Weather Underground
You Don't
Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows:
Some thoughts on the film: The Weather Underground
By Mitchel Cohen
<mitchelcohen@mindspring.com>
Mark Rudd -- former leader of Columbia Students for a Democratic Society,
and a member of the Weather Underground -- appeared on WBAI radio one
night in early June, on Bill Weinberg's and Anne-Marie Hendrickson's show,
"The Moorish Orthodox Crusade". Also appearing were the two producers
of the new documentary film, "Weather Underground" -- Sam Green and
Bill Siegel -- that is currently showing in NYC at the Film Forum.
The film explores the rise and fall of the "notorious group of young
American radicals who tried to overthrow the
I was mixed about the film -- well worth seeing, some great footage, but I am
rarely satisfied with these sorts of (infrequent) documentary portrayals of
what we used to call "The Movement," because they generally overly
simplify a particular theme and forego nuanced analytical debate, which demands
more intellectual familiarity from the audience and which is trickier to
construct visually. Here are some thoughts:
1) Mark Rudd left the Weather Underground very early, 1970 I think. The film
relies far too heavily on his unpublished manuscript. Consequently, it leaves a
lot of important successes that Mark was not part of, such as the writing,
collective editing, publication and mass distribution in 1974 of Prairie Fire;
that book presented a detailed political statement of the Weather Underground,
laying out the organization's anti-imperialist perspective. This book -- and
the process of producing and distributing it -- had a very important effect on
the movement, and created an above-ground arm. They also issued the magazine,
Osawatomie, on a regular basis while they were underground. There was no mention
of either of these in the film, yet that would have been a most interesting (as
well as historically essential) exploration: HOW did they do this if they were
underground? Those works helped present, in a more developed fashion, the early
and sketchier politics that Rudd and others complain about. Billy Ayers talks a
bit about this in his book, "Underground Days," which I thought was
terrific. But the movie focuses on bombings only, and leaves out much of the
other work done by the Weather folks and the milieu around them.
When I visited Mark Rudd a decade ago in
Stony Brook (where I went to school) didn't matter in any of the books because
we were at a
At any rate, the film was misleading in not indicating that Mark's
criticisms -- some of which I found to be valid, and others not -- did
not come from his participation after 1970 or early 1971 with the WU.
2) The film allows Todd Gitlin to call the WU "mass murderers," yet
does not allow anyone in WU to respond. The fact is, although one or two people
quoted in the film allege that the bombs being pieced together in the Greenwich
Village townhouse were earmarked to blow up US soldiers (and their dates) at an
officers' party, this never actually occurred. NO ONE was ever killed in WU
bombings except for three of their own members. To present these allegations as
if they would have inevitably occurred had the townhouse not been blown up
instead -- something the filmmakers have chosen to do in order to frame today's
moral concerns of Mark Rudd and Brian Flanagan while omitting the political
argument within the organization that may well have prevented the bombing of US
soldiers -- is like the recent Tom Cruise movie, "Minority Report",
in which people are arrested for "pre-crimes" -- crimes that have not
yet occurred.
Even though the bombing of a soldiers' dance never happened, that doesn't stop
Todd Gitlin from resorting to his ongoing factory of lies that he spews from
his perch at New York University. Any activist knows that it is important to
challenge such crap, but the film does not allow for this.
Also missing is the more complex political debate over whether activists in the
US should strive to become an arm of the Vietnamese people's war for
independence from American imperialism, as opposed to, say, organizing the
revolutionary movement within the United States. These perspectives -- which
may seem similar on the surface -- lead to two very different sets of
strategies. The film, at least in this important instance, fails to provide the
basis for challenging Gitlin and, in a sense, fails the movement as well as the
actual history.
3) Similarly, although there are quotes from Billy Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn
through the first 2/3rds of the film, when it came time to sum up the film
leaves it to Mark Rudd (who now says he's a pacifist) and Brian Flanagan. Naomi
Jaffe also has some moments to reflect on the meaning of what she had done, and
she is terrific; but neither Ayers, Dohrn, nor Laura Whitehorn (the former
political prisoner and member of the WU who is interviewed all-too-briefly
early on) are allowed time at the end to put in THEIR very different
conclusions.
I felt this was very unfair and misrepresentative, given their importance in
resisting some of the more destructive elements in the Weather Underground and
refusing to allow the organization to be taken down an even crazier road, yet
not abandoning their beliefs while doing so. Bernardine actually went to jail
for refusing to testify before a Grand Jury looking into the Brinks robbery
committed by former Weather Undergrounders and the Black Liberation Army, even
though she publicly disagreed with their actions. None of that is in the film,
and it thereby warps the way these leaders are viewed by today's audience. A
few years ago I asked Bernardine what she would have done differently, looking
back. She said that she should have given much more credence to the women's
liberation movement, a wise reflection in my view -- the film doesn't ask that
of anyone.
4) There should have been interviews with many people in the milieu around (but
not part of) the weather underground/prairie fire. Otherwise, it makes it seem
that the WU was equal to the Movement. There was no back-and-forth in the film
between the WU and, say, Red Balloon Collective (among many others). On the
radio show, Mark Rudd said something about the total isolation of WU, but he
wasn't in it for very long and his statement was not true. There was much
communication between collectives throughout the country and the WU, including
extensive criticism and debate. Mark apparently doesn't realize that, or has
too much self-loathing concerning his earlier actions to appreciate the changes
that the organization went through when he was no longer part of it. People
change, their politics develop. But the film, by relying on his truncated
memoirs, reflects Mark's errors and static portrayal of the organization and
its work.
5) Most members of the WU were never captured. When I saw the film with a
slightly younger activist friend of mine, he wanted to know what happened to
them, how did they get away with all of the actions? All the film says is that
the members turned themselves in, which will confuse younger viewers unfamiliar
with the events. WHY did they turn themselves in? How many were actually caught
while the group existed? The film interviews a lone FBI agent who was critical
of the agency's methods, but does not really get into the heads of the WU
members, or explain the FBI's failure to get them -- because, in my view, they
had supporters all over the world. (Thus, the importance of the connections
between the WU and the larger movement.)
6) There were some gratuitous montages of "re-enacted" sexual orgies
when some members were speaking of the "smash monogamy" line. Not to
say that Weather collectives did not engage in such sexual behavior, but the
generic (and fortunately brief) orgy scenes reminded me of those phony TV
"re-enactments" of slow motion car crashes. It was just filler,
nonsense, and it detracted from the film's credibility, in my view.
7) I also thought that a bit of the narration was too preachy. The film does
not present much in the way of current demonstrations (
On the radio show Mark explained that committing property destruction is
"not going to win over any people." This is true. But who says that
that is the goal of those engaging in property destruction? Who claims that the
reason they are smashing Starbucks' windows, for instance, is to win anyone
over? One could argue over whether or not such tactics are productive, but they
need to be judged by what those doing the action say they are trying to
accomplish by it. Mark Rudd's hidden assumption -- that our job in EVERYTHING
we do is to "raise consciousness" and "win people over" --
is wrong, in my view. We also do actions to strike direct blows against a
system that is oppressing us or others; to steel ourselves; to build up
alternative institutions, and to expand and embolden communities of resistance
and provide for longterm nurturance. Please note, I am not advocating property
destruction for its own sake. Weather's actions need to be assessed by what the
participants state as THEIR goals and whether those goals are valid ones, not
by what someone else imposes upon them.
Contrary to other Marxist groups at the time, the Weather Underground stated
repeatedly that it was not engaging in bombings in order to recruit the US
working class to antiwar consciousness, but that it took the actions it did to
strike direct blows against the US war machine on behalf of the Vietnamese
people -- to bring the war home to everyday Americans. Whether one thinks
bombings and the other actions the Weather Underground engaged in were right or
wrong, effective or ineffective in accomplishing those goals, is a matter for
political and historical argument; but that argument is stifled by distorting
those goals and by claiming that Weather's bombings, or the breaking of
Starbucks' windows, were a failed attempt to "win people over." That
wasn't their goal to begin with.
For all of Mark's personal introspection, to put false goals in the mouths of
those he now disagrees with is disingenuous of Mark. It's a typical vanguardist
tactic to take someone's actions and not allow them to explain it for
themselves, and instead put your own goals on top of their actions and say
"See, violence does not work."
I'd argue that, well, it depends what you are trying to accomplish. Bill
Weinberg correctly began discussing the Zapatistas' use of violence at that
point, and some of the callers challenged Mark's perspective as well. I would
have pointed to farmers' in the midwest cutting down the Navy's ELF lines, as a
productive use of direct action.
Finally, one of the filmmakers talked (on the radio) about Seattle '99 and how
police thought it was going to be a nice big hippie festival, and so they were
unprepared. This is just outright nonsense, and it made me question their
perspective on everything else. Like many others, I was in
So, overall I thought the film is well worth seeing, some very good material
there, but lots to be critical of as well. I would have liked to have had the
opportunity to have engaged Mark Rudd (whom I consider a friend) and the
filmmakers around these issues. Maybe next time.
--------------------------------
Mitchel Cohen was a founding member of the Red Balloon Collective, which began
at SUNY Stony Brook in 1969. He currently edits "Green Politix," the
national newspaper of the Greens/Green Party USA, and organizes with the
Brooklyn Greens. www.greenparty.org.