The Weather Underground (PBS Documentary about The Weathermen)

PBS ^ | April 2004

[Tribune7]

Please, revolutions, particularly violent upheaval ones are the results of the MASSES not the pretty boys rising up.

Nope. They're usually the result of bored angst-filled pretty boys managing to convince the masses to follow.

Ho, Fidel, Che, Carlos, Osama, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Marx were all relatively middle class or above. Off the top of my head I can't think of any revolution led by poor boys.

Even our's. Even Toussaint L’Ouverture was a house slave rather than a free one.

[Poincare]

You don't understand terror. The WU were NOT terrorists. The leftist groups of young today are sympathetic to terrorism and are potentially much more dangerous than the WU ever were. I saw Bill Ayers get confronted by a group of Michigan students shortly after 911 and they attacked him for not supporting AQ terrorism. Ayers was saying that the innocent should not be attacked, the leftist UM students thought that they should.

[Tribune7]

IIRC, Ayers wrote a nostaligic article for the New York Times on the bombings and it was serendipitiously published on 9/11/01.

[cyborg]

Imagine that. Wow. I wonder how felt after THAT.

[cyborg]

Do you think this kind of thing can happen again?

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

I hope college kids don't do this again. Death will rise to greet them if they do.

[Musket]

In Chicago re-airs this Sunday on channel 11 at 3am.

[HamiltonJay]

THere is a difference between leading and fighting... The WU and their ilk wackos actually thought they were going to be the Army.

Its amusing. As to our revolution, most of the poeple leading and doing the fighting were not pretty boys.

The 60s activists were bay and large ignorant dupes of communist plants... trying to stir up upheaval in the US to undermine it. Unfortunately for their case, the american middle class worker lives a pretty good life... so they could find no buyers willing to rally to there cause other than frankly idiotic students.

THe Socialists and COmmunists were much more of a real threat to this nation in terms of political change during the great depression than the 60s. The only difference in the 60s is the TV networks and news media went gaga over these twits.

However in numbers it was the 30s where Communism and Socialism was at its peak in american politics, not the 60s.

[Tribune7]

The WU and their ilk wackos actually thought they were going to be the Army.

They thought they were going to inspire a revolution just like Fidel did when he attacked that military barracks. The WU figured they would lead & the masses would follow.

Our revolution was started by taxpayers -- not the poor.

[archy]

COINTELPRO doesn't scare me... you for groups with the stated intent to overthrow the duly elected government by violence and with any means possible, and you don't think you are going to to be targeted?

THese guys were criminals, and their groups were organized crime...

Particularly the ones who were undercover or informents for the COINTELPRO program, agents provocater who urged the more violent and vicious attacks. As a part of their cover, knowing they'd never be charged for them? Or as part of the continuing operation by the FBI and others to demonize various sets of national enemies and keep their inflated budgets and *special powers* intact.

[archy]

Our revolution was started by taxpayers -- not the poor.

Jefferson? Revere? Hamilton? Washington, the planter? Ben Franklin? Tom Paine and Henry Knox? The Virginia Clark family? Patrick Henry? Certainly not *poor,* and certainly not *just* your typical *taxpayers*....

[Tribune7]

I know. That's my point to HamiltonJay.

[archy]

Do you think this kind of thing can happen again?

Just exactly when did it stop? The phases it's in ebb and wane, but as recently as 5 years ago, the accomplices of the people under discussion here were in the White House.

Now, they're in their adversarial/ head's down mode a little more, as when they insinuated themselves into positions of authority and responsibility in academia in particular.

Like Travis McGee says, it's time to take out the trash. And we can't trust the gocernment to do it. In places they have been or still are the government.

[archy]

Off the top of my head I can't think of any revolution led by poor boys.

Zapata and Villa come pretty close; so does Nicaragua's Sandino or Aguinaldo in the Phillipines of the early XX Century. Cuba's Castro was an attorney and El Che Guevera a physician, so poor examples, but Ho Chi Minh could be considered either a professional student, usually a fairly impoverished class, or a professional revolutionary.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Almost all in the Weathermen were essentially rich kids. Some were VERY rich kids - Diana Oughton in particular.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Oh no. Bombs going off aren't going to terrorize people. Yeah, sure...........

[Travis McGee]

Now many of these Weather Underground terrorists are tenured profs and administrator at our finest (sic) universities.

[what's up]

Sometimes I think this stuff is to make SDS look good. That's where the Jane Fonda's and Sid Blumenthals of the world took off.

They were the real danger because they were/are still very much more influential.

[HamiltonJay]

hahaha.. so you are thinking it was the FBI informants who were driving these groups to plant bombs?

I suppose next you are going to suggest it was FBI informants who were calling for Sentors executions in John Kerry's anti war group....

The black panthers needed no incitement to violence, nor did the WU. They were willing to do it on their own accord, or did you not hear them speaking of their glory days and revolution by there own mouths? More than a few spoke of it with happy rememberance, and admit they would do it all again. That's not the response of someone who was incited to violence.

Someone who was incited to do something they would not have done on their own, usually shows remorse and regret, as the Bar owner and the heavier set guy clearly did.. recognizing that what they did in the reflection was wrong.. they don't go aroudn saying, I'd do it all again.

You decide overthrowing a duly elected government to instill your communist revolution don't get suprised that you are targeted by that government. Or to put it in terms even the naive and lacking common sense WU activists would have understood... you lay with dogs, wake up with fleas.

You paint a target on your chest, engage in violence and other subversion, you don't get to call yourself a victim when you find out the government's after you.

[lowbridge]

. Recently a substitute host for Rush played a tape of an "anti-war" meeting AFTER the reporters left. It discussed how to support the Iraqi "resistance" fighters killing American troops.

Rebecca's Remarks (As Heard on the Rush Limbaugh Show)

And the first thing is that we need to support the Resistance of Iraqis in Iraq. (applause) Right. These are people who are risking their lives to get the United States out of their country. And we have to see them as our allies. We have to see them as our main allies.

Similarly, we have to support resistance in the US military. Soldiers, and you know, anyone – (applause) families who are actually opposing the war, we need to be on their side.

If you recall, there’s one time in the last 30 years when the US military machine was brought down, during Vietnam, and it was brought down because there was a fierce Resistance in Vietnam, and because the soldiers were refusing to fight.

(applause)