---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 09:58:40 -0800
From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
Subject: 'Fugitive Days': two responses
From Portside
'Fugitive Days': two responses
1 From: Cathy Wilkerson
2 From: Vladimir Escalante Ramirez (Mexico)
I have been reading all of the responses to Bill's
book and my review with great gladness, because this
kind of discussion is exactly what I had hoped for,
and what I wish had been more present in Bill's book.
Obviously, many of us have both thought and felt a lot
about the issues raised by what we did, and we have
all learned a lot from it. Those lessons need to be
passed on to the current generation who, while they
have solved some of our mistakes by very innovative
means, still have much to learn from our experience.
When I became an activist I was driven by values and
the civil rights struggles in the South. I knew
little about the history of the internal struggles of
the abolitionist movement, of the different stages of
the women's suffrage movement, of the labor movement,
of Garvyism, the left during the thirties, let alone
historical development of the idea of nationalism and
socialism. The mass media wants only to discard and
move on. Yet, there are many good and honorable young
people whose passion will cause them to repeat many of
our mistakes without this conversation.
John, I have actually been spending the last year and
a half trying to write a memoir myself to try to share
what I think I have learned both about the strengths
of what we did and the weaknesses. I am finding it
very challenging to live up to the standards of
thoughtfulness I have set for myself, so I still have
a ways to go and time is scarce. I have found
everyone's comments to be helpful, including the hurt
and anger expressed by several people including Katha
and Nancy because it matters, and it matters to see
how deep it still runs. I was deeply grateful to
Katha Pollitt for her pieces after Sept. 11 as their
passion helped me give voice to much of what I felt
and so I see your passion here in the same vein. I
would caution, however, around a few of the facts. We
did not run bare-breasted through high schools; this
was a sexist local press rendition of the sight of 40
or so women appearing out of nowhere, chanting and
yelling outside a high school and generally carrying
on in an inexplicable way. It was hot, yes, and many
may have been braless, but we were all fully clothed
to my knowledge. The action didn't make any sense, I
agree, but not because we were naked. Other
participants can correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, we never robbed banks with "black criminals",
because after a dizzying spin into the glorification
of violence and into suicidal, homicidal despair over
the carnage created by the US government we rejected
both trajectories after the explosion in the
townhouse. I will not try to minimize the damage we
did during those 6 to 8 months, however. And, the
arrogance and superior judgements continued and got
worse over the next few years. Several other groups
did do bank robberies ostensibly to finance
revolutionary struggle or, in the case of the SLA, to
feed the people, in multi-racial groups but I would
caution around oversimplifying who all those people
were. There were undoubtably those - both white and
black - who were primarily motivated by self interest,
but many of those participants, like Sam Melville, who
was killed later in Attica by NY State Troopers, and
the SLA members burned up in the house by the LAPD
were seriously misguided but not for reasons of self
interest. Participants in the 1981 Brinks robbery,
only a few of whom were ex Weather people, were
primarily motivated by love and had years of saner
movement service to document it even though their
analysis later grew so distorted about how they should
act and the results were horribly tragic for both the
victims and themselves. Most of the white
participants in all these actions were people who were
so hurt by the racism of this country that they did
the best they could to disassociate themselves from
it, and to support those who they thought were trying
to create a better way, a process complicated by their
own personal tangle of struggles for self definition.
The black participants also carried with them complex
charges of damage from racism, courage, and a
desperation to move beyond passivity. When a child
learns to walk, they fall down a lot. The way I see
it, humans will continue to gather together and rise
up to fight to improve human rights - as we have for
thousands of years. I have made as grave mistakes as
almost anyone so I have a self interest, perhaps, in
saying that I think we should not lightly discard the
mistakes or the people who made them, if they - we -
are willing to learn from them. I no longer believe
that there is "one right way" or that we should spend
hours trying to figure it out. I do believe, however
that we need to learn from our mistakes, at the same
time as we recognize the valor, when it exists, in
those who made them. I wish that we could honor those
who have died in our struggle, however misguided some
of their thinking was, just as I wish that we could
free those 30 or 40 people who are still in jail 30
years later because they allowed their passion for
justice and equality to rule their better judgement.
How much time is enough to atone? Most of those still
inside have been told they will never be released - by
statute or by whim of parole boards, while many others
with equivalent or greater crimes are allowed to serve
their time and go free. It is because of these folks,
as well as the young people who inherit the struggle,
that this discussion matters. I, for one, feel
strongly that they should be released to have the
opportunity to contribute to society, as I have had
that opportunity.
I also don't think, Katha, that all our ideas were
stupid, but I will try to argue that substantively in
the book. Leonard, from Chicago, touched on some of
the issues I consider important quite eloquently, I
thought. But, yes, we do owe an apology. I thank
everyone for weighing in again, and especially John
and Ethan for getting the ball rolling. I hope the
discussion continues, here and/or in living rooms and
on the street. And Jim, I hope I did not try to in
any way condemn Bill, or Bernardine, in the review,
but rather tried to challenge the ideas. I hope I
have learned, finally, to treasure the participants of
the discussions, even while challenging the ideas.
Cathy Wilkerson
PS I'd love to hear from more women.
===
Re: 'Fugitive Days' -- an exchange
I have been reading with great interest the discussion
on the Weathermen and their effect on the antiwar
movement. Although I was in high-school at the time,
I'd like to inform the portside group that in a recent
strike movement at the National University of Mexico
history just repeated itself -- just as Ethan Young was
wondering whether the practice of violent confrontation
made sense to us in 2002 in his contribution. Maybe not
to us, but to others yes.
A brief history follows. Around March 1999 students in
Mexico City took over most buildings of one of the main
Latin American public university and shut down teaching
activities to protest the establishment of formal
tuition fees (fees existed previously in the guise of
"lab" or "library" fees), and to demand a tuition-free
public university. Most students were truly committed
to a movement of protest against education policies
imposed upon Mexico by neoliberalism with its doctrine
that "education is a commodity that must be paid for by
the consumers, i.e. the students". Pretty obvious
confrontation between the neoliberal system and
working-class students? Not quite. From the start
students rejected all political parties, groups or
"doctrines" (read Marxism, Leninism, Marxism-Leninism
and whatever) that may "raid" the movement to
paraphrase Ethan. Leftist intellectuals throughout the
country praised the students for their integrity and
"ideological" purity.
Four months later the "moderate" students had been
expelled, accused of being manipulated by one political
party, albeit a very moderate center-left one, which
was accused gratuitously by the system of organizing
the student strike. Meetings of the student strike
committee were marred with internal violence:
fistfights on the floor, barbed wire to protect the
chair people, sexist remarks to woman speakers deemed
too moderate. After ten months, several violent
confrontations with police, and many stone-throwing
demonstrations against the American embassy and other
strongholds of neoliberal power, the police raided the
campus rounding up striking students, passersby,
nightwatch employees, you name it. The charges:
terrorism was the most serious one. At least one group
that puts bombs at bank buildings has emerged since
then. The similarities with the SDS-Weathermen history
are just amazing.
Vladimir Escalante Ramirez
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