What The Heck Is The 'Revolutionary Communist Party' Doing In Ferguson?

[DonViejo]

By DYLAN SCOTT Published AUGUST 21, 2014, 6:00 AM EDT

As if the current clashes in Ferguson, Mo., needed any additional stimuli, a group of habitual revolutionaries has tried to insert itself into the drama. It hasn't gone well, and they've clashed with protesters as well as police, as a short video posted by a St. Louis alderman shows.

The group, which calls itself the Revolutionary Communist Party, emerged from the movement period of the late 1960s and early 1970s but is now a "parasitic" organization, in the words of one sociologist who has studied it, that tends to pop up opportunistically when and where civil unrest develops.

But just who is the Revolutionary Communist Party and what is it doing in Ferguson?

"Because of the defiance and rebellion, the whole world knows the story. Now everybody has to deal with this," the group wrote Monday on its website in a call to action in Ferguson. "And people all over the country and all over the world support this fight. You, the defiant ones, are changing the thinking of millions and millions of people."

"You are making history -- in the way it badly needs to be made," it concluded. The Revolutionary Communist's Party's self-described members have been quoted by news outlets on the ground, and people wearing its T-shirts (above) have been photographed being arrested in Ferguson.

The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) was founded in 1975 by Bob Avakian, described as a Maoist and a Stalinist by others, who continues to head it at least in name to this day. Avakian was active in the Bay Area in the 1960s, Todd Gitlin, a sociologist at Columbia University who has studied movements on the left, told TPM.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/left-wing-radicals-ferguson-missouri-protests

[underpants]

1. Free lens time

[blm]

2. And at some point in the future we'll find out it's another covert op from the

circle of the CIA that reports ONLY to BushInc.

Never forget how VVAW was infiltrated and the covert ops were the ones urging and then demanding the group turn to violence.

Never forget that it was a Bush campaign ploy in 1988 to have small groups burning flags in public squares of towns that just happened to be on the campaign schedule. The pure-evil Delguadio brothers were the operatives who set up those dramas.

[WinkyDink]

7. EXACTLY.

[VanGoghRocks]

9. Never forget that Karl Rove was once the target of the Watergate Special Prosecutor's office for

being part of Donald Segretti's original band of Dirty Tricksters!

From what I've seen of the RCP at various anti-war, pro-Palestine and immigrants' rights demos here in Los Angeles, the group exists mostly to sell copies of its newspaper (which actually has some good writers, once you get past the cult of Bob stuff Also, one of their members regularly appears on the Michael Slate show on KPFK out here. I think his name is Larry Everest and his commentaries are usually pretty spot-on, aside from the Chairman Bob encomia.

[snooper2]

12. Or, they are just idiots that finally got off the intertubes and actually went outside

[Ichingcarpenter]

16. Is this Tomorrow?

Anyway I go with useful idiots
follow the money.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. RCP was the single most bigoted anti gay group I ever met, including Westboro Baptist Church

nt

[VanGoghRocks]

10. I think the RCP officially changed its LGBT 'line' about 10 years ago or so, but I

don't keep up with all the sectarian squabbles among the comrades. In fairness to the RCP, even revolutionary Cuba has been notoriously anti-LGBT rights until relatively recently.

I wish I knew why Socialists, supposedly grounded firmly in science and the Scientific Method, could adhere to homophobia. Maybe there's a sociologist of the left who can offer some informed perspective on that.

[Blue_Tires]

4. taking advantage of the situation to serve their own ends

isn't it obvious?

[seveneyes]

5. Roll the tape

[msanthrope]

6. Leeches gotta leech. I miss Hannah Bell on these threads. nt

[Eleanors38]

8. I've been in demonstrations for nearly 50 yrs....

Those fuck-ups always attach, like a remora fish. In some cases they were agents provocateur. At times, I was part of a parade marshall detail which cordoned them away from the march's main body when the FUs decided to raise a stink.

And yes, they were unusually homophobic and turned folks off with it, even decades ago. Their strain of communism included a harsh puritanical bent, such as opposition to drug legalization and porno.

[Archae]

11. Even money this group is like the "New Black Panthers"

Their entire membership could travel to Ferguson in a minivan, or less.

[VanGoghRocks]

13. Half the minivan is reserved for their newspaper "Revolution," which

they perpetually hawk. Not bad writing, once you get past the creepy 'Chairman Bob' stuff.

[msanthrope]

14. OMG...I was the Democratic election monitor at the NBP ward

in Philly in 2012....one guy and lots of Faux News.

[MinM]

15. No doubt their origins were completely organic too.

Last edited Thu Aug 21, 2014, 06:42 PM - Edit history (1)