ts: the weather underground vs the baader meinhof group

i don't think this stuff is funny, to be honest.

did anyone see "buongiorni, notte"--about the italian red brigade?

I've had lots of arguments with black blok type kids about revolution vs. systematic change. I just don't get that silly idea "radicals" have that if you blow up a starbucks or an SUV that anybody will then see the link of how violent the corporations behind starbucks or SUVs are. People just think the person doing the destructing is the destructive one.

I think those kids kind of wish they lived in a less boring, well-fed society, so they want to create an exigency - to feel alive. They want to feel like they're "really doing something" - really feeling something.

(not feeling too articulate today)

not to mention bruce labruce's raspberry reich!

I saw a documentary about the Weather Underground a while ago, and was struck by how not mental they were (both now, and in the footage from when they were still active). You could disagree with their urban guerrilla nonsense on practical, moral, or political levels, but I was unable to just dismiss them as mentalists.

I think, though, that the RAF do have a disturbed quality to them. They seem like people who completely lose sight of the big picture and move to ever more extreme acts for no fully thought through reason.

It's always a relevant question - if 1) you realize your government is committing atrocities overseas, and 2) for a decade you've tried every legal/acceptable means to stop it, what next? Especially if those people who are being killed overseas are counting on you to fight with them in your own country. I don't think the right answer is for everyone to disown mass movements and create tiny cells of really intense white people with semi-functional bombs, but hey, diversity of tactics.

To me, the difference between Weather and the RAF is that Weather, having abandoned working with people in the U.S., was primarily working on the level of symbols, whereas the RAF was an actual army that was actually at war with the state, basically an extension struggles happening in the 'Third World.' And yeah, they seem a bit more unhinged.

Looks interesting: http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9781583228319

Err, I'm not sure RAF was more of any army than WU. The main difference is that WU set itself some limits early on (no casualties, attack the symbols not the people, etc.), which made them more acceptable retroactively.

re. Baader, yes pretty inhinged and ultimately a bit of a vulgar chauvinistic moron, but when you look at it the RAF O.G.'s represent a small part of RAF's history. The crazier stuff happened after these guys' arrest or death.

baader meinhof movie coming out soon (not a doc), looks pretty fascinating

If you mean The Baader-Meinhof Complex, it's already been out in the UK for a while. I saw it a couple of weeks back.

It's always a relevant question - if 1) you realize your government is committing atrocities overseas, and 2) for a decade you've tried every legal/acceptable means to stop it, what next? Especially if those people who are being killed overseas are counting on you to fight with them in your own country.

i don't get the logic here. did the weathermen seriously think that blowing up a university building was going to convince the nixon administration to pull out of vietnam?

Exactly -- the next logical step is not more RADICAL action but more EFFECTIVE action (if there is such a thing.) It's "by any means NECESSARY" for crying out loud -- you don't just escalate to something crazier because what you're doing isn't working.

Kind of uncanny side note:
I only first learned about the Baader-Meinhof Gang yesterday, and while looking it up on wikipedia, note that the first entry when you enter baader-meinhof is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader-Meinhof_phenomenon this entry.

Hmmmn.

Neat!

weatherman: classic or dud?

I've seen the documentary three or four times now--excellent. Such a terrible time. All sides speak, and everyone makes sense--Todd Gitlin, the FBI guy, the Weathermen. Sometimes, when there's just footage of empty city streets circa 1975, there's a dreamlike feel. Almost to a person, when the Weathermen recount events the shot will end with them casting their eyes downward. (Chronology is a bit jumbled. There's a point, '72 or '73, after they've gone underground, where the WU has caught on with young people and are in the midst of their Tom Wolfe moment; then it lurches forward to the end of the war and feeling like an anachronism; then it goes back to a series of bombings in '73 and '74.)

the other weather underground thread motivated me to watch this documentary tonight! it's on itunes.

Found this on a remainder table tonight; came out last year, completely missed it. I almost want to hold off for a few months and read it as a backdrop to Clinton-Trump, but I want to read it immediately even more.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51parddFkuL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

just watched the documentary, which is pretty good, and at the end they mention brian flanagan was a jeopardy winner. I couldn't find a clip from his time there (it turns out he was a 2x winner), but I did find this website, which I'd never seen before, and which specifies the prizes the losers get, and I thought this, flanagan's, was pretty cosmically funny:

2nd place: All-expense paid trip for two to the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta

I never went but people routinely claim his trivia night was the hardest in NYC.