|
Next Left Notes Is A News Magazine Devoted To Direct Action
Edited By Thomas Good
Bluestockings, a radical bookstore in New York City's Lower East Side,
recently hosted a benefit screening (for the Life After Capitalism
conference) of the Weather Underground documentary. Former SDS/WUO
member Brian Flanagan was on hand to answer questions about the film
and his life in the Weather Underground. Flanagan, a bar owner and former
Jeopardy champion, is very articulate and thoughtful. He remains
committed to the struggle for peace and justice.
The following quotations speak for themselves are and presented with
minimal editorial comment. They have been grouped into categories as
many questions from the audience were on similar themes and Brian's
responses overlapped a bit.
Editorial comments within quotes are [ bracketed ].
Reflections On The Sixties...And Today
Shortly after the film ended Flanagan interrupted his own
response to a question from the audience to point out that he felt
that the movie's depiction of him was not entirely well rounded:
"The movie shows me as very rueful and wistful...Sam [ Sam Green - the director ]
was obsessed with the Townhouse..."
A recurring theme in the responses included the idea that Iraq
recapitulates Vietnam in many ways...
"I'm feeling things now that I felt then."
"Many of us from that generation are feeling Deja Vu now."
"I'm at a level of political activism now that I haven't
been at for years."
Strategy and Tactics in The Struggle
"Direct Action has its place."
"I would never look down on Pacifists...everyone has their mode of resistance..."
"The Democratic Party is a black hole with an event horizon around it.
The antiwar movement fell into this hole, never to be seen again..."
"Our main goal is to keep the foot of the US off the throat of the
rest of the world."
"Mark Rudd believes in working in the Democratic Party but I don't..."
"I argued against this [ abandoning the aboveground student Left]...
futilely. We could have had both: an aboveground and an
underground. The IRA did this for years with Sinn Fein."
"In the early period we did robberies, it was risky and unnecessary."
"[ Later ] We lived off of donations."
"We had a large support network."
"I surfaced early...I didn't want to forfeit $100,000 bail. I won my
case in Chicago...and joined Prairie Fire [ the latter day aboveground
wing of the Weather Underground ]. I was part of the aboveground support."
"The regional collectives had carte blanche in the early days..."
"J.J. [ John Jacobs, author of the Weatherman document ] was
expelled after the Townhouse. He was the main advocate of Terry Robbins being
allowed to do his ultraviolent thing. It was a horrible mistake."
On Iraq And The Situation In The US
"People in the US only respond to body bags, not the thousands of
Iraqis killed...that's why they [ the US government ] won't allow
photographs of coffins."
"They've [ the US government ] eliminated the fourth and sixth amendments.
Now they're working on the first. If they succeed I don't know that
we'd be able to sit around and talk like this."
"We've all heard horror stories about Quakers being pulled off of
airplanes because they're on the list [ of suspected terrorists ]...
and you can't know you're on the list until you go there [ to the
airport ]".
"The defence of Fallujah is not terrorism...it is the same battle as
the struggle against Zionism."
"Someone with a bomb in Tel Aviv is a terrorist:
Someone fighting against an occupying army is not a terrorist."
"The fight against Zionism and the fight against the occupation of
Iraq are the last great struggles against colonialism. They are
the same struggle...it will not be nonviolent."
On The Importance Of The Weather Underground
"Internationalism will be our legacy."
"John Brown and Che Guevara were our heroes...Cuba and Vietnam
were our heroes..."
Home
Next Left Notes
(c) 2004,2006 Thomas Good
Verbatim copying and distribution of entire articles is permitted
without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.
|