This Oscar nominee is a genuinely shocking docu about The Weathermen, the violent revolutionaries that came out of the antiwar movement of the late 1960s. They participated in major bombings of public and private buildings and delivered scathing audio communiques declaring that the revolution was underway.

Featuring impressive interviews with members today, the docu can't help but show just how wrong almost everything they said and did was. But these rebels still believe fervently in their cause and their dedication is bonafide, even if their thinking seems way off base. The Weather Underground tells their story from the inside out and is an excellent show.

I think I first became aware of the radical underground through satires in the National Lampoon. While the Vietnam War raged the magazine seemed the logical successor to Mad Magazine in the "deflate America" sweepstakes. When hardcore revolutionaries were pictured, they were always sharp-tonged ideologues threatening to commence a war in the streets.

The Weather Underground shows that judgment to be more or less true. The docu profiles the growth of the antiwar movement, and in particular the steering of the liberal but not radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) toward more radical and confrontational thinking. Following the lead of the Black Panthers, a cadre within the SDS determined that a coalition of anti- war, anti-Nixon, anti-corporate revolutionaries would be welcomed by working Americans and that revolution was imminent.

My parents' generation was resolute in the belief that protesting youth were misguided by the artificial environment of U.S. campus life. The kids of the affluent middle class raised after WW2 had little experience with harsh realities and took the idealism and radical political science learned at America's Universities to destructive extremes.

Well, my parents were wrong about the war and several other issues, but they were right when it came to the subject of revolution. Unlike other countries, the U.S. had a huge middle class with an aggregate wealth and lifestyle that was the envy of other countries' privileged classes. For all its ills, America was still a great country with a beautiful system that could indeed right some of its wrongs. Nobody here wanted equality and revolutionary justice; they wanted a better car and a bigger place to live, a bigger piece of the pie.

The Weathermen were practical idealists in that they weren't content to hold feel-good Peace rallies that could be ignored by the media while the criminals in Washington continued their atrocious war in Vietnam. They took over the SDS practically by force (nothing democratic about that), and as the FBI's interest focused on them, eventually had to be more secret about themselves.

Interestingly, the Weathermen express guilt over that fact that the admired Panthers took all the heat - including sanctioned murders by the police and FBI - while they as "nice white kids" were for the most part spared direct violence (the fact that their money and cleverness kept any of them from being detected helped a lot, too). Thinking that America was a tinderbox and that they would be the spark to send it all up in flames, they commenced bombings directed at buildings, targets symbolizing imperialist oppression. At first they intended to slaughter civilians under the warped thinking that anybody not fighting against the government was their enemy. That kind of thinking can only be attributed to madness and zealotry, and a radical elitism that believed they were the chosen spearhead that would inspire a massive uprising against Nixon's White House.

After some amateur bombmaking resulted in only killing a couple of Weathermen in their NYC townhouse (the aftermath seen by Dustin Hoffman in a newsfilm blip) they backed off and only hit unoccupied buildings, giving enough warning time to evacuate night staff and the like. What this accomplished besides polarizing America, I don't know. The peaceful protests were what turned American opinion against the war, while the Weathermen did permanent damage to the cause of liberal activism. A large section of the country now equates "political activism" with "radical extremism."

As soon as they turned to large scale violence, the Weathermen became the target of every media outlet and conservative speaker. Every legitimate protest and demonstration was associated with violence, and outrages like Kent State were routinely blamed on the student victims. Nixon was able to lump together every opposition voice and label it as a Hanoi-influenced communist conspiracy. I think the Weather Underground helped get him reelected in 1972.

What's worse, the Weather Underground was used as an excuse (along with race riots) to pump huge amounts of money into law enforcement and police, making local cops into paramilitary armies equipped with the battle gear and weapons of an occupying army. The noxiously false "War on Drugs" took up the slack when the radicals disbanded after Vietnam.

The Weather Underground shows this all from the inside out, contrasting newsfilm of the committed revolutionaries of 1970 with their calm but still-idealistic faces today, when America post 9/11 is far more of a police state and far less tolerant of political opposition. Nixon was liberal compared to the present administration, and a mouthy gadfly like Michael Moore is shunned as an opportunist just for successfully speaking his opinions. This isn't wild editorializing; The Weather Underground is about how some idealistic activists refused to be marginalized and used violence to force their message home. It didn't work. Moore is a pain in the neck, but his opinions are definitely not being suppressed.

The most jaw-dropping part of The Weather Underground is the wrapup in which we find out what happened to the eight or so featured interviewees. As it turns out, the methods used by the FBI and police to hunt them down were so illegal, that the government quietly declined to prosecute most of the radicals. They caused millions of dollars' worth of damage and terrorized America for over two years, but weren't brought to trial because any prosecution would essentially publicize the activities of America's "secret police." Some Weathermen were captured and others surrrendered themselves. One hilariously ironic reason for coming back was that raising children underground was just impossible - you know, it's really tough to live a middle-class life when you're dedicated to the overthrow of society. Several of these "dangerous enemies of America" now hold prestigious teaching jobs. ¹

Footnote:

1. Timing is everything on this. Most of these radicals hadn't actually been involved in any crimes involving the loss of life. Another woman radical decided that it was a good time to come forward and be forgiven in 2001 - just before 9-11 let loose the dogs of "national security." Her case wasn't going well when all mention of her just disappeared from the papers.
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