Thread by @notmynypd, Thread: How is it that all that is revolutionary, from the attire [...]

Thread: How is it that all that is revolutionary, from the attire of the Black Panthers, to the phrase "ACAB", to the most incendiary art movements, seem to be taken over by society's dominant ideology and weaponized against their previous purposes? Let's talk about recuperation.

Capitalism doesn't rely just on interventions in the economy and police repression to maintain its dominance, one of its primary means of control is now purely through ideological production. The aggregate of mass produced media and images and their relationship with society.

Ruling class ideology has now long become incoherent. It isn't about producing one regime of static ideology, but instead a dynamic, confused, and contradictory ideology that allows it to maintain its position of strength. It thrives through the innovation it now allows.

The means by which capitalism adopts "the revolution" into its arsenal of weaponry is called recuperation. It is the process in which your symbol, ideas, chants, heroes, movements will be employed for the counter revolution. It is ruling class ideology taking those things over.

You have seen the most egregious examples of such in the past week, from cop collaborators dressed as Black Panthers, to peace police chanting "ACAB", but you might be surprised to learn that certain older recuperated things were once revolutionary at all.

The most obvious examples were incendiary art movements of the 20th century: early Dadaist and Surrealist artists once had the intention of using their platforms for revolutionary change, and are now deeply recuperated, academicized, and totally institutional movements.

The danger in these things is that they take newfound revolutionary desires of the masses and they compartmentalize them with inherently counter revolutionary purposes, by combining disparate elements.

It is the Black Panther + the cop that is important. The "ACAB" + the "peaceful protest" chant. These combinations of elements cleverly obscure revolutionary action while giving us revolutionary symbols as a treat.

This is a well-known danger, but unfortunately it is under-discussed and poorly strategized about.
It has been interesting to see how recuperation has been the ruling class's primary strategy this past week and how it has been so successful. It warrants more focus.

The instinctive way most of us try to counter recuperation is through rationalization. With each example of recuperation, you see multiple Twitter threads explaining why it is wrong. While this disrupts the distribution of these things, it never has as much reach as the original.

And with ideology, it is all about reach. Mitt Romney marching in this movement has no impact. The recuperation is the photo of Mitt Romney + the widespread distribution and the impact that that has. Fortunately that is one example most people can see through the façade of.

Rationalization requires people to read explanations, to accept historical stories. Recuperation in its quickest form just requires you to see something for a second. It always has the broader reach.

The danger in this is not only that it makes the ruling class appear accommodating and answering to democratic notions about willingness to change. It also recruits an army of regular people who once had revolutionary desires to defend those people.

That is how we went from riots against the cops to hugging cops in a few days, within the same crowds of people.

The good news is that there are opportunities to effectively disrupt recuperation, and even turn inherently ruling class symbols, media, and images into weapons for revolution.

This process is the opposite of recuperation. But it involves exactly the same procedure, the combination of elements to change their purposes.

For example, an attempt at recuperation through a photo op combining the elements of cops (kneeling, marching, etc.) + protesters. An added element that would permanently disrupt the production of that recuperation could be red paint, connotating blood, drenched upon the cop.

The way that social media and imagery works would serve the purpose of more widely distributing the disrupted image than the original (if ever even taken.)

These disruptions can look like something less sincere though, through humor, absurdity, chaos and pranks on those involved in recuperation. Imagine the same photo op where all the protesters spontaneously don masks of pigs or clowns to stand with the police.

These types of disruptions refuse to engage in the ruling class's games. They don't desperately try to rationalize with the masses through essays, they also don't entirely reject recuperated radical symbols, allowing the ruling class to have them. They refuse the event entirely.

Disruptions can occur further down the line from these events too into their distribution. For example, the music in a video of a march with cops being changed to something humorous, made to humiliate the cops and their collaborators. Or video edited in for the same purpose.

These disruptions don't just have to be through social media but through all forms that ideology is communicated: billboards, art, newspapers, etc. When done successfully they draw out the contradictions in our society and make recuperation impotent.

We need to form groups willing to disrupt recuperation in these ways NOW if we want to reverse what has been happening this past week. We need to do it everywhere, at once.

It should be noted that while some of these events are just the inevitable result of ruling class ideology’s influence on liberals, etc. that some are manufactured by the state as a part of a strategy of control through PR. Disrupt them. https://twitter.com/leftsidefromny/status/1270064175671361536?s=21 https://twitter.com/LeftsidefromNY/status/1270064175671361536

https://twitter.com/leftsidefromny/status/1270064175671361536?s=21

It is crazy how far they go with this shit, but trust me, if it keeps up they will have Nancy Pelosi throwing a commemorative molotov cocktail at the ten year anniversary of the precinct burning. https://twitter.com/abc/status/1269999247740502018?s=21 https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1269999247740502018