Revolutionary Blackout Network: Portrait of a Tankie Vatnik Organization
It is a pro-Russia group disguised as a black liberation group
If you’re relatively new to the issues related to Kremlin propaganda and how it’s affecting other countries (including the United States), I recommend reading some background posts I wrote that explains things in more detail along with links to other sites where you can read more to educate yourself.
This group was originally founded by Nick Cruse under the name Fred Hampton Leftists, which was named after the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers who was brutally murdered in his apartment by a joint group of the Chicago police and the FBI in 1969 at the age of 21. This 2021 tweet announced the formal launching of the Fred Hampton Leftists.
The Fred Hampton Leftists group soon changed its name after Hampton's son objected to the use of his father’s name without asking permission from the family beforehand. They are now known as the Revolutionary Blackout Network.
The group may try to present itself as a left-wing black liberation group just like the old Black Panthers from the 1960s but when you take a look at the company they keep, you’ll shake your head. One such example is this 2021 post on The Flashpoint Substack, which describes a summit that the Revolutionary Blackout Network organized that also included the likes of former comedian turned right-wing conspiracy theorist Jimmy Dore, Niko House, a Tulsi Gabbard fan who's also close friends with notorious white supremacist Jack Posobiec, anti-vaxxer Fiorella Isabel, far-right militia platformer Comrade Misty, and the Gen-Z Lord Haw-Haw himself Jackson Hinkle. That whole conference sounded like the Horseshoe Theory in action.
On the surface the Revolutionary Blackout Network claims to be against both Democrats and Republicans. But if you look through their Twitter/X feed, you'd see that they are far more harsh on Democrats than on Republicans. Every now and then you might see an anti-Republican tweet like the one below.
But the anti-Democrat tweets tend to far outnumber the anti-Republican tweets. They especially get riled up if any Democrat criticizes the Green Party or its current presidential candidate, Jill Stein, then they'll tweet something like “This is why I actively root against Democrats. They are the enemy.”
The Revolutionary Blackout Network even sneered when a Democratic president, Joe Biden, signed the bill making Juneteenth, a major milestone in African American history, into a national holiday. They tweeted “I told y'all when they made Juneteenth a holiday that Juneteenth is about to be trash now. These sellout Negroes are using Juneteenth in order to rehabilitate a genocidal war criminal [Joe Biden].”
They claim to be a leftist black power group reminiscent of groups like the Black Panthers back in the 1960s but they have gone after other leftist blacks, such as longtime Marxist and feminist Angela Davis for saying that electing Kamala Harris will open space for more radical struggles.
Another leftist black target is Cornel West, who is currently making his own run for president as an independent. He aroused this group's ire when he went on the Bad Faith podcast and said something about the Revolutionary Blackout Network that the group didn't like.
They have called for not donating to West's campaign while calling it a “Fake Presidential Campaign.”
They also have a problem with historic black churches, as demonstrated earlier this year when they responded to this tweet that expressed anger at a Biden event at Mother Emanuel AME that was disrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters by tweeting “The Black Church continues to sell its people out to the genocidal pro police Democratic Party. Fuck you and anyone using black people to shield a genocide.”
Earlier this year the Revolutionary Blackout Network was encouraging people to abandon Biden while tweeting: “The Muslim community told white liberals to take their lesser of two evils ideology and shove it. Love this for them. Black people this could of been us. #AbandonBiden”
When Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire outside of the Israeli embassy in DC earlier this year in protest of the ongoing Israeli bonbing of Gaza, this group made a YouTube video discussing the incident. They threw a major hissy fit when YouTube added a notice to the Description section encouraging people contemplating suicide to call the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by writing “Self immolation is an extreme form of protest but it's not suicide. That's extremely disrespectful to the cause and Aaron Bushnell but these Zionist scum know exactly what they are doing.”
The group goes further by calling Joe Biden an “authoritarian tyrant” and an “enemy of democracy” who refuses to listen to 80% of his own people who want a ceasefire while claiming that, as a result, Aaron Bushnell was forced to resort to self immolation.
They seem to despise liberals more than conservatives, writing “Liberals are the enemy. Pro genocide, war loving Zionist Party. They are scum. You goddamn right I want them to lose and I embrace their hatred.”
They've said that liberals are sick in the head because liberals can get away with the disrespect done to black and brown people that conservatives wish they could while also hiring the most morally shameless and bankrupt black and brown people to promote the violent white agenda.
On social democracy, which is the type of political system that is in various European countries like Germany and Sweden, the Revolutionary Blackout Network have denounced it as “the moderate wing of fascism.”
The Revolutionary Blackout Network recently aroused the ire of liberals, other leftists, and other African Americans when they tweeted “I really hope Jill Stein costs Kamala Harris the election so we can rub it in AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] face for 4 years.” It had gotten reactions like “what the actual fuck is wrong with you people?” and the group responded with “Yeah I want the pro genocide, pro cop party to lose. Cry more pathetic shitlib.”
When another tweet mentioned that if you're a socialist who hates liberals more than conservatives you've completely list the plot, the group responded with “Your party is literally teaming up with Dick Cheney on a pro genocide, pro cop platform. You are the enemy. You goddamn right I want you to lose.”
As another critic so succinctly puts it,”Leftists will gladly sacrifice every person in Palestine and every right we've gained over the past 70 years as long and they get to be smug about it on their podcasts.”
That is a very good point. If you have a podcast or online identity that's based on rage farming and you care more about advancing your career as a rage farmer than the future of the US or your fellow Americans, you would want Donald Trump to win so you can have content for your podcasts, videos, and other types of social media posts for the next few years. But given Trump's threat to rule as a dictator, there's a strong possibility that the Revolutionary Blackout Network would be among the first wave of opposition voices to be permanently silenced by the Trump Administration, especially since Trump has a long racist history against people of color. So maybe the Revolutionary Blackout Network should be careful of what they wish for.
Apparently Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein must have liked what the Revolutionary Blackout Network have tweeted about her because she had hired one of its members, Jaybefaunt, as her campaign's co-press director.
On Israel, the Jews, Hamas, and the Middle East they aren't down with the Israelis or Jews in general. They have denounced Israel as a “state full of groomers” while claiming that Tel Aviv is the pedophile capital of the world and Mossad had once worked with convicted pedophile and onetime close friend of Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein.
The Revolutionary Blackout Network tweeted a response to a survey saying that 44% of Jewish college students say they don't feel safe identifying as Jews on campus with “Shut the fuck up, nobody cares.” The Anti-Defamation League retweeted that response while identifying their leader as Nick Cruse, who then responded with “These mfs dropped my real name like I'm afraid of these baby killing cowards. I dare y’all to look me up and find me in the streets. Go ahead.”
They have also accused Israel of projecting their rape culture on to Palestinians, which Post-Left Watch describes as “just straight-up anti-Semitism.”
They have also come out in favor of Hamas, the group responsible for the October 7 terrorist attacks who are still holding Israeli hostages nearly a year later. The group tweeted “How can anyone not root for Hamas? They are fighting against lawless barbarians.”
They have complained about the ruling classes wanting to slaughter, bomb, and starve Palestinians, Iranians, Chinese, Russians, Haitians, Syrians, Somalians, Cubans, Venezuelans, and North Koreans.
When it comes to foreign authoritarian leaders like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-Un, the Revolutionary Blackout Network is okay with them, especially when they “has all spoken out against Israel's genocide in Gaza.”
The Revolutionary Blackout Network has even asked Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin to “please liberate us from our tyrannical government.”
They have praised Russia as being “based” for saying that Israel has no right to defend itself at the UN.
Yet they are strangely silent about these very same leaders engaging in mass killings of their own, such as China going after the Uighurs, North Korea's system of gulag and concentration camps for perceived dissidents, and Russia continuing to commit atrocities in Ukraine. On the latter part the Revolutionary Blackout Network has attacked the left for not teaming up with the right to stop that war in Ukraine.
The Revolutionary Blackout Network had even defended Vladimir Putin by saying that it's absurd that he had jailed dissident Alexei Navalny killed in prison because Putin has an 80% approval rating (while not even mentioning the name of the poll that supposedly came out with that finding).
The bottom line is that the Revolutionary Blackout Network, despite its radical sounding name, seems to be aligned more with the Republican/MAGA/Putin/authoritarian side of politics than the liberal/leftist/Democratic end, which is a perfect example of the Horseshoe Theory. They tend to attack liberals and leftists far more than the right. They strongly believe in burning everything down so the country can be rebuilt according to their own leftist principles and if electing Trump is the way to do it, then they will do anything to ensure his victory. There isn't an authoritarian leader that the Revolutionary Blackout Network has never liked. They are basically pro-Kremlin.
It's very telling that, despite the fact that they claim to represent the interests of African Americans, they tend to fight with other black activists while most of the other mainstream African American groups don't have much to do with them. They are basically a fringe group just churning out propaganda in an effort to make sure that Donald Trump is ultimately elected in November so they can have rage content for their podcasts, videos, and social media posts. And that’s assuming that Donald Trump, in his role as a dictator, allows them to stay in business. After all, Trump's close ally Vladimir Putin had gradually shut down all of the independent media outlets in Russia so the Russian people are basically only exposed to Kremlin propaganda every single day.
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