You Don't Need a Weatherman to Tell Which Way the Wind Blows

First Emma Goldman, nextBernardine Dohrn - this is a real life Hipsters' Guide to Revolution.

Bernardine Dohrn was a leader of The Weather Underground, a student revolutionary group during the 1970s. Here are some interesting tidbits about this group of idealistic and hypocritical yet fascinating and bona fide iconoclasts:

*Among their multiple bombing targets, they successfully detonated bombs in the US Capitol Building and in the State Department.

*They helped break Timothy Leary out of prison.

*They named their group after a lyric from Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues."

These guys were something else. Most of them were white and came from affluent middle class families. Most members also attended major US colleges and universities. Their two main goals were to bring a quick end to the Vietnam War and to end the oppression of black Americans.


I just finished watching a fascinating, Oscar-nominated documentary about this puzzling and confused group. Its called The Weather Underground, and I highly recommend it to anyone curious about the utter tragedy of impulsive and disaffected youths of privilege during the late 1960s and early- to mid-1970s. The scenes where individual group members recount cutting ties with their parents and families are powerful in their sadness.