the Weather Underground

[dopediana]

this is a really awesome documentary that includes interviews with former weathermen, one of which is doing life in prison, and a couple people who worked to catch them. it goes into the different facets and levels and the evolution of the weathermen and the SDS, and has some really harrowing vietnam footage. if you're into the 60s and 70s and their kind of activism, you should really check it out. it made me cry in a few spots.

[Organic Revolution]

very good documentary.. watched it last night with my girlfreind. inspirational yet sad.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I really don't get the attraction to the Weathermen. What did they accomplish? I would much rather watch a documentary about the Panthers or the SDS (The WU is a footnote in history compared to these two groups).

Sorry, but they seem like spoiled kids to me who were activists who got tired of organizing so tried to find a shortcut by blowing some stuff up.

I would recomend "Berkeley in the 60s" as a more informative documentary about 60s radicalism.

[Punk Rocker]

This sounds cool, where can I get it?

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2005, 02:48 PM
I really don't get the attraction to the Weathermen. What did they accomplish? I would much rather watch a documentary about the Panthers or the SDS (The WU is a footnote in history compared to these two groups).

Sorry, but they seem like spoiled kids to me who were activists who got tired of organizing so tried to find a shortcut by blowing some stuff up.

I would recomend "Berkeley in the 60s" as a more informative documentary about 60s radicalism.
its a good film but how can you not like a group who blew up (or tried?) the statue dedicated to the haymarket cops.

[Cyber Communist]

I really don't get the attraction to the Weathermen. What did they accomplish? I would much rather watch a documentary about the Panthers or the SDS (The WU is a footnote in history compared to these two groups).

Sorry, but they seem like spoiled kids to me who were activists who got tired of organizing so tried to find a shortcut by blowing some stuff up.

I would recomend "Berkeley in the 60s" as a more informative documentary about 60s radicalism.

The Weathermen Underground Organisation (WUO), the Black Panther Party (BBP) and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) all contributed to the activist movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Each movement had it's strengths and weaknessness and each made mistakes.

Each movement operated differently and each made some contribution in whatever size reflected their specific situation.

I don't oppose urban guerrilla warfare or armed revolution as part of a process in the revolution. I do think that such actions needs to reach out to the wider masses, which given the failure of the WUO to do is my criticism of the WUO.

However, I don't just label those revolutionary activists whom we can see have made certain mistakes, even in their overall method was legitimate, as 'adventurists' or 'spoilt rich kids'.

Such meaningless labels belong to those who speak for the capitalist system, as they were the ones who came out with such labels in their ploy to smear and divide the revolutionary movement that grew to some considerable strength in that era.

We can all say the revolutionary activists should have done this or that in hindsight, but at the time, they did not see it that way.

I personally consider the BBP, the WUO and the SDS as the three most far reaching revolutionary movements in post-WW2 U$ history.

It is a great shame that such organisations are absent in the U$A of today!

Instead, the majority of the anti-war/Iraq war movement in the U$, revolves around ultra-reformist and liberal politics, under the thumb of the Democratic Party and the upper middle class liberal elite, who have given no space to any class based politics in the anti-war movement and have all but silenced the vital questions surrounding the relationship between war, imperialism and the global capitalist system.

All RL members and revolutionary activists should support the campaign to free all BBP, AIM, WUO, SLA, UFF and other political prisoners, still held in the prisons of the U$ police state.

Even if you disagree with any form of armed or violent forms of political activity, these political prisoners are our fellow activists and we should oppose on principle their detention in U$ prisons.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I am in no way against the use of violence, but there is a big difference between the panthers arming themselves while still organizing on the streets and the WU who stopped trying to reach out at a time when many people were becoming radicalized in order to try and carry out a revolution all by themselves by blowing a few things up.

The story of the WU should be a cautionary tale for revolutionaries about what happens if revolutionaries don't achieve a social base or connections with the working class. Groups like the PLO and the IRA are significant because they have a great deal of support. The WU was a splinter of a splinter of SDS and shows what happens to revolutionaries frustrated by history not moving as fast as they'd like it to; they end up with desperate tactics, isolated, and ineffectual.

Do I have a problem with their volence? Not really. My problem with them is that they spent more time learning how to build bombs instead of organizing on the street.

[Jimmie Higgins]

All RL members and revolutionary activists should support the campaign to free all BBP, AIM, WUO, SLA, UFF and other political prisoners, still held in the prisons of the U$ police state.

No debate here.

And ofcorse hindsight in 20/20, but we need to look at past revolutionary groups/movements critically in order to learn from their sucsess as well as mistakes. To me, the SDS helped to actually impede the US war machine through their organizing. The WU, on the otherhand, blew up a few things and were sexy but probably did not change people's minds about the war or the system which spawned it or hurt that system in any meanigful way; we should not mistake romanticism with revolutionaryism.

[WUOrevolt]

Some people say that they were terrorists. My father was alive during this time and he remembers them. Now I know that they never killed anybody with their bombs and that all of their bombs were set against non human targets(well at least they had all the people evacuated before the bombs would explode), but they did use bombs and violence as a form of political violence.

[WUOrevolt]

Oh, and also some former members say that their aims as a group were good but the violence they used was not justified as a way to get the results that they wanted.

Some former members of the Weathermen Underground do regret using the violence that they did.

[The Grey Blur]

Some people say that they were terrorists.
Who? The bourgeois and reformists of course.



but they did use bombs and violence as a form of political violence.

Violence - To injure or abuse another with physical force

How is blowing up empty government buildings violence, and why do you disapprove of this violence or violence generally? Lenin & the Bolsheviks utilised violence in their revolution, most Marxists/Communists believe a violent insurrection is required in dismantling the Capitalist state, retaliatory/resistance violence is generally supported by Leftists; are you falling into the bourgeois mentality that it is wrong to utilise violence?

Of course no one enjoys violence but sometimes it is necessary. Anyway -
they never killed anybody with their bombs

BTW - I think I created a thread about this same film about a year ago after I saw it...it truly is a brilliant film.

[WUOrevolt]

Originally posted by Rage Against The [email protected] 25 2005, 10:14 PM

Some people say that they were terrorists.
Who? The bourgeois and reformists of course.



but they did use bombs and violence as a form of political violence.

Violence - To injure or abuse another with physical force

How is blowing up empty government buildings violence, and why do you disapprove of this violence or violence generally? Lenin & the Bolsheviks utilised violence in their revolution, most Marxists/Communists believe a violent insurrection is required in dismantling the Capitalist state, retaliatory/resistance violence is generally supported by Leftists; are you falling into the bourgeois mentality that it is wrong to utilise violence?

Of course no one enjoys violence but sometimes it is necessary. Anyway -
they never killed anybody with their bombs

BTW - I think I created a thread about this same film about a year ago after I saw it...it truly is a brilliant film.
I never said that they were terrorists, just that some people did say that.

I do support resistance violenece but I see it as a last resort. First try to open the door, if it doesnt open, then you have to break it down.

Oh, and what is the name of the film, I wanna see it.

[WUOrevolt]

oh I forgot, about the violence thing, the kind of violence that the SLA used I think is not good, but the kind that Abbie Hoffman advocated I think is okay, but I think that we should try other ways first, and only use violence in self defense, like the Panthers taught, and the way that the Zapatistas operate, in offensive ceasefires, committed to working through peaceful means first, but if that fails than take to the streets, but try pleaso to minimize the harm the violence will inflict, I hate to see people hurt, no matter who they are.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Violence is one tool in the arsenal of anyone. To take "nonviolence" as a principle is just as werong as "violence" as a principle alone.

If strikers were being attacked by scabs, it would be stupid not to defend themselves. If you were a revolutionary in NAZI germany, it would be stupid to try and hold a peaceful protest because you would be simply beaten up, locked up, and killed up. On the other hand, in the 1960s I think it was a poor use of tactics to jump right into underground bombing campaigns and therfore cutting yourself off from the rest of the movements and the working class.

[WUOrevolt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 06:42 AM
Violence is one tool in the arsenal of anyone. To take "nonviolence" as a principle is just as werong as "violence" as a principle alone.

If strikers were being attacked by scabs, it would be stupid not to defend themselves. If you were a revolutionary in NAZI germany, it would be stupid to try and hold a peaceful protest because you would be simply beaten up, locked up, and killed up. On the other hand, in the 1960s I think it was a poor use of tactics to jump right into underground bombing campaigns and therfore cutting yourself off from the rest of the movements and the working class.
I do support violence in self defense. Violence as an offensive is usually never justified.

[WUOrevolt]

So seriously what is the name of the documentary, I really wanna see it.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I really don't get the attraction to the Weathermen. What did they accomplish? I would much rather watch a documentary about the Panthers or the SDS (The WU is a footnote in history compared to these two groups).

Interesting that you say this, because in the documentary there's a clip of a BPP leader denouncing their "days of rage" since the leadership took the people into a situation it knew it couldn't win, and which endangered them greatly.

Maybe the attraction has something to do with the group orgies they used to have? :lol:


Sorry, but they seem like spoiled kids to me who were activists who got tired of organizing so tried to find a shortcut by blowing some stuff up.

Mostly that's because that's exactly what most of them were, and it's reflected in their attitudes now.

The few who are still "down" also seem to happen to be the proles. Coincidence?


So seriously what is the name of the documentary, I really wanna see it.

"The Weather Underground"

You can get it on eMule or eDonkey -- find the link to it at http://www.fucktheinter.net

[Hampton]

Interesting that you say this, because in the documentary there's a clip of a BPP leader denouncing their "days of rage" since the leadership took the people into a situation it knew it couldn't win, and which endangered them greatly.

Fred Hampton:

"The Weathermen should have spent their time organizing the white working and lumpen class instead of prematurely engaging in combat with trigger‑happy pigs."

Their plan to blow up something for revenge of George Jackson's death made me chuckle a little.