The ECCO has taken it upon itself to confirm and clarify what the ECCO
is as well as our purpose, which is defined by examination and analysis
on the dynamics of our main organization, so that an understanding of us
is built within other Crip affiliates, and political and non-political
lumpen organizations and individuals. ECCO is the East Coast
Consolidated Crip Organization, an anti-imperialist cadre that works in
conjunction with the internationalist united front against imperialism.
We propose that the main organization adopt the acronym Community
Revolutionary Internationalist Party.
ECCO is a prison-orchestrated, clandestine movement that acknowledges
and utilizes a doctrine of reformism as a tactical maneuver necessary
within our organization to help advance the individual and collective
direction of our organization. We accept reform within our organization
to better fight the oppressive system and ignorance overwhelming our
ranks; we do not apply reform as unprincipled class collaboration with
our enemies. We advocate the value of reformist concepts as a tactic in
overall revolutionary struggle, understanding that we only do so because
on one level no revolutionary situation in respects to armed struggle
exists at present within the United $tates, and on another level because
our organizational structure is flawed in numerous ways and a
revolutionary war cannot be entered, managed, maintained and won without
addressing the contradictions within us and other external complications
affecting us.
We function under the ideology of Neo-Cripism, engendered from within
the ECCO to help attain the goal of injecting political, socio-economic
and revolutionary consciousness into Crips’ core, along with one
centralized belief to govern the whole of the organization. Recently, an
ideology was non-existent within this state, at least one that was
correct and effective. What existed was and still is an eclectic
collection of ideas incorrectly adopted and bastardized from our 1993
alliance with the Gangster Disciples. Is this to say that the Disciples’
concepts are wrong? No. This is to say that our “leaders” took on a
system that wasn’t based on the specifics of our organization’s
characteristics and socio-economic conditions; city-to-city,
state-to-state. In doing so, they stunted the development of Crip and
each of our organizations individually.
An ideology is the systematic, scientific, cultural, economic,
political, social and moral values of a people. It enables the
organization and/or movement to coordinate its set aims/goals through
its organized activities/social practices via the ideological
indoctrination of its members as it relates to concrete conditions that
define the organization. Without an ideology an organization or movement
will fail in the primary factors it claims to represent.
For the Crips to exist in this state as in other areas it has to be
understood that a doctrine needs to be established in every area that
complies with all internal and external activities of the organization
so it functions. It’s not possible for the Crips to truly aggregate
(become whole) with no common organizational structure created for them.
Those of us who are conscious of the contradictions within our
organization, who seek to develop a genuine concept for the organization
without fear of internal repression, opt for the ECCO and Neo-Cripism -
an ideology established with the revolutionary-internationalist
influences of scientific Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Frantz Fanon, the
Black
Panther Party, The New Afrikan Black Panther Party- Prison Chapter,
George L. Jackson and the Black Liberation Army.
Our goal is not simply to establish a new design into the Crip history
books, but to make it a common belief within our organization that we
hold an extreme amount of revolutionary potential as a multinational
lumpen organization comprised of the oppressed New Afrikan, Latino,
Samoan, Asian, poor white and Indian races to name a few. This gives us
an advantage in our resistance to oppression, white supremacy and
imperialism.
No change within the reality of the Crips or the society around us is
possible without those of us who step forward, risking suppression and
taking the initiative upon themselves to bring that change about. We err
in this state by not creating a system to go with the conditions here
and fail again in denouncing our East Coast Crip identity. To identify
ourselves as West Coast Crips because a number of the Crip gangs we
belong to in this state migrated from California is an overplayed
concept that is unrealistic and based in subjectivity.
All thought within the ECCO is put forth from universal objective
observation and rationalization to understand situations in every aspect
and angle. Our reality as an urban counter-cultural paramilitary unit
and pro-community organization is our own to uphold. If we fail to
advance then it’s from our own failure to seize the time and shape the
reality to our desire and uplift ourselves from the multiple layers of
oppression we’re faced with.
“The mistakes of the past must be exposed without sparing anyone’s
sensibilities, it is necessary to analyze and criticize what was bad in
the past with a scientific attitude so that work in the future will be
done more carefully and done better… In treating an ideological or
political malady, one must never be rough and rash but must adopt the
approach of curing the sickness to save the patient, which is the only
correct and effective method.”
-
Quotations
from Chairman Mao, p.263
MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade is applying the
strategy of “unity from the inside out” as developed by MIM(Prisons) and
United Struggle from Within (USW). Unity among progressive forces must
begin from within. Different organizations cannot unite on principles if
the organizations themselves have no principles. Therefore we encourage
others to work with USW and MIM(Prisons) to develop unity within
themselves and with each other as part of the Anti-Imperialist United
Front.
In this statement, the ECCO applies the word “race” to address the
multinational character of their organization. Races do not exist, and
race is a concept created by the racist oppressor nations. Nations do
exist, and there are many oppressed nations within the borders of the
United $tates. MIM(Prisons) sees the principal contradiction within U.$.
society to be between the oppressor and oppressed nations. At the same
time, the oppressed nations themselves have been more integrated and
bourgeoisified than at any other point in history. While history has
shown the usefulness of nation-specific parties and organizations, the
lumpen class often finds itself organizing across national lines in
spite of the strong divisions that the state has encouraged. What form
future revolutionary movements take will depend on the development of
the different contradictions along both class and national lines.
The concept of “reform” presented here by ECCO is related to the
question of the nature of a contradiction. There are antagonistic and
non-antagonistic contradictions. Contradictions among the oppressed are
non-antagonistic, because ultimately their interests are the same. The
contradiction between the oppressed and imperialism is antagonistic,
meaning you cannot reform imperialism to serve the oppressed. But you
can reform an organization of the oppressed to serve the oppressed as is
proposed here. This does not mean that it is always possible or that it
is the most effective path. Often times, organizations are entrenched in
their ways and new ones must be formed. It is up to the comrades in each
situation to determine whether internal reform and unity from the inside
out is the fastest route to mobilizing the oppressed around them for
anti-imperialism.
As Lenin best explained, without a scientific vanguard party a
revolutionary movement cannot reach the point of overcoming the status
quo. So as MIM(Prisons) works to develop unity with other organizations
we will also struggle with our most advanced comrades to join or form
vanguard elements that are distinct from the mass movements that most of
us start out in. This is an application of the law of unequal
development.
