The police wasn't as militarized. SWAT didn't exist in its current form back then. SWAT was slowly developing as a domestic counterinsurgency apparatus after the Watts riots. One of the first real assignments of LAPD's SWAT was in fact engaging in a shootout with the LA branch of the BPP.
Even at their most militant, the BPP were mostly armed with pistols and shotguns. Those weapons wouldn't do shit vs your average ICE goon wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles.
I'll just point out things were a lot different then compared to now.
Cops back then didn't have body armor of any kind usually (kevlar was brand new and not widely available nor was it guaranteed to stop bullets from rifles as commonly carried by the panthers). They also usually had at best a pistol, maybe a shotgun in the car or trunk in some cases. They often patrolled alone or maybe two cops and might have encountered two panthers armed, not good odds for the cops that at least one if not both gets a funeral if they start shit.
Cops back then weren't as organized, as militarized. They couldn't call out a helicopter gunship, they didn't have surveillance drones doing overwatch. They couldn't scream on the horn and get 10 armed agents from several agencies there in 20 minutes as emergency back-up.
The US was openly trying to appear good compared to the USSR and was very determined not to do many if any massacres if they could help it because it made them look bad in their attempts to woo the non-aligned states.
Compare to now. These ICE types wear heavy modern body armor with plates that can stop rifle rounds. They receive military training, they operate in tactical squads. They carry automatic weapons. They have overwatch. They can call for and get SWAT multi-agency heavily armed back-up with even more automatic weapons and armored vehicles within 15 minutes in many cases.
They do not operate within a state that has a USSR it cares to try and compete against, it has no interest in trying to pretend it isn't somewhat racist nor does it care about shouting about maximalist liberal freedoms.
So there's less restraint, the opponents are more heavily armed, have body armor, have better military training, travel in numbers at all times, and are itching for an escalation that lets them use even more force and/or declare martial law.
The US of the 1960s and 1970s had a more serious risk of serious prolonged insurgency due to the social and economic upheaval of the era than now which they also had an interest on tamping down on and not feeding. The propaganda wasn't as good, we hadn't seen end of history yet with the USSR being illegally dissolved.
How does SWAT rapid response actually work? Are there a bunch of guys constantly ready to go in a warehouse somewhere? What even is SWAT, are they part of the normal police?
They are part of normal police. It stands for Special Weapons And Tactics. They are more heavily armed and armored compared to regular cops. They have armored vehicles, better training, and more stringent fitness requirements. The only time I saw a SWAT raid up close they closed down my street and had two snipers because a man robbed a nearby gas station convenience store with a shotgun. They killed him.
Here's a 2015 quote from economist.com. Budgets expanded beyond belief from $1m in 1990 to nearly $450m in 2013. And the number of times they were used exploded 17 times. 3,000 in 1980 to 50,000 times.
→ The American Civil Liberties Union found that the value of military equipment used by American police departments has risen from $1m in 1990 to nearly $450m in 2013. The equipment has been used. In 1980 SWAT teams across America were deployed around 3,000 times. Deployments are estimated to have risen nearly seventeen-fold since, to 50,000 a year.
Of course - 2015 was ten years ago so things have surely gotten even worse.
Walking around with guns wasn't what made them successful, it was building an actual connection to the people and working to build dual power structures to provide for them and to prove to them a better alternative system can exist, the arms came along as a necessity to protect from harassment in order to continue their programs.
You can't have people running around willy-nilly with guns, and you definitely don't want chief targets for state persecution going around willy-nilly in hot situations without a trained and disciplined force to do that willy-nilly running around.
Also money. You're gonna have people run around all day peacefully observing federal agents, they need to get paid because they're gonna become persona non gratas in the workplace the moment it gets leaked they're in a left-wing militia policing the streets.
Walking around with guns wasn't what made them successful, it was building an actual connection to the people and working to build dual power structures to provide for them and to prove to them a better alternative system can exist
This. This post. Sadly 9/10 times the Black Panther party comes up it's always about their guns and not the feeding kids, solidarity, dual power etc.
everyone who wants to play communist comes for the looks and the action but always disappears when theres work to be done rizzing up some warehouse workers into knowing how and why they hate their bosses, slapping tasty food together for folks in need consistently, and going to endless meetings!
Being a communist is as boring and mundane as being a normal person who wants to actually have nice things without selling a kidney to keep a roof over their head
I really wish people understood this right here. It's so important if we're to achieve anything tangible. How can anyone expect a person to be a big communism builder, in a system that will isolate you, when you do so openly, someone has to provide alternative means to acquiring a shelter and food, at the very least. Communism isn't supposed to be some kind of a martyrdom cult where you sacrifice yourself for the "greater good".
I run into this kind of thinking sometimes in my own work. Comrades want the left to "get serious" and start doing "cool shit" like having guns and confronting the police. I want that too, but we aren't there yet, and I think that kind of talk comes from a place of frustration with the current level of organizing. People don't want a decades long struggle built on countless conversations and committee meetings, they want a final, dramatic confrontation with capital right now that will decide everything forever. I think it's the same thing behind doomer-type rhetoric about how the government is about to "really crackdown" or that you're going to get arrested for being a commie or whatever.
Trying to figure out how to keep things grounded and realistically plausible without sounding overly pessimistic and ending up turning people away is one of those frustrating things, isn't it? That we just got to keep on dealing with, because this is always going to be effected by our current conditions and there's never gonna be a "perfect" answer. At the end of the day it is a collective effort and we can only do the best we're able to, life's already hard enough under the boot of capitalism.
People want the Great Patriotic War, but without industrialization and collectivization beforehand.
I think it's the same thing behind doomer-type rhetoric about how the government is about to "really crackdown" or that you're going to get arrested for being a commie or whatever.
somewhat, but i think it's also not entirely unjustified paranoia because the state has shown it is willing to infiltrate and try to crush even the most tiny marxist reading clubs let alone actual big orgs
I guess I mean, not so much that there won't be state repression, but there is a kind of rhetoric you see mostly online, sometimes in person, where folks will talk like it's about to be over. That some kind of apocalyptic wave of reaction is imminent that will shut down all hope forever. It's that kind of rhetoric that I think stems from the same place of wanting finality now instead of living in protracted, liminal struggle.
How did the Black Panthers fund themselves? It's hard to get programs off the ground because we're all poor...
I'm not studied on the history of the black panthers. In a very simple explanation, marxist-leninist party formations rely on having a pool of membership who pay dues to a sufficient degree that dedicated cadre members of the party can officially go on the party payroll to become a professional revolutionary who's life is dedicated to fulfilling the will of the party.
In addition to the other answer - grant writing and selling newspapers.
Trotskyism intensifies
Many chapters were former gangs, and they continued to run shakedown rackets. For example, they'd go through the community asking for funds for the breakfast program and if they didn't abide, they would picket them out of existence.
The free breakfast program was an example of that community building. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Breakfast_for_Children
Yeah honestly there's a lot I didn't consider; another thought that occurred to me is that we currently have a president and government that doesn't mind pulling out all the stops and clearly doesn't care how it looks; I also admittedly don't know enough about everything the black Panthers did (I do recall they had a breakfast for kids program that the government got going themselves to take that away that connection)
I hate to be "that guy" but the guns actually came first, and what built the panthers' reputation was their armed patrols.
The pivot to community organizing came from when Newton was imprisoned and Seale became the leader of the party. He re-oriented the party towards free breakfast, free clinics, etc.
The other aspect of their success imo was that they recruited existing student groups and gangs and re-oriented their existing activities into the Panthers' project. Protection rackets run by gangs became the funding source for the free breakfast program. Student groups became student strike committees, etc.
Black Against Empire is a great read for anyone interested in the panthers.
I hate to be "that guy"
That's completely fair
People are doing cop-watch stuff with ICE. There's coordinated efforts to track and tail them when they leave and warn workers before they arrive. Adding guns to that process is a big escalation and they will escalate in return. For most of those organizers, escalation isn't the priority. The priority is protecting as many workers as possible.
Right, in the 60s and 70s, black people were attacking the police autonomously. Revolution felt imminent to a lot of people. The panthers were trying to goad the police into a shootout so that they could launch a Revolution.
Because the pigs would murder you with impunity anyway.
Any anti-government militia is guaranteed to lose a pitched battle against a heavily armed, highly trained government force. That way lies ruin
OP said ICE. So they are heavily armed but seemingly trained in a COD lobby.
are americans cops even that highly trained, the body armor seems like a way bigger problem to me
the cops will murder you if they THINK you have a gun, even though its "legal" to have one
That's if you're the only one with a gun. Shooting you means you probably can't shoot back. They're suddenly and mysteriously not so trigger happy when you're standing shoulder to shoulder with 20 people who are armed and ready to return fire.
Of course, the could call for backup. But look at Uvalde, the pussies only act tough when there's no chance of consequences.
effective community armed self-defense requires the people with guns to have ties to the community they claim to defend. If you make a habit of walking around with a gun and no one in your neighborhood knows your name, they're going to quite reasonably be worried.
More mass shootings. If a CCWer or cop sees someone with a semi auto rifle walking around, they'll probably assume they're a mass shooter and try to stop them. Similarly, anyone walking around with a semi auto rifle is going to scare everyone away from them, and gain no goodwill whatsoever.
Not that I think it's a bad idea, but I think that the places where ICE is being most heavily targeted (blue cities) also tend to be places with the strictest restrictions on open carry (blue cities)
What do you think that would accomplish?
Im assuming if people traveled in groups they could literally just stand as a human barrier between ICE and anyone they're trying to grab, and being that everyone is armed, ICE doesn't have the numbers to risk trying to intimidate an even larger group of people carrying guns. I probably haven't thought this through that well 
pigs are cowards, the main benefit to open-carry clubs is in situations where that's relevant.
Gotta have an actual organization willing to set this sort of thing up
Not too many of those these days
Gotta have an actual organization willing to set this sort of thing up
Yeah in hindsight I actually didn't consider this, and most dem voting orgs are too lib to do anything that does more than convey what a sternly worded letter would have.
You can’t even walk on the street as a group.
It gets you murdered by police.
great way to get more mass shootings
Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.
No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.