mm: You've spoken about the need for a whole new work style on the Left; and that presently there are no recipes to follow. Given these two dynamics, what are your thoughts about future work in general: how do we go through the process of figuring out what to do -- in that we need to re-haul and there are no recipes to follow?

assata: Well, i don't think there were ever any recipes to follow. There was an idea and many people went around acting like they had the recipe; acting like socialism was something like red paint. You can just paint it on anything and it will come out socialist. Each specific country, each specific situation, each specific people have their own specific needs, requirements, desires, aspirations, etc. that fit into a movement. That's the kind of dialectic between the national reality of people, and the international reality of a world revolutionary movement -- and the need to struggle against imperialism. i really don't think there was ever a recipe. It's not like you took two cups of Marx and a cup of Engels, throw in three drops of Lenin, and you've got freedom forever. That's silly. The reality of struggle is that you have to think, invent and create. You have to work and learn from experience what works, and what doesn't; what makes sense, and what doesn't. You have to learn to get along. i mean to get along in terms of progressive people working together -- whether you agree on everything or not. You have to learn that it's not a luxury to form working unity, it's a necessity.

...But i think We've got to get away from the idea that one party is going to be the vanguard to lead us to some salvation. i mean, that does not fit with the reality of the 1990s. It might fit in some places where one party might lead a people to liberation, but in the majority of situations, especially in a multi-national place like the united states, that's very unrealistic. So, forming the leadership has to be thought of in collective terms. In order to do this, We have to develop the skills necessary to deal collectively. We have to learn by doing. We're in an electronic age. We have to find new ways of organizing people, new ways of educating people -- creative ways. It could be revolutionary folk operas, i don't know. We have to find and deal with people where they are -- not where We think they should be. i think a lot of the young rap artists are setting a great example. i think they're more in touch with people and more actively involved in changing people's way of thinking than many of the so-called revolutionaries with long histories, who just talk to themselves. We have to deal with that fact. It's o.k. to talk to yourself, and it's o.k. to talk among yourselves, but when you start doing that exclusively, then you start acting crazy. When all you do is talk to yourself, then you have got a problem. And many revolutionaries have got a problem. They are only talking to each other -- to themselves, but when they deal with people who have nothing to do with their movement, they talk at them. They don't listen to what the people are saying, they don't learn from them. So, it's a problem when you just talk to yourself and talk at people. That, you know, is a category of mental illness! i think that the movement has got to deal with being sane, being logical, being concrete and setting priorities -- realistic priorities -- not fantasizing, not trying to apply the experiences of other people mechanically.

**********THE SIG**********

i'm a tru pisces tryna flow in the direction of both of these okplayer quotes:

"I m raising a fuckin angelic being who is going to replenish this fuckin earths cuz in 2G all we fuckin do is talk.....im teachin my seed to turn his spirit inside out and spread beams of green light"
-nebbie

"GOd give me the strength to change the things i can, understanding for those i cannot and the muthafuckin heart to stand up for my beliefs and principles, so that when the government that is suppossed to protect me turns against me and my people we will have the means, the might and the muthafuckin gun power to blow away our oppressors
umm amen"
-earthqueen

and last but not least:

"all things considered, i'd rather be me"
-bfnh