RE: [Marxism] Weather Underground

["Craven, Jim" <JCraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

In last couple of days I've been watching (twice) a DVD documentary on
the Weather Underground.  It shows how nuts they were, but also puts it
in the perspective of radical white middle class youth being driven nuts
by the Vietnam War abroad and repression of blacks, especially the
Panthers and black inmates, at home.

It includes interviews with a number of ex-Weatherpeople today,
including Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, Paul Rudd, Brian Flanagan and
several others.  When Dohrn and Ayers surfaced, they seemed a lot wiser
politically without having renounced revolution (just understanding that
their previous path wasn't a way to get there).

I gather they are now academics involved, like a number of other
ex-members, in various liberal-progressive causes, although not really
anything that could be considered revolutionary politics.  Does anyone
know if they have anything to do with serious left groups now, or
whether they've just become well-meaning liberals.  (At least they don't
seem to have trashed the whole 60s thing, like a load of repentant
ex-lefties.)

Philip Ferguson

 

Response Jim C:  From The narcissistic, immediate-gratificationist and infantile

pseudo-leftism of the Weather underground and their deadly theatrical stunts in 
the

60s, to the relatively insulated and protected market niches of tenured 
Marxianism in

academia is no long leap at all; they both serve rather than seriously 
challenge the

established order. Just as 9-11 is being used to build and justify new 
proto-fascist

initiatives for mass control, manipulation and sedation, the Weather underground

performed the same function in the 60s and SOME of the nominally left House 
Marxians

in academia are playing the same roles tdoay (do not underestimate the witch 
hunters) 

Yes, on one hand, among the myriad contradictions of capitalism, is that one 
can become 

literally a millionaire, and remain employed, writing and publishing polemics 
against and even

potentially dangerous analyses of, capitalism and its institutions/minions. 
Yes, one can write 

polemics far worse than anything Ward Churchill ever said or wrote and 
literally become a

millionaire doing it. This does in some cases, and does not in others, 
represent a capitalist contradiction.

One reason why the powers-that-be have gone after Ward Churchill, while other 
academics,

even self-identified as Marxists-Leninists etc have remained so far untouched, 
is that

Ward Churchill's work is actually being read and used by the very victims he 
writes about and 

he writes in language that the victims can understand and use--in contrast with 
the works of the

academic Marxians who write in venues no oppressed will ever see, in language 
or self-promoting

and irrelevant math or cherry-picked stats no oppressed people will understand, 
in relation to

the personal agenda-issues of the academic Marxians few oppressed peoples can 
relate to in

their own lives. Just as the Weather Underground exhibited their own 
petit-bourgeois backgrounds

and proclivities in various ways (THEY pick the targets THEY think might be a 
bit
 
exciting and theatrical with not even rationales behind their targeting; THEY 
have no patience for protracted 
 
mass work;  THEY want an end to the Vietnam War NOW; THEY "want it all and want 
it NOW" etc etc) so

it is that some academic Marxians (those who use or discuss or even play with 
some Marx or as applied

to THEIR market niches and "expertise") or the "Heterodox" (I love that one, 
such an innocent-sounding cover)

who think teaching some Veblen is daring, can be quite useful as sort of safety 
valves and  systemic

pressure-releasers and help to maintain the illusion that "academic freedom" is 
not yet under any serious threat.

It can be very profitable and career-enhancing (publications, paid speaking 
gigs, celebrity, tenure,

full professorship, house in suburbia with  organic garden, private school for 
the kids etc) to write ABOUT

(as objects or comodities) workers, LGBT, Indians, African-Americans, Latinos, 
women, men, environment,

animals, etc as long as the academic does not actually link-up with struggles 
of members of these groups and/or

does not link-up in concrete and non-self-promoting ways through struggles than 
can never be used as

notches on the ol CV. Just as the Weatherground did THEIR thing with no real 
mass links and in often

sel-impeaching ways that could be useful to justify more repression against 
those really doing something

dangerous to the system and the WAR, so some of these academic Marxians 
basically do THEIR own thing,

in THEIR personal academic market niches, write what THEY "like" to write 
about, and play roles essentially non-

threatening to the status quo as did the Weather Undergound.

There are some on this list who have lived--or currently are living--under 
conditions such as what the Bush Administration 

intends for America--out-and-out fascism under which if you say the wrong thing 
to the wrong person loss

of employment is of no concern--it occurs automatically  with loss of your 
life--who know that

the current and prospective struggles will require very smart, disciplined, 
focused, quiet, patient, unselfish, cautious,

prudent, modest, aware, sophisticated and dedicated freedom fighters having to 
live as some are having to live now:

very quietly, very determined and non-flamboyant; this is something the Weather 
Underground and some of the  

academic Marxians lacked/lack the experience, preparation and inclination to 
understand.

Presently, I am reading "A Secret History of the IRA" by Ed Moloney. I have no 
idea of how accurate it is but it does 

illustrate how protracted, deadly and difficult  is the process of figuring out 
"What is to be Done", What is What and

Who is Who and What does it take to get done "What is to be Done".

Jim C

 

 

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