The SLA - Weather Underground

[comrade_amber]

The rise and fall of the SLA and the Weather Undrground were pivotal moments for the radical left.

What can we learn from their mistakes?

[Sadena Meti]

First, I reject your use of the word "mistakes". Reaching a conclusion prior to discussion.

Second, the SLA and Weather Underground are WORLDS apart.

On to the subject, I'm not going to waste time on the SLA.

But on the Weather Underground, they had the right idea.
Their "mistake" was they didn't go far enough.

[comrade_amber]

point taken rev-stoic.

I meant mistakes in the sense that they both got caught.

What's your beef with the SLA ?

[Lamanov]

One of my Trotskyist associates wrote an artice on WA: Weather Underground, by Goran M. (http://yu.marksist.com/isto/weather.htm#vrh)

[Sadena Meti]

What's my beef with the SLA? I once dated Patty Hurst.

No, I didn't. But wouldn't that have been fab! :lol:

The SLA had bugger all in terms of ideology or action plan. They were just kids running around with guns, they had no useful revolutionary aims. In short, they were the useless side of energetic revolutionaries, they lack the disciple or focus to actually accomplish anything.

The Weather Underground on the other hand were calm and focused. They worked out their targets, they contemplated results. Their targets had meaning, they were result oriented. They may not have had huge outcomes, but their method and ideology was in the right place. As I said, their problem was they didn't go far enough. Not that I begrudge them, they were an early attempt, and we learned much from their actions.

[gilhyle]

I think you are correct - the rise and fall of the Weatherman were pivotal events.

The rise of the Weathermen was pivotal in this sense - important national SDS leaders turned away from politics towards exemplary acts, that was the basis of the rise of the weathermen (their story of what happened in Chicago 68 in the documentary referred to by the trotskyist in the link ( a really good documentary) realy illustrates this entrancement by spectacle that formed the basis of the politics of the weathermen.

Their exemplary acts, marked by the punctilious avoidance (for the most part) of killings, were totally ineffective.

Their fall happened long after their disappearance and was a pivotal event in the sense of being a non-event.

That said - even at the time The Weathermen had nothing like the impact of the Red Brigades, the Red Army Faction or even the Japanese Red Army and, in turn the Weathermen had far more impact than the SLA.

[comrade_amber]

The Red Brigades!

Did they ever make much noise after Aldo Moro was killed ?

[TC]

The main mistake i think the contemporary Left has when criticizing the Weather Underground is the misconception that they were some sort of revolutionary vanguard party positioned to lead students in revolution to create a communist united states or some such thing.


This was never the aim and this was not the strategy they pursued.


They were instead interested in what they could do to help shield other more viable revolutions from imperialism. They would defend the Black Panther Party by bombing police stations and prisons responsible for murdering Black Pathers, and made it clear that actions taken by the state against the black revolutionary movement would result in retaliatory actions against the state, which both served as a dissinsentive to state terrorism, as a means of practically disrupting state terrorism through direct action aimed at the state, to boost the moral of the state's victims, and to give the state a second, more aggressive target to go after so as to take some of the heat off the panthers.

Their chief concern was forcing the withdrawl of US troops from Vietnam so as to end American atrocities and genocide, and to allow the Vietnamese Communists to liberate their country without imperialists preventing it. Because Vietnam was a guerrilla war, and not a conventional one, the Vietnamese strategy was not to gain ground from America, but to break the American public's will to fight, and in order to do this the Americans had to find Vietnam a demoralizing and humiliating conflict. THe Weather Underground participated in the Vietnamese Communist war strategy by acting as an arm for it in enemy territory, so that every American bombing attack on Communist Hanoi would result in a Communist bombing attack against government buildings in Washington DC. This was a way of both disrupting the American government to aid the Communist effort in Vietnam, and more importantly, in denying the American govenrment any domestic psychological advantage by showing its weakness, by making it seem incompetent at home, and its percisely the fact that the American public found continual involvement in vietnam to be more demoralizing than accepting defeat, that the Americans withdrew from the country, and that was the effort that the Weather Underground and SDS contributed meaningfully to.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

:huh:

What the fuck are you talking about?

"I belonged to an organization [the Weather Underground] whose goal was the revolutionary overthrow of the government of the United States of America." - Mark Rudd, founding member of the WU, from the documentary "The Weather Underground".

[Dyst]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 04:00 AM
The rise and fall of the SLA and the Weather Undrground were pivotal moments for the radical left.

What can we learn from their mistakes?
I guess you mean for the radical left in the US?

[bcbm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 12:12 PM
The main mistake i think the contemporary Left has when criticizing the Weather Underground is the misconception that they were some sort of revolutionary vanguard party positioned to lead students in revolution to create a communist united states or some such thing.


This was never the aim and this was not the strategy they pursued.


They were instead interested in what they could do to help shield other more viable revolutions from imperialism. They would defend the Black Panther Party by bombing police stations and prisons responsible for murdering Black Pathers, and made it clear that actions taken by the state against the black revolutionary movement would result in retaliatory actions against the state, which both served as a dissinsentive to state terrorism, as a means of practically disrupting state terrorism through direct action aimed at the state, to boost the moral of the state's victims, and to give the state a second, more aggressive target to go after so as to take some of the heat off the panthers.
Actually, it was both. They aimed to undermine weakened US imperialism at home and, by doing so, empower others to act similarly and ultimately form a revolutionary communist party to completely destroy US imperialism.

[jolaurelin]

The SLA, The Weather Underground and the Black Panthers were all important in their own way.

It was courageous fighters like these that blazed the trail that still burns 35 years later.

[bcbm]

What trail?

[rebelworker]

Please dont put the Panthers in the same group as the WUO and SLA,its just insulting. Fred Hampton,one of the most gifted figures in the panthers, called the weather a bunch of obnoxious adventurists.

The SLA were very confused, a result of the culture of drugs adventure and "youth liberation" that gripped California in this period. One of their leaders was later discovered to be a cop.

The Weather were a bunch of Spoiled kids who decided they werre the vanguard of the revolution and instead of trying to continue the raical and mass success of an organisation like SDS, which had an actual chance of making significant change, they decided to take a hundred or so people underground, killing the SDS in the process and proceded to do much to continue the isolation of revolutioanry politics in 1960's america.

This is ofcourse with the benefit of hindsight (who knows what i would of done in their shoes) but they are not an example to be look to as a successful model, more a what not to do.

The idea that a small guerrilla vanguard(of privilaged people out of touch with the realities of the majority of the opressed here) could somehow lead to revolution in america is laughable.

The fact that they all sold out and went on to become collage proffessors after their breif stint as "revolutionary heros" shows alot about how much of a threat to the system they really were.

Mass movements make revolution, guerilla groups in a place as free as the US is just an insult to the people who actually struggle to organise under a dictatorship.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

More nonsense?


The fact that they all sold out and went on to become collage proffessors after their breif stint as "revolutionary heros" shows alot about how much of a threat to the system they really were.

Uhhh.. they didn't all "sell out" or become college professors.

Have you heard of David Gilbert? He's doing 75 years for the shooting of a cop stemming from a bank robbery he did with the RATF/Black Liberation Army after the WU collapsed.

To this day, from behind bars, he organizes and writes for several leftist publications.

Bill Ayers told the New York Times that he doesn't "regret setting bombs. I believe we didn't do enough."

Bernardine Dohrn and Kathy Boudin are still down with everything they were when the whole thing began.

Boudin was down with the BLA and did a bid for the same robbery as David Gilbert.

Of course you have that piece of shit Brian Flanagan who sold out big time, but he's a bar tender, not a college professor.

Mark Rudd did, and while he says the WU's tactics were wrong, he doesn't think their intention was.

Bill Ayers is a professor as well (I guess you thought these two made up the whole WU?), but he's never said he regrets a thing, nor has he given up his ideology.


they decided to take a hundred or so people underground,

It was 300-500 people. And for months and months after disbanding the SDS (because it was too full of middle class students) they went to working class colleges and neighborhoods to organize amongst working class youths.. of course, it didn't work out to well, but that's another story.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Oh also.. the WU founded above ground organizations to continue organizing and working in solidarity with the WU, and these were actually growing in popularity for a while..

[Marion]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 11:02 PM
Please dont put the Panthers in the same group as the WUO and SLA,its just insulting. Fred Hampton,one of the most gifted figures in the panthers, called the weather a bunch of obnoxious adventurists.
Hampton did indeed criticise the WUO, but primarily in relation to the Days of Rage (calling them "anarchistic, opportunistic, individualistic, chauvinistic and Custeristic". However, this comment must be seen as in reference to the Days of Rage in particular and also, as Dan Berger makes clear in his excellent "Outlaws of America", splits within the Black Panther Party at the time.

While clearly the effectiveness and organisation of the BPP and WUO are different, the Black Panther Party were generally appreciative of the actions of the WUO as they saw them as the only white people actually standing up, taking racism seriously and physically fighting against it.

David Gilbert's arrest was actually as the result of a joint action with the BLA (Black Liberation Army - who came out of the Panthers).

[TC]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 19 2006, 06:22 PM
:huh:

What the fuck are you talking about?

"I belonged to an organization [the Weather Underground] whose goal was the revolutionary overthrow of the government of the United States of America." - Mark Rudd, founding member of the WU, from the documentary "The Weather Underground".
They wanted to overthrow the US government but from a New Leftist perspsective informed by contemporary Maoist and Frankfurt School theorists, they were not attempting a classic "old left" vanguard party revolution rather they were trying to advance the conditions of revolution by depriving the Imperialists of their colonies, by aiding third world revolution...eventually leading to the possibility of first world revolution by workers rather than by students. If you read their publications and watch the videos they released when they were underground, their politics were fairly sophisticated.

[gilhyle]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 03:10 PM
If you read their publications and watch the videos they released when they were underground, their politics were fairly sophisticated.
I cant see much sophistication in their politics (unlike the BPP). In the end, as far as I can see it came down to the idea that spectacles of resistance would inspire resistance and history shows that is only true in very specific circumstances.

BTW, I'm not at all sure you can blame them for the fall of the SDS. I think it was really the other way around - the SDS had turned into nothing and they reacted to that by trying to turn their own isolation into an asset.

[SPK]

As many people have pointed out over the years, weatherman was, for much of its existence, dangerously divorced from the broader mass struggles. It was a dogmatic and doctrinaire grouping that dealt with the movements in an extremely sectarian manner. Being a so-called “democratic centralist” grouping, it enforced ideological uniformity through all means fair and foul, including cultish “criticism-self-criticism” sessions. (And on this point, watch the documentary “Weather Underground” and pay attention to the fucked-up way that they dealt with dissent from their comrade Naomi Jaffe.) As an underground grouping, it became closed, insular, and paranoid, unable to trust other people in the public, aboveground movements and, for that matter, people inside the organization itself. This didn’t particularly disturb the group, since it subscribed to a focoist version of marxism-leninism and was not, in principle, particularly concerned about reaching out in a broad way in the first place – towards the end, in the mid-seventies, it had a few dozen people tops.

These things -- uniformity in political and ideological line, a sectarian approach towards other movements and tendencies, a militarized emphasis on internal security, and small, focoist groupings -- did not work in the long run. I think that the weather underground did have positive effects – TC has discussed some of these. However, much of their practice was problematic, and we need to learn how to engage in more militant, direct action oriented struggle without falling into the same traps they did.

What is really unfortunate and sad is that there is already another generation of militants in the u.s. who, from my perspective, made the same, basic mistakes that the weather underground did. A number of activists primarily around the animal and earth liberation struggles here are being accused by the federal government of engaging in acts of property destruction: burning down a posh ski resort that had been under construction, torching McDonald’s restaurants, and so on. This government witchhunt is being referred to as the “green scare”, and these activists are facing massive prison sentences.

Look at the questions posed by the experience of the weather underground: How do we structure an organization? What process do we use to make decisions? How do we relate to other tendencies and movements? How do we grow or develop the grouping? Remarkably, given weather’s putative marxism-leninism and contemporary anarchists’ putative opposition to such marxism-leninism, both have very similar answers to these questions.

Today’s anarchists (I think it is safe to generally group the animal and earth liberation struggles under the umbrella of anarchism) can be as sectarian as weatherman was, towards marxists and leninists of course, but towards other, more mainstream tendencies and movements as well.

The consensus process that is so valorized by anarchists translates into a dogmatic, exclusionary ideological homogeneity not too different from that of weatherman: from what I’ve seen, consensus process doesn’t generally win people over to a particular line; instead, it chases out anyone who doesn’t agree with that line.

Similarly, the security culture promoted by anarchists has been immensely damaging. Radical politics should be promoted widely among people. Security culture has, instead, the opposite effect, essentially discouraging people from even discussing or debating radical politics. It has produced a paranoia about the basic forms of dialogue around these issues – a paranoia that is essentially unjustified given the mostly harmless character of what the left does in this country. People are highly atomized and isolated in our society, and getting folks involved in political activism and organizing requires overcoming this separation, not intensifying or contributing to it. Yet again, this parallels the experiences of weatherman.

The affinity group model proposed by anarchists also has similarities to the weatherman’s focoist model.

Radical movements need to grow, engage in upfront, broad political and ideological struggle, and bring in as many people as possible, particularly if they are going to effectively support the kind of militant actions engaged in by groups like weatherman. However, the weatherman’s overall methodology, and the analogous approach practiced today in parts of the anarchist / antiauthoritarian movements, cannot achieve those goals.

[rebelworker]

I would like to retract my statement that many mebers of the WUO "sold out".

The fact is that they were already part of the political eliet of the US before they went on a little "revolutionary LSD down with the people" trip during collage.

the point is that with very few exceptions, after they decided they werent the vanguard of the revolution anymore, they all were alowed to jump right back to the game again.

Everyone I have talked to who has seen any of the free former WUO people speak says their politics are pretty weak. I have never read anything by any of them that resembles serrious critical reflection on their actions.

David Gilbert s an exception and was not a central player in the WOU.


I agree with all the criticism in SPK's post of certain tendencies within anarchism.

too tired from work to write a more in depth response than this,

sorry

[bcbm]

Similarly, the security culture promoted by anarchists has been immensely damaging.

Security culture is useful in dealing with illegal actions, and then it is just basic common sense: Don't say shit about things you've done. I've not known people who expanded it to include not talking about politics, but if such people do exist, they're fools.

[bolshevik butcher]

I do not know much about the SLA unfortuantley. As for the weather underground to me their main failure is that they had no working class base and from what I have read thelt that there was no real need to do so. Through this they basically made themsleves a sidegroup who could not communicate to the rest of the American working class. I think the closest comparisson to the weather underground is the red brigades of '70s Italy and Germany.

[Hampton]

The SLA brought no notable good.

[Eastside Revolt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 11:02 PM
Mass movements make revolution, guerilla groups in a place as free as the US is just an insult to the people who actually struggle to organise under a dictatorship.
Geurilla groups in the west are an inspiration to those who are not brainwashed.

Geurilla groups are less needed once you have mass movements.

[Marion]

Originally posted by bolshevik [email protected] 23 2006, 05:17 PM
I think the closest comparisson to the weather underground is the red brigades of '70s Italy and Germany.
In what way? The red brigades, in terms of their composition, the way they were formed, the actions they undertook, their relationship to the working class, the role of racism etc all seem to me very different to the WUO...

PS I presume you're referring to Baader-Meinhoff in your comment about Germany. I'd agree there's more similarities to the WUO with them - a guy called Varon (I think) wrote quite a good book comparing the two.

[Marion]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2006, 03:22 AM
I would like to retract my statement that many mebers of the WUO "sold out".

The fact is that they were already part of the political eliet of the US before they went on a little "revolutionary LSD down with the people" trip during collage.

the point is that with very few exceptions, after they decided they werent the vanguard of the revolution anymore, they all were alowed to jump right back to the game again.

Who do you have in mind? Ayers and Dohrn are high up in the academic world, but I'm not really aware of any of them who are in elite positions particularly? I think categorising them as revolutionary tourists is a bit harsh - I don't agree at all with what they did, but I wouldn't question their commitment...


Everyone I have talked to who has seen any of the free former WUO people speak says their politics are pretty weak. I have never read anything by any of them that resembles serrious critical reflection on their actions.

David Gilbert s an exception and was not a central player in the WOU.

Again, didn't agree with their theory or action at all, but, from what I've read, they did a fair amount of theoretical consideration in their later years. In terms of not having heard serious critical reflection, this is probably as the main news on the WUO recently was Bill Ayer's book which, by all accounts, wasn't any use at all. Neither have some of the reported lack of reflection by Dohrn. I think both should rightly be called out on this. However, there has been some serious reflection by others, just there hasn't been huge quantities and it hasn't had the publicity.

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by Marion+Aug 24 2006, 07:35 AM--> (Marion @ Aug 24 2006, 07:35 AM)
bolshevik [email protected] 23 2006, 05:17 PM
I think the closest comparisson to the weather underground is the red brigades of '70s Italy and Germany.
In what way? The red brigades, in terms of their composition, the way they were formed, the actions they undertook, their relationship to the working class, the role of racism etc all seem to me very different to the WUO...

PS I presume you're referring to Baader-Meinhoff in your comment about Germany. I'd agree there's more similarities to the WUO with them - a guy called Varon (I think) wrote quite a good book comparing the two. [/b]
Actaully that's very true. It was more a comparisson to the badder-Meinhoffs, I'll take the Italia Red Brigade out of this.

[bcbm]

Baader-Meinhof is the press' name for them. The group was called Rote Armee Fraktion, or RAF.

[bolshevik butcher]

The red army faction in english yes? Was there not also a japanese equivelent?

[bcbm]

Originally posted by bolshevik [email protected] 24 2006, 11:33 AM
The red army faction in english yes? Was there not also a japanese equivelent?
Red Army Fraction in English. The Japanese group was called the Red Army.

[Leo]

Red Army Fraction in English. The Japanese group was called the Red Army.

I think I've read somewhere that RAF took its name under indfluence from Japanese Red Army but I don't know if they had any actual connections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Red_Army

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction

[bcbm]

I think I've read somewhere that RAF took its name under indfluence from Japanese Red Army but I don't know if they had any actual connections.

The JRA and RAF were connected through the PFLP, like most of the Euroterrorist groups. Their name was probably influenced by that, as well as by some humor by the RAF, since the Red Army (USSR) and the RAF (UK Royal Air Force) had done a lot of damage to Germany in WWII, and the RAF viewed themselves as perhaps "finishing the job" by attacking the still-saturated-with-Nazis German state.