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Alfred Gingold and Helen Rogan

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from: Helen Rogan

Fear and Loathing of the Weathermen

Posted Thursday, Aug. 30, 2001, at 1:09 PM ET

Alfie,

In this week's New York Observer, Ron Rosenbaum has a huge piece about Bill Ayers, a former leader of the Weather Underground who has a memoir just coming out (Fugitive Days). As you're probably sick of hearing, I've spent a lot of time recently editing an article that the magazine (My Generation) is doing in the Nov/Dec. issue on Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, so I feel particularly curious to see what kind of coverage the book (and our article) will get. Ron's piece is, surprisingly, rather romantic and favorable. Why does that surprise me? Because over the weeks I've spent on the story, the most interesting thing I've learned is how much loathing there still is toward the Weathermen and all their works. There's a widespread perception that they were a bunch of pampered, self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing rich kids who took it upon themselves to bring down this great democracy of ours, no matter who was hurt in the process, and who, when they failed, got off easy. (Except, of course, for the three who died in the Village townhouse explosion, and good riddance to them.)

That's the perception. Our article, and the Kathy Boudin profile that ran in The New Yorker a few weeks ago, inject some reality into the proceedings, for those who care to re-examine their preconceptions. (How many people are prepared to do that, I wonder?) Haven't read Ayers' book, but I'd guess that it's smart and cocky and will piss people off all over again.

What interested me most about our story was how complex it was to get close to the Weathermen. The writer, Peter Meyer, spent endless time trying to get to Kathy Boudin, and then Boudin went to The New Yorker, obviously thinking strategically before her parole hearing. Dohrn and Ayers were charming but impossible to pin down until the time that Ayers's book was due to come out--more strategic thinking. Others, who had no pressing reason to want coverage, were interested and elusive in equal measure, wanting to tell their side of the story after all these years and yet terrified of going public. A few begged us not to use their names, saying that if we "outed" them, they'd lose their jobs. I could go on and on here about the rights and wrongs of what they did, but I will leave that to others. I just find it really interesting that, however much people may hate or despise them, the Weathermen as a whole (those who are not in jail, that is) remain committed to their ideals and are working in all kinds of smart, unsung, and worthy ways to improve society--as educators, social workers, judges, activists of one kind of another. So there. What do you make of that?

H

the breakfast table
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from: Helen Rogan

Fear and Loathing of the Weathermen

Posted Thursday, Aug. 30, 2001, at 1:09 PM ET
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Alfred Gingold has written eight books (including three with Helen Rogan) and for numerous magazines and Web sites. Helen Rogan, his wife, is the executive editor of My Generation, the AARP's magazine for baby boomers, and has written books and magazine articles.
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[Notes from the Fray Editor: Reparations and museums were the hot topics here. There was news from Tony Adragna that there is an African-American museum in DC. Elusive Fray poster Amyntas started a splendid discussion on reparations and taxcuts here, featuring posts titled "A nonsensical argument" and "Typical disingenuous twaddle." A high moral tone, and criticism of young women, were the common themes in two posts: a most unusual view on the Chandra Levy affair, here, and one on Tea Leoni here.]


The ambiguity of the reparations debate is what I like most about that entire issue. Whether reparations ever get paid or not (I suspect that they won't), to the extent that national attention gets focused on this issue, we'll be talking about basic moral issues.

Any serious discussion of this issue will involve questions of duty and obligation, culpability, history, values, rights and wrongs. In short, it will be (finally!) a public debate worthy of a democratic nation. Whatever conclusions we reach, either individually or as a nation, it seems likely that we will be better for having thought about these matters in depth

--Thrasymachus

(To reply, click here.)


 The CD-ROM thing is scary. How's Bloomberg going to top it? Will he try to make his hologram appear in all our living rooms?

--Claude Scales

(To reply, click here.)

 (8/28)

Didn't it ever bother anybody else that the Weathermen took their name from a line in "Subterranean Homesick Blues" that implied that a weatherman is superfluous under the circumstances? Is this part and parcel of the Marxist-v.-Leninist- historical-determinist conundrum? (i.e., that if historical/economic forces are pushing toward an inevitable result, why do they need me to help them along? As it is sometimes put, if Marx didn't exist, it would be unnecessary to invent him.) That felt good--somebody call me a jackal, it really brings me back...

--Ex-Fed

(To reply, click here.)


 I happened to walk by the site of the Village explosion the morning of the event. The exposed apartments, with their wall clocks and tables precariously clinging to the ordinary around the gaping proof of anti-civic rage; the apartments seemed like a stage set for some kind of apocalyptic Beckett drama. The scene was mute, webbed with the yellow crime scene tapes of the municipal police. A mix of fear and curiosity animated the passers-by. I stood and stared, hearing the news in bits and pieces. Suddenly I noticed a sign, hand lettered, pinned to the police sawhorse. I looked closer and saw a few others, same hand, same posting method. In repeated, and therefore intentional orthography, the phrase "nothning is free" was scrawled in black marker on typing paper.

The phrase burned itself into my subconscious. I have never seen it since, nor heard it mentioned in the context of the Weathermen or other underground groups.

Nothning is free. Even if it has escaped justice. Especially if it has escaped justice.

--Zeitguy

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 (8/31)





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