Return of the Weathermen. The unhappy afterlife of '60s radicalism

The Boston Globe ^ | 10/19/2003 | James Miller

[Valin]

THIRTY-FOUR YEARS AGO this fall, a small band of well-educated young Americans hell-bent on storming heaven steeled themselves to commit an act of spectacularly gratuitous violence. A militant breakaway faction of Students for a Democratic Society, they called themselves the Weathermen. Their strategy, such as it was, blended theatrical bravado with puritanical zeal -- Bonnie and Clyde meet John Brown. Wearing crash helmets and wielding baseball bats, ululating like the revolutionaries they had studied on screen in "The Battle of Algiers," they would run wild in the streets of Chicago, lashing out at any available symbol of privilege and power: police, parked cars, affluent bystanders.

[Valin]

"Should we -- can we -- forgive them the wrongs that they committed? For that matter, was what the Weathermen did, under the circumstances of the time, really so wrong?"

This is a trick question right?

[stop_fascism]

Should we -- can we -- forgive them the wrongs that they committed? For that matter, was what the Weathermen did, under the circumstances of the time, really so wrong?

Duh - no, yes.

[2banana]

For all the neo-Marxist gibberish that larded its communiques

Weather comrades to the American soldiers who cut short the massacre committed by their fellow troops at My Lai in 1968. "It took more than 25 years to imagine their actions as heroic, to remember something moral in doing the unthinkable right thing in war, even when it seemed like the wrong thing

I can never understand why Marxists (the far left) can complain over and over again about what an out of control US Army LT did (against orders) but never even talk about the massive state sponsored slaughters of Marxists and Communist régimes throughout history.

[timpad]

THIRTY-FOUR YEARS AGO this fall, a small band of well-educated young Americans hell-bent on storming heaven steeled themselves to commit an act of spectacularly gratuitous violence.

There are so many things wrong with the first sentence of this piece that I can't bring myself to criticize it. I simply stand astonished that this love letter to domestic terrorists was published in a major daily newspaper. The Bambino's curse is well deserved. Is there no shame in Massachusetts?

[CaliforniaDreamer]

We can and must forgive genuine repentance. The weathermen have are still glorifying themselves. No forgiveness here.

[I still care]

More characteristic is Bill Ayers, currently a professor of education, who is defiantly unapologetic, both on camera and in the pages of his 2001 memoir "Fugitive Days." "I don't regret setting bombs," he told The New York Times In a profile published, unfortunately, on Sept. 11, 2001. "In fact, I don't think we did enough."

Something is seriously wrong with a society, when, instead of protecting our children from violent deviants like this, we hire them to teach our children.

[Cicero]

This article by a friend of the Boudins and a lifelong liberal is significant. It hems, haws, and weasels, but it recognizes, basically, that the whole business was a huge moral blunder. That's a big admission for the Boston Globe to make.

I suspect that if the violence had SUCCEEDED, however, they would still be finding excuses for it.

[Valin]

Exactly! I've yet to see any of these terrorist say they were sorry of the death and destruction they cause.

[kallisti]

the first line seems accurate enough to me. what did you object to?

[genefromjersey]

They should all be dragged away from their comfy upper middle class lives and hanged to the nearest sturdy branch without further discussion.

[timpad]

Once again, my inability to express myself knows no bounds.

I didn't mean it was inaccurate, I said there were 'things wrong with it'. I'm sure these neo-Bolsheviks fully and completely believed they could 'storm heaven' by beating other Americans with baseball bats, blowing up buildings and robbing banks.

But I regard those beliefs, and this author's obvious nostalgia for them, as 'wrong.' Hope that clears it up. Sorry for the confusion.

[kallisti]

no problem, we're on the same page (my confusion's my own). i agree the author's nostalgia is wrong. my feelings about those "days of rage" are regret and disgust. but that week 34 years ago did help to change the path i was taking. so i guess good can come from anything.

[timpad]

my feelings about those "days of rage" are regret and disgust. but that week 34 years ago did help to change the path i was taking. so i guess good can come from anything.

34 years ago, I was eight, so the "days of rage" had no personal effect on me at the time that I can discern. Presumably, you had a more mature perspective of the period, and the events of that week turned you away from the wrong path. If so, congratulations. Hopefully, there are others today witnessing the Ranting Left and making the same turn.

[familyofman]

"You can't tell which way the wind is blowing - without a Weaterman." Great lyrics from Dylan used by a group of extreme wackos.
The SDS'ers on campus in the late 60's were a joke, but their spinoff group (Weather Underground) was not only wacked - they were violent. Just like the later Unabomber, miltia groups, and Okla City bombers.
I can't justify none of the above groups/people or the acts of mindless violence against others - acts that exclude them from the family of man, in my opinion. Too bad the lessons of these fools will not be learned by extremist groups present and future.

[kallisti]

youth & rebelliousness, forbidden molecules & promiscuity, adreneline rushes from the charging blue-helmeted chicago tactical squads ...these were the motivators of many involved, not anything actually political. i suspect the same is true today and (eventually) many of those will wake/grow up (it took me a few more years after chicago). although i can't explain the multitude of hold-overs from that time who haven't made the change.

[Ronaldus Magnus Reagan]

i suspect the same is true today and (eventually) many of those will wake/grow up (it took me a few more years after chicago). although i can't explain the multitude of hold-overs from that time who haven't made the change.

Winston Churchill explained it. He said something like..""A conservative under 30 years old is a person without a heart, and a liberal over 40 years old is a person without a brain.""

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Unremarked is poor confused Jim Miller's residual esteem for the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers People's Party was, if that is even possible, bigger poseurs than the Weathermen and the rest of the Whitebread radical wannabes. (In this case they wannabe Black.)

The BPPP was composed of hapless, embittered Black kids, and a few husksters like H. Rap Brown who had their needs for attention and, other - ahem - needs, fulfilled by being the kid in kindergarten who cusses in front of the teacher. Most kindergarten teachers in the days before competent pedagogues aspired to become incompetent therapists knew that if you made a fuss over these brats it only encouraged them.

The media fawned over them, but it was hardly innocent. IMHO, the media knew they were frauds, but they gave good sound bite, a lazy journalist could make a living typing his by-line over their press releases, and thus a movement was born and sustained.

[kallisti]

or as dylan said, "i was so much older then, i'm younger than that now." i know back then the "party line" was we were doing it for the people, but we were in fact self-absorbed spoiled brats. luckily reality is a persistent teacher.
btw, wonderful screen name.

[Jim Noble]

Take the case of Kathy Boudin, who kept the faith longer than most of her comrades, perhaps because she grew up in a family steeped in the traditions of the left. Raised to cherish social and racial justice, Boudin in high school crusaded against "conspicuous consumption" and "vanity." At Bryn Mawr, she joined the nascent New Left and became a community organizer in Chester, Pa., and Cleveland. Though she started out as a pacifist, by 1969 she had created a cadre of Weathermen followers code-named "Fork," in perverse homage to cult killer Charles Manson, one of whose followers had shoved a fork into the stomach of one of the Family's murder victims.

And this whack-jobette's effin' BROTHER is Chief Judge of a US Court of Appeals?!!!

Coming from the same whack-job family?!!!!

His father was Leonard Boudin?

The COMMUNIST Leonard Boudin?

THAT Leonard Boudin????

OK, how did he ever get confirmed by the Senate?

More importantly, how many Republicans voted for him?

Here's a partial bio:

Born 1939 in New York, NY Federal Judicial Service: U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia Nominated by George H.W. Bush on May 18, 1990, to a seat vacated by John H. Pratt; Confirmed by the Senate on August 3, 1990, and received commission on August 7, 1990. Service terminated on January 31, 1992, due to resignation. U. S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Nominated by George H.W. Bush on March 20, 1992, to a seat vacated by Levin Hicks Campbell; Confirmed by the Senate on May 21, 1992, and received commission on May 26, 1992. Served as chief judge, 2001-present.

So, George HW Bush nominated the son of a commie and brother of a cop-killer to the Federal District and Federal Circuit courts.

WOW.

[Jim Noble]

OK, got more info.

Seven months after Clarence Thomas was savaged by Senate RATs, Michael Boudin, son of a communist and brother of a cop-killer was confirmed by the Senate without a single negative Republican vote.

Now, imagine the President nominated the son of the Grand Wizard of the KKK, whose sister was in prison for killing an abortionist, to sit on the US Circuit Court.

Who thinks he would be confirmed without any RATs voting no?