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In Reply to: The Weather Underground posted by jamesgarvin on April 27, 2006 at 13:44:08:
known to anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of American history at that time.
You, of course, are injecting the "establishment" view of insurrectionaries, i.e. they're all spoiled kids.
You may be surprised to know the background of other "spoiled kids" such as Castro, Che, the nameless thousands who opposed Pinochet and other S. American dictators, and... the Russian revolutionaries (a man of your superior intellect must appreciate we're not discussing the merits of these folks but merely their roots.)
So, unless one springs from the lowest of ghettos, boot-strapingly gains a PHd in History, travels the world (to know more about it, of course)... he had better just take it and like it from his society?
(Unless you can answer in less than encyclopedic length, be assured I will not read any response: brevity is the soul, you know?).
Glad you appreciated the film, btw.
Follow Ups:
I do not look down on them. I admire their sacrifice. However, I think that their idealism and agenda polluted their rational thought process. Thinking that bombing some buildings will lead to the violent overthrow of the United States Government is, at best, naive, at worst, stupid. And these are clearly not stupid kids. Which leaves us with them being naive. Being naive often, though not always, results from a lack of experience. Being places. Doing and seeing things. One of the critisms of Bush before the first election was that his foreing policy would not be very informed because he had never spent any appreciable time outside the United States, experiencing other countries. I think that the same applies to these kids. They call themselves revolutionaries, though I doubt they knew what a true revolutionary was, and some apparently still do not. At least one seems confused as to what is a political prisoner.I used the work arrogant because they labeled themselves things that others who were, would not. Consider the scene in the film in which some of the Weathermen discuss the importance of racial equality, which, I assume, everyone would agree with. They then provide the remedy. The next scene shows a Black Panther leader dressing the down the group, basically telling them they are too lilly white, from white neighborhoods, wealthy, privileged, and that they can stay out of the way, thank you very much. Would Che call these kids revolutionaries? Or Castro? I think not. Would Mandela call the Weatherman spending his life in prison for a murder a political prisoner? Hardly.
I do not think that Che, Castro, Mandela, or Malcolm X, were spoiled kids. As an aside, there is a scene in the film in which one of the Weatherman is talking of Malcolm X, suggesting that his "any means necessary" was a support for their movement. Ironic, that by the time the Weatherman made the statement Malcolm X had abandoned that philosophy, and believed in inclusion, and supported peaceful resistance. I think that bespeaks to their being uninformed.
In the end, I think they enjoyed the labels. Most have now assimilated into society. Is that what a true revolutionary does? But they did not earn the titles which they bestowed upon themselves. In some ways they are no different than the priveleged they criticized - both had something not earned.
I did enjoy the film, and would recommend it to anyone with more than passing interest in American counter-culture of the 60's, and anyone who probably should know more about American politics, which includes most of us. To that end, I think that the film is very valuable.
very different perspective... the "future."
The robberies, the bombing of the Defense Department supported research university targets... this made sense at the time, both strategically and psycholgically.
Don't forget that the assassinations of two Kennedys and Martin Luther King were very fresh and the feeling that some unknown, hidden forces were controlling the country was not uncommon. Add to that the fact that an unjust and illegal war was claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions (eventually), of Vietnamese and Cambodians and you have the stuff of revolution.
Yes, so easy now to look back and criticize.
Meanwhile, the political direct descendants of those war mongerers have led us into another killing field, this time in Iraq.
How naive were those guys, anyhow?
Consider the scene in the film in which, shortly after taking over S.D.S., they planned a riot of students in Chicago in which they would run down the street, destroying business property. They claimed at the time that over one thousand students would show up to partake. About one hundred actually showed up. That should have been their first clue that despite strong rhetoric, when the rubber hits the road, most students were not willing to put life and limb in jeopardy. They then somehow believed that if they upped the ante, those same people who would not break some windows would hop on board and partake in an armed revolution which was necessary to topple the government? Seems pretty naive to me. At the time.
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