The Weather Underground

Little has been written in the popular media about the Weathermen. My only knowledge came from a dictionary of hip neologisms and a well-known pocket-sized journal which conflated them with the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army and the killing by one of it's ex-members 10 years later, after he had joined a completely different group. A nice try to produce the mental impression 'tainted, don't believe in', but this film reverses it by trusting you with the details. It contains great archive footage. Crucially, it contains no noodling left-wing speeches, but shows people who were completely unimpressed with the Weathermen, and one member who seems to have rejected the methods they used. Despite these differences, all are given an equal chance to explain their motivations, and that makes it a really fascinating documentary. Steal this film.

It's incredibly rare to see media depict the real root causes behind acts of "terrorism" during today's War On Terror. While Weather Underground does not glorify its subjects behavior, it does create empathy on the part of the viewer... and that alone is revolutionary at this historical point in time. The Weather Underground portrays a time in America's past when the populace was activated in a way that makes today's peace movement look like armchair intellectuals. Is it really just a draft that determines how aggressive our anti-war stance will be? That is pretty sad, since, if that is true, the anti-war movement isn't actually anti-war at all, it's just anti having to fight in a war. This is a documentary about a group of activists who made a true sacrifice, giving up their own freedom to try and stop a war.

Nicely made documentary about some self-proclaimed "revolutionaries" from the 60's & 70's who, after discovering that breaking windows alone wouldn't overthrow the U.S. government, decide to up the ante by bombing any government building they feel is connected to atrocities committed worldwide. Some nicely balanced insight from directors Sam Green & Bill Siegel, as we see some members of the movement who still believe in what they were fighting for and would do it all again, and others who can barely bring themselves to discuss their part due to their embarrassment. I enjoyed the fact that other voices were heard, and it was acknowledged that these people were very close to engaging in terrorism, rather than just "Vietnam and Nixon made us do it--". Some (possibly) unintentionally funny bits in here as well, as we see nerdy-looking 60's college kids talking about engaging in violence, when they look far more ready to engage in an orgy; and constant talk from former Underground members about how tight they were with the Black Panthers, and not one comment from any Panther member to reciprocate, save one who basically calls them out for being kind of silly.

The Weatherman faction remains one of the more troubling aspects of the 60s counterculture, for manifold reasons. How did a bunch of well-educated, relatively privileged white kids transform from idealistic protesters for peace into revolutionary terrorists? How were they able to reconcile the inherent contradiction of using violence as a means of pursuing peace? Can violence ever lead to reconciliation, or must it necessarily beget more violence? Sam Green and Bill Siegel's documentary examines all of these questions while remaining remarkably objective. It's a pity that we should feel surprised when a documentary filmmaker actually attempts to uphold the all-but-obsolete standard of objectivity; nevertheless, Green and Siegel deserve to be complimented for presenting a film that is perhaps more a window into the confusion of the times than a history of one peculiar faction of anti-government activists.

Green & Siegel intersperse archival footage with commentary by a number of the Weather Underground's leaders, most of whom retain their revolutionary idealism, even if they have grown circumspect about their methodology.

The film persuasively channels the aura of violence and political unrest that characterized American culture as the first vestiges of counter-cultural idealism gave way first to frustration as the war in Vietnam escalated and then to radicalism as, one after another, civil and human rights activists ranging from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton were brutally silenced, possibly by order of American government agencies such as the CIA, NSA, and FBI. Simultaneously, the tenor of apolitical American life shifted from the good vibrations of psychedelia to paranoia and suspicion. The image of the blissed-out, peace-loving, groovy hippie was replaced by the crazed expression of Charles Manson, whose murderous id made every God-fearing citizen's worst nightmares reality: acid-crazed hippies rampaging the suburbs, butchering innocents in order to start a revolution that would overthrow the status quo. Siegel's and Green's direction employs numerous archival clips that are shockingly graphic, including horrific footage of executions and the bodies of civilian casualties in Vietnam (including many women and small children) and uncensored crime scene photographs from the Tate-LaBianca murders ordered by Charles Manson. The material is somewhat objectionable, but serves the purpose of expressing the climate of fear that made it possible for the likes of Mark Rudd--now a quiet, somewhat melancholy math teacher at a community college in New Mexico--to drop out of sight and begin plotting the violent overthrow of the American political system.

The film presents the Weather Underground as admirable in its courage and determination, but also as terminally misguided. Weatherman leaders repeatedly express their solidarity with the Black Panthers and any revolutionary movement of underclass 'brown or black' people on the planet, but the few Panthers who comment for the film either disavow the Weathermen or express perplexity at their determination to identify with the struggle of blacks and other oppressed ethnicities. As adults, several of the group members acknowledge that, even when they were harassed or beaten by police, they were still treated far more humanely than their black counterparts, and so were never truly in the same struggle as those whom they supported. Some of the members still speak nostalgically about their Weathermen days and claim that they'd do it all over again; others express disdain and regret over their complicity in the deaths of innocents.

As we begin to see history repeating itself in Iraq, 'The Weather Underground' is all too timely. What was different about the 60s and 70s, when so many young people became committed to political activism, from the present, when the numbers are relatively few? Will the process that brought about the Weather Underground repeat itself, or was this particular group less a consequence of the times than of the choices of a few charismatic but misguided and naive twenty-somethings? Did Weatherman make a difference, or was it simply another small piece of the catastrophic collage of the Vietnam era? This film raises more questions than it answers--which is probably what art should always try to do.

By the late 1960s, the undeclared war in Vietnam had dragged on for four years despite assurances from our political leaders that we had turned the corner. While massive protest marches brought the issue to the attention of millions, they did little to stop the war. By the early 70s, Richard Nixon was President, the war had escalated to Laos and Cambodia, protesting students were murdered at Kent State, over 30,000 Americans and countless more Vietnamese were dead and there was no end in sight. Impatient with non-violence and radicalized by the continually escalating casualty count and the deafness shown by political leaders, more militant groups such as The Weathermen and Black Panthers began to emerge.

The Weathermen (later The Weather Underground), a radical faction of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), waged a small-scale war against the US government during the 1970s that included bombing of the Pentagon and the Capitol buildings, breaking Timothy Leary out of prison, and evading a nationwide FBI manhunt. Nominated for an Academy Award, directors Sam Green and Bill Siegel's compelling documentary, The Weather Underground, candidly explores the rise and fall of the protest group over a six year period as former members speak about what that drove them to "bring the war home" and landed them on the FBIs ten most wanted list. Though tough questions were not asked, it is nonetheless a balanced and engrossing documentary that puts the last serious student movement in this country into historical perspective without either romanticizing or trivializing it.

Using FBI photographs, news accounts, archival war footage and interviews with Weathermen, SDS leaders, and FBI agents, the documentary explores the limits of protest in a free society and the odds faced by those confronting state and corporate power. Included are scenes of napalm bombing in Vietnam, the murder of Black leaders Fred Hampton and George Jackson, and excerpts of talks by President Nixon. The documentary contains interviews with seven of the original Weathermen, all White, middle class, and well educated: Mark Rudd, Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Brian Flanagan, Naomi Jaffe, Laura Whitehorn and David Gilbert. These were not weekend hippies or armchair activists but people so committed they cut themselves off from family and friends for nearly a decade.

While the movement began by targeting all (White) Americans, after the explosion of a homemade bomb in Greenwich Village, NY in 1970 killed three of their members, they determined that no one should die as a result of their direct action and no one did. In spite of their belief that civil disobedience was the only alternative, the radicalism of the group alienated many of the people they were trying to convert and forced them to go underground, eventually surrendering to the FBI. Today most are still active in professional capacities in support of these ideals and still convinced of the evils of the capitalist system and the need for genuine democracy.

While their acts can be understood on the basis that it was a time of worldwide revolution and by the failure of marches on Washington to stop the escalation of the war, questions as to whether or not their tactics were effective are still being debated. If nothing else, they exposed the FBI's sinister CointelPro program, an attempt to infiltrate and destroy left wing organizations. Though today the goal of a truly just and humane society seems farther away than ever, as director Siegel pointed out referring to The Weather Underground, "It's clear they didn't have the entire answer, but their impulse that the world can be a more progressive, humane place is worth considering. They made huge mistakes but also had an impulse that things needed to change." The impetus for that change is still alive.