is not a qualitative dif-ference but a quantitative difference.In other words, that if technology andthe ruling circle go on as they aregoing on now, that the peoPle of theworld will be conditioned to adaptWestern values. I think Japan is agoodexample. And the difference betweenpeoPle in fact are getting very small.

    I But again it's in the interest of theI ruling circle. I don't believe that historycan be backtracked, you see. So if theworld is really that interconnected,then we would have to acknowledge thatand say that in order for the peopleto be free, then they would control theinstitutions of their comm1mity and alsohave some form of representation inthe technological center that they pro-duce. So, the United States will haveto, in order to correct the robbery ofthe world, first return what they havestolen. So I don't see where we couldtalk about socialism when we'retalking about world distribution. I thinkthis is what Marx talked about when hetalked about non-state.I was at Alex Haley's house sometime ago. And he talked to me abouthis search for his past. He found itin Africa. But he returned there shortlyafterwards and he UXlS n a state ofpanic. His village hadn't changed verymuch. But when he went back he sawI an old man walking down the road and! he had something to his ear that hecherished. That was a small transistorradio that was zeroed in on the BritishBroadcasting network. So, what Pmtrying to say is that the mass media,plus the development of transportationmakes it impossible for us to think ofourselves in terms otseparate entities,I as nations. Do you realize that it onlytook me approximately five hours to getfrom San Francisco to here ? It onlytakes ten hours to get from here toVietnam. We see that the ruling circleno longer acknowledges wars, they callthem "police actions". They say wehave a domestic disturbance becausethe Vietnamese peoPle are rioting.What I'm saying is that the ruling circleaccept and realize what they have done.They know that it's one world, butthey're determined to follow their logicof exploitation. They know because ashort time ago, in Detroit, a com-munity was under seige, and now six-teen mvmbers of the Party are inf)rison. The local police laid seige onthat col'1:tnunity and that house and theyused ti, w,'.JfJons, the same weaponsthey u."c; in Vietna~, matter of fact,two ta,'s rililed up. We see that thesame rhng t'lppens. We see that thesame tiltng i"'>pens in Vietnam becausethe pol.ce L , there also. The policeare everywl",'.e and they all wear thesame unil!!!!!! and use the s~me tool~

    And they're there for the same pur-pose, that is the protection of theruling circle here in North America.We say that it is true that the worldis one community. The world is onecommunity but we're not satisfiedwhere the power is. We want the powerfor the people.I said earlier, and I strayed away,that the theory of the negation of thenegation is very valid. Some scholarshave been wondering why inAsia, Africaand Latin America, the resistance al-ways seek the goal of a collectivesociety. They seem not to institute theeconomy of the capitalist. They seem togo all the way from feudalism and tryto jump to a collective society. Andsome people can't understand why. Whywon't they follow historical Marxism,or historical materialism? Why won'tthey gofrom feudaliSm, develop acaPi-talistic base, and finally go into social-ism? They don't do it because theycan't do it. They don't do it for thesame reason that the Black communityin Harlem cannot develop capitalism,the Black community in Oakland orSan Francisco cannot develop capi-talism. because the imp~rialists havealready pre-empted the field, he hasalready centralized the wealth. Sotherefore, in order to deal with him,all we can do is liberate our com-munity, and then move on him as acollective force.You know, we've had long argumentswith peoPle. We used to call ourselvesbefore we became conscious, a dis-persed collection of colonies here inNorth America. And peoPle argued withme all day and all night, and they toldme how can you possibly be a colony?In order to be a colony, you have tohave a nation, and you're not a nation,you're a community. You're a dis-persed collection of communities. Andbecause the Black Panther Party is notembarrassed to change or be trans-formed, tonight I would like to acceptthe criticism and say that you are ab-solutely right, that we are a collectionof communities just as theAfricanpeo-pIe represent a collection of commun-ities, just as the Korean peoPle, theVietnamese peoPle, the Chinese peoPleare a collection of communities--adispersed collection of communities.Because they have no superstructure.Or they do have a superstructure--the superstructure of the industrialbase that they labor to produce wasall put on Wall Street. And we wouldall agree that once a particularpeople,centralize the wealth and create acapitalist base, we won't find it inevery single community, because everysingle community would not have theresources because it's already beencentralized. This is a distorted formof collectivity. Everything's been col-lected but it's used for the interest ofthe ruling circle. So after the thingshave been collected, then how can youexpect for someone to have a surplusthat's already been ripped off? And this

    is why the Black Panther Partydenounces Black capitalism and say thaIall we can do is liberate our com-munity, not only in-Vietnam bUt here,not only in Cambodia and the People'sRepublic of China and Korea, but thBpeoPles of the world must ~itB asone community and then transformthe world into a place where peoPlewill be happy, UX1rs will end, stateitself will no longer exist, and we willhave comm~ism. But we cannot do thisright aUX1y, because we know that insociology we say that when transfor-mation takes place, when a structuralchange takes place, the result is usU4llycultural lag. In other words, after thepeoPle possess the means ofPro-duction we will probably nat moV'directly into communism but we wilJlinger with Revolutionary Intercom-munalism until such time that we cafiwash aUX1y ourgeois thuught, until sucltime that we can UX1shaUX1y acis17and reactionary thinking, and until sucltime that peoPle are not attached tctheir nation as a peasant is attache,to the soil, until such time that peoPI.can gain their sanity and develop a cuIture t~t is 'essentially human', tlwwill serve the people instead of servsome god. You see, itwillbenecessarto do that because we cannot avoicontact with each other. We caMcavoid contact with each other becausof the changing set of conditions. .'jbecause we can't, we will have to thedevelop a value system that will moAus function together in harmony. Tmwill be necessary.So tonight, I thinkl've covered somof what I had to say. I will allow ycto talk. We will have a question afanswer period. But before I do tlwI would like to deliver a messagByou. Our Minister of Information, Edridge Cleaver, asked me to peUti.you, to ask you to prepare a place /0him because he would like to reNhome. And also I would like to thathe peoples of the world for allowiour Minister of Information to resiin their liberated communities, in thEliberated territory. So, they've ac~set the example for us, we know -we have to do n order to return E dritCleaver home. We have to liberate ccommunities. C'~(c) Copyright by Stronghold C0r&81dated Productions, Inc .~970 .~