the Weather Underground

Since Bill Ayers is in the news as an "associate" of Barack Obama in Chicago, here's the story on the Weather Underground's violent resistance:

During the turmoil of 1968 -- Tet Offensive, MLK assassinated, RFK assassinated, student protests in Paris, Prague, Tokyo, and in a thousand flowering other ways the peak of the 1960s feelings of reinvention -- radical members of the group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) argued that non-violence was impossible while living in the most violent society in history (the U.S.). This faction was especially sympathetic with the Black Panthers.

They captured and thereby fragmented SDS at it's convention on June 18, 1969, which featured a statement titled, "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows," a reference to Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues.












































Early on, the Weatherman faction promoted a protest in Chicago, against the repression of the Chicago "police riot" during the Democratic convention of 1968. The weathermen called in "Day of Rage." In anticipation, they blew up a statue commemerating police casualties during the 1886 Haymarket riot, when violent labor strikes brought about the eight-hour workday. The protesters were not numerous, but they did fight the police.

Statement from one Weatherman:
"The ruling class and their gold coast decadence
will walk the streets a little less secure tonight.
If they hadn't dug it before they'd better dig it now:
the are the enemy."

Fred Hampton response:
"It's Custer-istic in that its leaders take people into situations where the people can be massacred. And they call that revolution, and it's nothing but child's play. It's folly. We think these people may be sincere, but they're misguided. They're muddle heads, and they're scatterbrains."

Fred Hampton's assassination (by the FBI's Cointelpro) two months later solidified their commitment to violent revolution.

They went underground and:
(in each case with no casualties):

July, 1970 - bombed the Army base at the Presidio on the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution

September, 1970 - freed Timothy Leary from prison, after which he united with Eldrige Cleaver (Black Panther) in Algeria.

October, 1970 - bombed the Harvard Center for International Affairs, in retaliation for the Vietnam War.

March, 1971 - bombed the U.S. Capitol in response to the U.S. invasion of Laos

August, 1971 - bombed the Office of California Prisons, in response to the killing of George Jackson, author of his controversial prison letters.

May, 1972 - bombed the Pentagon, in retaliation for U.S. bombing of the city of Hanoi

September, 1973 - bombed the headquarters of ITT in New York, in response to its support for the coup in Chile that brought Pinochet to power

May, 1974 - bombed the office of the California Attorney General, in response to the killing of six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army

June, 1974 - bombed the Pittsburgh headquarters of Gulf Oil, in response to its actions in Angola and Vietnam

January, 1975 - bombed the U.S. State Department, for escalation in Vietnam

September, 1975 - bombed the Kennecott Mining Company, for its role in the Chilean coup

After the late 1970s, members slowly began turning themselves in, taking advantage of the amnesty offered by President Carter. Several served terms in jail. For many, charges were dismissed because of unconstitutional tactics used by the FBI. A couple are still in jail.


Today Bill Ayer's researches elementary education. He's been affiliated with the Summerhill school movement, in which every participant in a kid's education, including the kids, have an equal vote.

He has claimed never to have sought terror: "Terrorists terrorize, they kill innocent civilians, while we organized and agitated. Terrorists destroy randomly, while our actions bore, we hoped, the precise stamp of a cut diamond. Terrorists intimidate, while we aimed only to educate. No, we're not terrorists."

(Again, while I'd say it's not conclusive vindication of their actions, it does seem important to note all the efforts made by the Weather Underground to avoid casualities.)