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Bring the war home
Dec. 8th, 2004 04:26 pmLast night my roommate, M, and a friend of hers watched The Weatherman Underground, a documentary about the revolutionary group that would be called terrorists if they were active today. Enthralling, disgusting, and timely are three words that come to mind. Composed of white college students, the Weathermen organized riots, attacked police, and later moved on to bombing buildings like the U.S. Captiol, police stations, and military bases. As the Vietnam war ended, the group found it had a lack of focus and most of it's members disbanded, leaving a few stragglers to join other revolutionary cells and eventually get arrested.
It's hard to know what to say about this documentary. In light of the war in Iraq and the actions of our current Administration, the film is incredibly gripping. There has been a lot of complaining about the war in Iraq, but people haven't resorted to attacking the government or trying to overthrow it. The fact that we were attacked has a lot to do with that. On one level, they show how the rage and frustration of the Students for a Democratic Society (the group the Weathermen were born from) pushes them into finally taking action. They believe they could make a change in the world, and they were willing to actually do something about it besides writing their congressman or going on a hunger strike.
I was reminded about the line from seven "Wanting people to listen. You can't just tap them on the shoulder. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer. And then you'll find you have their full attention."
The reality was, that even then, apathy ruled. The Night of Rage was supposed to be thousands of angry protesters tearing Chicago apart, and they had 250. The other reality was, their violent actions didn't work any better than the non-violent actions of Dr. King or the SDS. It took the destruction of the World Trade Center to wake America up to the fact that not everyone likes the U.S. and that people are willing to die to try to stop us. Maybe all the Weathermen were missing was a sense of scale.
I don't know exactly where this is going, but I'm throwing it on the floor. Maybe later I'll be able to shape some more coherency out of this.
It's hard to know what to say about this documentary. In light of the war in Iraq and the actions of our current Administration, the film is incredibly gripping. There has been a lot of complaining about the war in Iraq, but people haven't resorted to attacking the government or trying to overthrow it. The fact that we were attacked has a lot to do with that. On one level, they show how the rage and frustration of the Students for a Democratic Society (the group the Weathermen were born from) pushes them into finally taking action. They believe they could make a change in the world, and they were willing to actually do something about it besides writing their congressman or going on a hunger strike.
I was reminded about the line from seven "Wanting people to listen. You can't just tap them on the shoulder. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer. And then you'll find you have their full attention."
The reality was, that even then, apathy ruled. The Night of Rage was supposed to be thousands of angry protesters tearing Chicago apart, and they had 250. The other reality was, their violent actions didn't work any better than the non-violent actions of Dr. King or the SDS. It took the destruction of the World Trade Center to wake America up to the fact that not everyone likes the U.S. and that people are willing to die to try to stop us. Maybe all the Weathermen were missing was a sense of scale.
I don't know exactly where this is going, but I'm throwing it on the floor. Maybe later I'll be able to shape some more coherency out of this.
