Which Way the Wind Blows
Last night our friend George stopped by on his way to the cinema and we ended up making a night out of it, getting some lovely Thai stir-fries and being among all of ten people tops at the early evening showing of The Weather Underground, a new documentary on the SDS radicals who attempted to "bring the war home" and include America in the perceived world revolution going on during 1969-75. Along with the cringe-inducing exploration of the state-sponsored repression of dissent in the U.S. at the time - more than sometimes violent, and including the use of police as de facto death squads - and the ludicrous rhetoric of the far left movement, the movie also manages to allow a real understanding of the kind of ethical dilemmas faced by these individuals. How do you allow your country, a democratic nation founded essentially on the principle that the government represents the people, acts on their behalf - how do you allow that country to perpetrate and persist in an unjust war? And how, then, do you act, if you want to ensure that war is ended? Can you not be a participant in the violence if you do not act out? Especially frightening is listening to Nixon stand firm against the many hundreds of thousands protesting his policies and actions in Vietnam and Southeast Asia with exactly the same words and determination Bush II uses today defending his policies and actions in Iraq. We may not need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows, as the Dylan song goes that gave these radicals their name, but maybe we need a little of the determination of the Weathermen to get us into the streets again. Without the pipe bombs, of course.