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ceebeegeeSo I watched the documentary The Weather Underground last night and Wednesday night. Very, very interesting. It's about the Weathermen, a radical faction of the '60s-era student activist group, SDS--the Weathermen broke away in '69 and embarked upon a campaign of politically motivated bombings throughout the early-mid '70s. They believed that to do nothing in response to violence (the war in Vietnam, the civil rights struggle) was itself an act of violence--to them, everything was a political statement, everything was politicized--sex, family life, everything. One of the events that galvanized them was the death of Fred Hampton, a Black Panthers leader. This story is unbelievable--under Hoover and the FBI's COINTEL program, there was an active campaign of harrassment against dissident groups like SDS and the BP. But the Chicago police went much further; they just walked into the apartment at 4:45 am and murdered the guy. While he was sleeping. The pictures are unbelievable. (This happened in December of '69, which is also when Altamont happened, I believe. Man, '69 was a violent year.) The footage in the documentary is pretty graphic; there are also explicit photos of war casualties (guts falling out, etc.) and stuff like that. One of the points made a couple of times is how crazy everyone was in the late '60--the war was so enraging, and Nixon absolutely refused to listen to the anti-war contigent that people just lost it. Between the COINTEL campaign and Watergate (when Nixon lied and lied, and lied some more, and went to his grave lying), I would've gone crazy too. History is fascinating--we need to keep hearing these stories. There are unescapable parallels between that era and this one.
Anyway, this group was ultimately committed to not-killing anyone (they only bombed buildings and called in warnings) but they came to this mindset after they'd been planning to detonate a bomb at a dance at Fort Dix, and three Weathermen blew themselves up while building it. They were so shocked by this, they decided it was important not to kill anyone, and after that the group went underground and executed something like 20-30 bombings between 1970-75. They even bombed a men's room in the Capitol. The US Capitol! This is crazy--I was alive during this. I gotta ask my Mom about it. They even helped break Timothy Leary (dearie) out of prison. And after a bombing the press would interview young people who would say things like "We didn't do it but we dug it" or "they're speaking for all of us who are trying to destroy the capitalist sysem of oppression" with these sweet smiles on their faces. There's a decent amount of archival footage which I love. If I could lock myself up for a couple of days to go through newsreels, I would be a happy, happy person.
An interesting thought: one of the participants says something like (or maybe they were quoting MLK, although I can't seem to find a citation) "when leadership ignores peaceful dissent, the only way left is violence."
Anyway, this group was ultimately committed to not-killing anyone (they only bombed buildings and called in warnings) but they came to this mindset after they'd been planning to detonate a bomb at a dance at Fort Dix, and three Weathermen blew themselves up while building it. They were so shocked by this, they decided it was important not to kill anyone, and after that the group went underground and executed something like 20-30 bombings between 1970-75. They even bombed a men's room in the Capitol. The US Capitol! This is crazy--I was alive during this. I gotta ask my Mom about it. They even helped break Timothy Leary (dearie) out of prison. And after a bombing the press would interview young people who would say things like "We didn't do it but we dug it" or "they're speaking for all of us who are trying to destroy the capitalist sysem of oppression" with these sweet smiles on their faces. There's a decent amount of archival footage which I love. If I could lock myself up for a couple of days to go through newsreels, I would be a happy, happy person.
An interesting thought: one of the participants says something like (or maybe they were quoting MLK, although I can't seem to find a citation) "when leadership ignores peaceful dissent, the only way left is violence."
