50 years ago today cops murdered Fred Hampton because that's what cops do. He was a Black Panther and was instrumental in efforts to create a multiracial socialist movement. At the behest of the FBI he was drugged at dinner and cops broke in and shot him to death as he slept.
He was 21.
When I've talked to people in this past year especially about the history of anticapitalism in America I find myself saying over and over again "and then they were murdered by the state, or by guns hired directly by capitalists", Over and over again.
The anticapitalist left in the US has been systematically murdered and imprisoned for a century, and then had their likenesses and rhetoric appropriated by capitalist liberals who took credit for all of the victories these people paid for with their lives.
The state was terrified of 21 year old Fred Hampton because he fought racism with socialism. So 14 cops busted into his apartment at 4am and shot him multiple times. Too afraid to even face him fully conscious. They murdered or arrested several other people there that night.
The state, the FBI, capitalists, and the cops were afraid of black people having power. They were afraid of racism no longer being a useful tool for keeping a working class fragmented and fighting eachother. They were afraid of socialism. They were cowards. Still are.
I sound kinda extreme here but it is what it is. RIP Fred.
