In 1970 in Chicago, the police went into the house of a charismatic black speaker named Fred Hampton, shot him while he slept, claimed there was a gun battle in the hallway, and left the scene for tour groups to see his blood-soaked bed. At this point the Weathermen went underground, and over the next few years conducted 25 bombings, carefully avoiding injuring anyone, and labelling each bombing as a direct protest against some government action—killing inmates, bombing Cambodia, and so on. When the Viet Nam war ended, the Underground fell apart and some members turned themselves in. Interestingly, the FBI had used so many illegal tactics in gathering evidence against them, that almost no members of the Underground did jail time. For those viewers who want documentaries to be “objective” rather than propaganda pieces, The Weather Underground is a classic, informative, and thought-provoking example.
posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 6:47 PM by JimBell