for west coast DUers - Weather Underground on PBS now

[rumguy]

[Pale_Rider]

1. WeatherUnderground?

I'm a bona-fine PWS member!

http://www.wunderground.com

:evilgrin:

[rumguy]

2. nice - lol

[Pale_Rider]

8. Don't need a weatherman ...

... to know which way the wind blows!

[rumguy]

13. I think a highly ironic choice for their group

Dylan is saying you don't need weathermen...and they call themselves the weathermen...

I think that Dylan in Masked and Anonymous touched on the paradoxes of groups like this, that splinter and act in odd ways as countervailing forces against the government, each feeding off eachother....

""I'm from a small village in the mountains. We don't even have a doctor. So I joined the rebels....Pretty soon, I saw the rebel movement was corrupt. The leadership were lying to the people. They wanted to replace the old government with a new government which was just as bad....A small army of counter-revolutionaries grew to battle the rebels in the mountains....I changed sides. No one ever noticed. This new movement was fighting for the truth the rebels supposedly believed in but really didn't. Then I realized that this movement was funded by the very government I wanted to topple. By that time, I realized I didn't want the government to fall...I joined the government forces....Then one day, we wiped out a small village. We were told something about rebels having infiltrated. But it was a lie. The men were already dead or old. All that was left were women and children. It was my village."

[Pale_Rider]

15. Yep they were somewhat counterproductive ...

... though I admired them as a kid when they broke Timothy Leary out of prison and sent him on to Algiers.

Anyway ... here's some of the FBI files on the Weatherman.
http://foia.fbi.gov/weather.htm

[proud patriot]

3. watching now

wow these were quite an ambitious group

[rumguy]

4. I can see why they were controversial

I sympathize with some of their underlying feelings, but they really sound naive and unrealistic...

[LoZoccolo]

5. I read something about this group...

...and like, even the people leading the charge to go smash up stuff during the Days of Rage were like, way fucken nervous wondering what the fuck they were thinking trying to start a revolution. Seems like a groupthink mentality where everyone's doing something thinking everyone else is in agreement.

[rumguy]

7. yeah that's the sense I'm getting

just a clusterfuck group mindthink

[LoZoccolo]

17. Here's a first-person account of what it was like in the group.

You had to parrot the party line. Woe unto you if you uttered some political formulation that sounded too much like what a rival faction -- whose members might have been close friends a few months back -- could have said; or if you had hesitated during that day's confrontation with the cops. You could be subjected to a "criticism/self-criticism" session, in which you were expected to abase yourself and recant, and to then "fight for yourself" and show reconstructed thought.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41899-2002Feb20?language=printer

Interesting this criticism/self-criticism thing. I wonder where it comes from. I saw it in some Revolutionary Communist Party material, and they're a kind-of scary group that's around now.

[rumguy]

18. they did expose cointelpro

at least that's what I am hearing right now in this documentary...

but yes...that kind of groupthink is scary, whether it's repig or lefty...that's the way I see it...

[Christ was Socialist]

10. Sounds a lot like the 2004 Primary<nt>

[LoZoccolo]

16. Actually I wonder if PNAC...

...is like this. Like no one wanted to express doubt about manufacturing an ally in Iraq and they had an overly-optimistic view of what would happen. Like no one wanted to be the one to say this won't work, so a plan that wouldn't work got pushed through.

[JJinSF]

6. Replay

Anyone know if its going to be replayed anytime soon?

[rumguy]

9. find your local pbs station on the net...

[nonkultur]

12. Here is some info

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/weatherunderground/

[proud patriot]

11. It's important to analyze objectively for their mistakes

I feel it is a mistake to think
violence will bring about change.

I'm afraid it only turns you into
the evil that you oppose thus letting
the evil win .

If you look at the success stories in history
Gandhi , civil rights MLK , you see this very
plainly .

[papau]

24. 99.9999% of the left back then was not with the violence of the weathermen

Of course few were young enough or had the parent making $30,000 a year that seemed to be required for membership - so "joining" was not an option.

But the non-response of the media - and the no change in politics because of that - a Nixon secret plan that the media never exposed as no plan - was the spark that set them off.

[Beam Me Up]

14. "GUERILLA: The Taking of Patty Hearst"

Just got back from a showing of this film, a documentary about the SLA and the Patty Hearst abducton at the Pacific Film Archive, SF International Film Festival. Well done. Events somewhat contemporaneous with the WU. Probably will show on PBS at some point. Keep an eye out for it.

Edit: to add link: http://www.guerrillathemovie.com/

[proud patriot]

19. Wow this is really great

the reflections amazing ..

[rumguy]

20. yes - it ended hopeful, it was quite touching

one of them is even a law professor...wow!

[proud patriot]

22. and 1 won 23,000 on Jepardy recently

Great Documentary .

[rumguy]

23. yep - that is something else...and he owns a bar too

[rucky]

21. Don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

the Dylan pic inspired me.