The Weather Underground

October 11, 2008 8:30 AM

Before it was a website, the Weather Underground[google video, 90 mins] was an off-shoot militant wing of the Students for a Democratic Society. It was responsible for a series of bombings of government buildings, banks and corporate HQ's, as well as Timothy Leary's breakout from prison. They eventually turned themselves in, but few were convicted of any crime, due to misconduct by federal authorities tasked with investigating them. [previously]
posted by empath (81 comments total)

I've always wondered whether the people who run the weather site knew they were naming their company after something unsavory, or if they just had a vague sense that it was "some 60s thing." I have the same question about Cultural Revolution yogurt.
posted by escabeche at 8:34 AM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I always figured they thought it was a cute pun.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:37 AM on October 11, 2008

I have the same question about Cultural Revolution yogurt.

Hey, don't bring Uncle Mao's Great Leap Froward Fruity Fun Snacks into this.
posted by The Whelk at 8:40 AM on October 11, 2008 [10 favorites]

Is this post, as us lovers of football put it, intended as a square ball across the 6-yard area? Are you not simply waiting for someone else to shout "William Ayres" and thus drag MetaFilter down into Fox News terrain?
posted by imperium at 8:43 AM on October 11, 2008

billayers is in the tags already.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 8:46 AM on October 11, 2008

A little bit about the Brotherhood of Eternal Love that paid the Weather Underground $20,000 to break Leary out.
posted by empath at 8:46 AM on October 11, 2008

Weather Underground Weather service is based in Ann Arbor... SDS started there as well..

We're pretty proud of both of those organizations! :)

I'm willing to be that when Obama needs to check the weather, he uses some other site....
posted by HuronBob at 8:48 AM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Was there a band named something similar to Weather Underground? I seem to remember my dad asking me what I was listening to one day and I said "The Weather Underground!" in a cheery voice. He got very concerned and told me to stop.
posted by yellowbkpk at 8:50 AM on October 11, 2008

You're probably thinking of Weather Report.
posted by shadow vector at 8:54 AM on October 11, 2008

yellowbkpk...The Veltvet Underground?
posted by piratebowling at 8:54 AM on October 11, 2008

> Was there a band named something similar to Weather Underground?

You're thinking of The Velvet Weather.
posted by ardgedee at 8:54 AM on October 11, 2008 [6 favorites]

Or even the Velvet Underground
posted by gingerbeer at 8:56 AM on October 11, 2008

I figured that if we're all going to talk about Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground this month, we should at least all know what it is that we're talking about.
posted by empath at 8:56 AM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I was just reading about Bill Ayers this morning and found mention of the film linked in the OP. I was hoping to find it later on the web somewhere, so this post is rather timely.

In case there is any interest, Bill Ayers keeps a blog.
posted by datter at 9:04 AM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

That documentary is also available streaming on Netflix for anyone who subscribes to it and wants to see a higher quality version.
posted by Nattie at 9:04 AM on October 11, 2008

You've never really experienced true heaviness until you've had to regularly check out Weather Underground: Tropical.
posted by raysmj at 9:10 AM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I got a lot out of that documentary. I think it's helpful for us to realize how, at the very least, serious people were back then; that sections of society still intended to be a forceful opposition to the government (the least we can do now, it seems, is fundraise via email for a particularly smart Democratic candidate, or bitch at a McCain rally). Moreover, having been born twenty years later, my idea of the 60s was basically Forrest Gump, Allen Ginsberg and The Beatles. I didn't realize the gravity of the situation, and I think it helped me to understand why the 70s-present have been such a reactionary (and oppressive) period in American history - this shit was real.

It also makes you realize the futility of violence when pursuing social upheaval. An unworthy system/government/power like ours uses opposition to re-validate itself. The more you attack it, the stronger it gets. But I don't know what effective protest is, then. I like it when the French students go to a government office and drag all the furniture out into the street to the bewilderment of the employees. But what then?
posted by bukharin at 9:15 AM on October 11, 2008 [5 favorites]

But what then?

198 Methods of Non-Violent Action, by Gene Sharp
posted by empath at 9:22 AM on October 11, 2008 [6 favorites]

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:22 AM on October 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

I worked with a guy last year who had been in the FBI. He told me in the eighties they set up an operation to bust some Puerto Rican nationalists. They were going to sell them some explosives, and met them at a cache they had buried in some woods outside of Baton Rouge. To their surprise, he said, two Anglo guys they hadn't seen showed up with the Puerto Ricans, and confirmed the authenticity of the explosives.

The pair got on the Amtrak towards the west coast. The FBI then tracked them along the way, and managed to retrieve a partial thumbprint. These guys were wiping down everything, he said. It turned out they were former members of the Weather Underground, living in California. The FBI ended up bugging their cars and phones, and were busy rolling the organization up until one day one of the WU members discovered the mic in his car. He said they scattered, and they never caught the original two. He said there were a lot of scary conversations they listened to about other caches of weapons around the country.
posted by atchafalaya at 9:26 AM on October 11, 2008

There are interesting implications from the WUO story for this Administration and this election, as described in this article: if you break these laws to catch criminals, you are left with two possible outcomes: Either the law forces you to set these criminals free, or you have to hold these criminals outside the legal system.

The first outcome means that we cannot bring criminals to justice, and the innocent in our society suffer for it.

The second outcome defines the Bush Administration. An extralegal system that weakens and rots this country to the core. When the law has no strength, the law has no meaning. Justice is arbitrary, catering to the whims of those in power.
posted by gingerbeer at 9:41 AM on October 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

Have a look at some of the comments on Ayers' last blog entry. Folks from McCain/Palin rallies have been on-line lately.
posted by mmahaffie at 10:07 AM on October 11, 2008

I have the same question about Cultural Revolution yogurt.

Why so cranky, imperialist yankee?
posted by zippy at 10:07 AM on October 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

that sections of society still intended to be a forceful opposition to the government

Funny, I was thinking about this when I was reading about the kerfuffle on the Palin thread, where some people seemed to think that armed resistance to the US government could never be appropriate.

What I was wondering is this: if that's really the case, shouldn't y'all just give up on that whole constitutional right to bear arms thing? Or is it really just that armed resistance is only acceptable when people on the right decide that it's acceptable?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:14 AM on October 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

We're pretty proud of both of those organizations! :)

Bombings, murder and armed robbery now there's some things to be proud of . Moron. I recently read Carl Oglesby's memoir of his time with SDS and it amazes me exactly how far off the rails SDS and the Weathermen/WU went. No believer like a true believer I guess.
posted by MikeMc at 10:26 AM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

In case there is any interest, Bill Ayers keeps a blog.

Just when I thought I had purged the Palin mobs and the waiting in line interviews from my head, along comes the comments section of Bill Ayers' latest blog entry.

Depite the polling numbers, I just really worry for you America.

*hug*
posted by salishsea at 10:39 AM on October 11, 2008

Bombings, murder and armed robbery now there's some things to be proud of

That last one is only slightly tongue in cheek. The SDS was a little bit off the rails, yes. But the American system they were fighting was racist and violent. Shades of gray.
posted by natteringnabob at 10:43 AM on October 11, 2008

Bombings, murder and armed robbery now there's some things to be proud of . Moron.

Except when people are proud of America which does way more of the same 3 things, it gets called patriotism instead of idiocy.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:43 AM on October 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

I would like to withdraw the "moron" comment above. I really need to stop doing that, I should lay off the Fark for a while.
posted by MikeMc at 10:43 AM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

We're pretty proud of both of those organizations! :)

Bombings, murder and armed robbery now there's some things to be proud of . Moron. I recently read Carl Oglesby's memoir of his time with SDS and it amazes me exactly how far off the rails SDS and the Weathermen/WU went. No believer like a true believer I guess.

The original intent of the SDS as expressed in the Port Huron Statement is still something to be proud of.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:47 AM on October 11, 2008

But the American system they were fighting was racist and violent. Shades of gray.

True, but the reason "they" failed (and current radical "activists" continue to fail) is that they are out of touch with the people. Blowing up post-doc researchers (not done by WU) and murdering armored car drivers so you steal almost two million dollars does not serve to advance the cause of liberation but tighten the screws of oppression and drive the people to seek security from the government. Perhaps they should have read the "Little Red Book" a little more closely.
posted by MikeMc at 10:59 AM on October 11, 2008

The original intent of the SDS as expressed in the Port Huron Statement is still something to be proud of.

Would that be the original Port Huron statement, or the compromised second draft?
posted by LilBucner at 11:02 AM on October 11, 2008 [7 favorites]

That was a very interesting documentary. Of course, I have questions. Where did they get the explosives? Did they steal commercial dynamite and blasting caps? Did they contain the explosives in steel pipes? Did they manufacture the explosives themselves, and if so where did they get the chemical information? Judging from the historical footage, the blasts were no where near as powerful as those seen on a continuous basis in Iraq.

I'm quite confident they didn't use Timex digital watches...

Sometimes bombings have mysterious and unresolved motives. I was present at one such incident growing up in Missoula Montana.
posted by Tube at 11:07 AM on October 11, 2008

The original intent of the SDS as expressed in the Port Huron Statement is still something to be proud of.

That's what's so interesting about Oglesby's book, the rapid descent of a student organization dedicated to making American democracy serve all of it's citizens into a pack of blathering Marxists and paranoid lunatics. I can't claim to understand the zeitgeist of the times as I was but a wee bairn at the time many of these events took place but 30-40 years after the fact it looks so obvious that these folks were operating under some mass delusion.

Port Huron Statement
posted by MikeMc at 11:12 AM on October 11, 2008

I just started a band called Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground. We've already had a meteoric rise to fame, gotten hooked on meth, and broken up on stage in a fury of fire and electricity. Catch the 'Behind the Music' tomorrow.
posted by nosila at 11:18 AM on October 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

I just started a band called Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground.

Well, yeah, join the ranks of The Weathermen and The Weathermen.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 11:38 AM on October 11, 2008

Bukharin wrote: "An unworthy system/government/power like ours..."

What?
posted by MarshallPoe at 11:43 AM on October 11, 2008

You're thinking of The Velvet Weather.

You're thinking of The Velvet Fog.
posted by Poolio at 12:03 PM on October 11, 2008

You talk of overthrowing power with violence as your tool.
You speak of liberation and when the people rule.
Well ain't it people rule right now, would difference would there be?
Just another set of bigots with their rifle sights on me.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:05 PM on October 11, 2008

What I was wondering is this: if that's really the case, shouldn't y'all just give up on that whole constitutional right to bear arms thing? Or is it really just that armed resistance is only acceptable when people on the right decide that it's acceptable?

Seems so, sadly enough. I went by the shooting range this morning, and someone had put up a yard sign: "I'm a 'bitter gun owner', and I vote!"

I thought to myself, "yep, for Obama!", but it's sort of sad that I'll have to hold my nose on the gun rights issue in order to do so. The left seems to have entirely abandoned the idea of armed resistance, and even armed defense, even though many of our greatest heroes and inspirations (Jefferson, Orwell, JFK) were committed to it. It's bizarre.
posted by vorfeed at 12:11 PM on October 11, 2008

Plenty of guys in trucker caps are for Obama. (Although perhaps not entirely up to standards in web ways.)

And if you want to see people going off the rails, I would suggest that in the current population of people who may have started out with reasonable hope and beliefs but are now just screeching loons are not at Obama rallies.

It's what we do. We get a hold of an idea, like a dog with a fuzzy toy, and shake it and play with it and rip it into a mess of shreds.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 12:21 PM on October 11, 2008

The most amazing thing to me about the Weather Underground is how their story has to KEEP being told, and we in the US keep having this thread over and over. It's an anti-meme, a source of cognitive dissonance. We are hardly able to discuss it.

We keep forgetting, or keep wanting to forget, this story--that people once cared about the moral direction of this country enough to bomb the pentagon (and, tactically a success, it was a rather complete strategic failure). Or that bombing a government building could concievably be US citizens' moral response to the often-rather-unholy foreign policy of the United States.

It's not the tactics that anyone is proud of, anyone can make a bomb. but the spine--the guts and strategy and solidarity and organization enough to consider bombing a reasonable-though-obviously-desperate tactic, that is what we feel we lack.
posted by eustatic at 12:21 PM on October 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

vorfeed, here's Obama position on guns.
posted by hydrophonic at 12:26 PM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

"...people once cared about the moral direction of this country enough to bomb the pentagon..."

Not to go too far afield but...for some reason that line conjures up the thought of a bizzaro Hallmark commercial. "Weather Underground, when you care enough to bomb the Pentagon"
posted by MikeMc at 12:29 PM on October 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

..people once cared about the moral direction of this country enough to bomb the pentagon (and, tactically a success, it was a rather complete strategic failure)..Or that bombing a government building could concievably be US citizens' moral response to the often-rather-unholy foreign policy of the United States.

Swap "domestic" for "foreign" and that could almost be a sympathetic take on the OKC bombing. Seriously, think about it.
posted by MikeMc at 12:33 PM on October 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

Bernardine Dohrn was the speaker at a rally in Flint, Michigan, not long after the Manson murders, and commenting on the slaughter of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, announced (while holding up three fingers in a "fork salute"): "Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim's stomach! Wild!"
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:39 PM on October 11, 2008

"It's not the tactics that anyone is proud of, anyone can make a bomb. but the spine--the guts and strategy and solidarity and organization enough to consider bombing a reasonable-though-obviously-desperate tactic, that is what we feel we lack."

Nicely stated, though I wish you'd completed it with some speculative thoughts about how the people might regain that lost spine.
posted by datter at 12:46 PM on October 11, 2008

Bernardine Dohrn was the speaker at a rally in Flint, Michigan

see my askmeta thread on this little gem I found last year on the net.
It is funny, cause they held it in Flint, most likely thinking they could start the "war" and carry it on to Detriot thus crippling the economy and (to there hope) a race war and prelude to invasion by all americas enemies.

funny, popular culture seems to swim in the death bleat, kill the rich angle Dohrn ranted on.

and Ayers is still trying to take down capitalism.

and the real cool thing is, alot of people who attended said something like...

'Lets see, you want to to go kill white people, nationalize my job, let foreighners attack my home'
posted by clavdivs at 12:58 PM on October 11, 2008

Interestingly, the WU first called the organization "Weatherman" after the Dylan song, though generally referred to as "The Weathermen". Sometime in 1970 this morphed into "Weather Underground," when the group somewhat belatedly figured out that "Weathermen" was not PC, and went "underground" following the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion.
posted by beagle at 1:07 PM on October 11, 2008

"Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim's stomach! Wild!"

I've seen this quoted many times, but I've yet to find a primary source for it, or the context in which it was said.
posted by empath at 1:12 PM on October 11, 2008

funny, popular culture seems to swim in the death bleat, kill the rich angle Dohrn ranted on.

What are you rambling about? Popular culture exalts the rich.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:18 PM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

> "I'm a 'bitter gun owner', and I vote!"
>
> I thought to myself, "yep, for Obama!", but it's sort of sad that I'll have to hold my nose
> on the gun rights issue in order to do so.

That would be me also--hold nose on this and several other issues, push the O button because of liking the alternative less. Obama now has an ad out there that talks the talk about second amendment rights, but I predict it's no more than the sort of political yadda-yadda that will drop down the memory hole about a fifth of a second after the election. But I don't much trust McCain on the issue either--on his voting record in the last 10 years he's been perfectly happy to hedge gun rights about with increasingly restrictive regulations.

No doubt a great many of the people who would be swept into office by an Obama win--or appointed later--will be committed anti-gun zealots, but would those who would be carried in with McCain (or who would just remain in, carried over from the present Republican administration) be noticeably better? I doubt it. I haven't seen much in the way of committment to individual Constitutional rights from that crowd. What I do believe is that both major parties are mainly committed to keeping the people under control, using whatever animal-control techniques they need in order to achieve that, rights be damned.
posted by jfuller at 1:23 PM on October 11, 2008

"Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim's stomach! Wild!"

I wonder how Bernardine Dohrn works this into her lectures at Northwestern Law School?
posted by MarshallPoe at 1:23 PM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Actually, I seem to have found the original source. It's from 1970, and I can't find any earlier references to it in Google Books, and I can't find any quotes from this speech anywhere that aren't included here.

"We are against everything that is good and decent."
posted by empath at 1:28 PM on October 11, 2008

That would be me also--hold nose on this and several other issues, push the O button because of liking the alternative less.

I'm curious about this - what exactly about Obama's gun policy do you find trouble with? I don't pretend to put the 2nd ammendment high on the list of important issues, but I am genuinely curious where the disagreement lies. And in looking at his "Urban Policy" page, I find this:

As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

This seems like mainstream Democrat gun policy to me, to be honest. Perhaps that's the problem? I don't know, it's why I ask.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:36 PM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm curious about this - what exactly about Obama's gun policy do you find trouble with?

The assault weapons ban is the main thing that makes me angry -- it's flat-out ridiculous to try and re-instate this ban after four years in which Americans have shown that they can handle widespread ownership of modern assault weapons. The AR-15 is among the most popular varminting and target-shooting guns in the country, and these guys want to ban it, simply because it looks scarier than a semi-automatic deer rifle which functions the same way. That's not reasonable, especially since the blood-running-in-the-streets that Democrats predicted when the ban expired never happened.

"repeal the Tiahrt Amendment" -- you mean the one which The Fraternal Order of Police and BATF both support? Gun trace information is already shared with law enforcement; this information was never meant to be made public, and does not need to be made public.

Then there's this: "closing the gun show loophole" -- this involves banning all personal, non-FFL sales of guns, adding a huge amount of bureaucracy to the simple act of selling a gun in the classifieds, at a gun show, or to a friend. IMHO, states which wish to require FFL transfers for personal gun sales should do so (and many of them already do); requiring it on the Federal level is too much. We do not have Federal gun registration for a reason, and this is pretty clearly a big step in that direction.

"Making guns in this country childproof" is so patently ridiculous that I'm not even sure what the hell it implies. Are they going to put a little strip of metal on all the guns, like on Bic lighters? Give me a break. It's worth noting that most methods of "childproofing" guns, including trigger locks, also render the gun worthless for immediate self-defense; this being so, it makes me wonder why I should have to "childproof" my guns, but not my car, my medicine cabinet, or my liquor cabinet.

And this: "I am consistently on record and will continue to be on record as opposing concealed carry."

And in case all of this isn't enough: "Ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons." This means that Obama supports taking firearms back to pre-1880s levels of functionality by banning the sale or transfer of probably more than half the guns existing in America. And you're claiming that's a "mainstream Democrat gun policy"? If so, I am deeply fucking ashamed to be a Democrat.

None of this stuff "respects the Second Amendment rights of gun owners", unless by that you mean "the Second Amendment rights of gun owners to own deliberately ineffective guns the way we say they have to own them, under our unconstitutional scrutiny." The man supports gun grabbing, plain and simple.
posted by vorfeed at 2:55 PM on October 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons.

Wait, what?

Has this always been Democratic policy?
posted by enn at 3:07 PM on October 11, 2008

I really can't wait until every last baby boomer is dead and in the ground, so we can stop reliving the '60s every four years.
posted by Rangeboy at 3:09 PM on October 11, 2008 [5 favorites]

"I really can't wait until every last baby boomer is dead and in the ground, so we can stop reliving the '60s every four years."

Have you seen the movie "River's Edge"? Remember the classroom scene where the teacher is going on about the '60s and the protests and "we stopped a war man!" and the kids are bored and like "STFU man, the '60s are over"? It's kinda like that.
posted by MikeMc at 3:48 PM on October 11, 2008

Without getting into a discussion on your points, vorfeed, I do thank you for taking the time to make your thoughts on this clear and detailed.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:03 PM on October 11, 2008

vorfeed, I hear you, but I live in Philadelphia. I think we need to restrict gun sales, especially show sales, because that is the route through which so many guns hit our streets. The problem with state regs is that this is the USA, and you can get in a car and drive to another state to buy guns. Hence the need for federal regs. Mostly I'm talking about handguns, obviously; the number of murders done with rifles of any sort in this country is very small.
posted by Mister_A at 4:20 PM on October 11, 2008

empath - you do realize that the source for your citation, the "Christian Anti-Communism Crusade" might be just a tad biased?
posted by gingerbeer at 4:33 PM on October 11, 2008

"It's not the tactics that anyone is proud of, anyone can make a bomb. but the spine--the guts and strategy and solidarity and organization enough to consider bombing a reasonable-though-obviously-desperate tactic, that is what we feel we lack."

Nicely stated, though I wish you'd completed it with some speculative thoughts about how the people might regain that lost spine.

Pardon me while I call bullshit here. I am both young enough to NOT have had a chance to take part in any of the 60s/70s revolutionary movements but old enough to have gone to University (in the late 70s) with a few who did. At the risk of oversimplifying things, let me just say they were fucking idiots, and boring at that. Yes, a few of them were "organized" but their means and their ends were fallacious at best.

The bright lights that I knew in those days did not organize protests, carry placards, wear buttons, argue points of dialectic, plan meetings and otherwise dream of waking the proletariat from their centuries' slumber to seize the day. No, they got cultural. They got existential. They invented punk rock. They funneled their very real hatred of the so-called system into something visceral, enduring, ultimately beautiful ... and that took spine.
posted by philip-random at 4:44 PM on October 11, 2008

"Pardon me while I call bullshit here. I am both young enough to NOT have had a chance to take part in any of the 60s/70s revolutionary movements but old enough to have gone to University (in the late 70s) with a few who did. At the risk of oversimplifying things, let me just say that in my opinion, those I met were fucking idiots, and boring at that. Yes, a few of them were "organized" but their means and their ends were fallacious at best."

I fixed that for you.
posted by datter at 4:55 PM on October 11, 2008

Pardon me while I call bullshit here. I am both young enough to NOT have had a chance to take part in any of the 60s/70s revolutionary movements but old enough to have gone to University (in the late 70s) with a few who did. At the risk of oversimplifying things, let me just say they were fucking idiots, and boring at that. Yes, a few of them were "organized" but their means and their ends were fallacious at best.

Agreed, mostly. The overwhelming majority of hippies/radicals I had contact with back in the day were mostly interested in hitting on underage girls (me) or moving to communes in the country (which quickly fell apart after the realities of farm life began to sink in). On the other hand, many of my punk contemporaries were little better, though some of them actually managed to blow a few things up. And for what, really? Nobody even remembers their actions, and they certainly changed nothing.
posted by jokeefe at 5:02 PM on October 11, 2008

It also makes you realize the futility of violence when pursuing social upheaval. An unworthy system/government/power like ours uses opposition to re-validate itself. The more you attack it, the stronger it gets. But I don't know what effective protest is, then. I like it when the French students go to a government office and drag all the furniture out into the street to the bewilderment of the employees. But what then?

Yes. Also, it's wrong to blow up buildings and kill innocent people.
posted by Slap Factory at 5:09 PM on October 11, 2008

you do realize that the source for your citation, the "Christian Anti-Communism Crusade" might be just a tad biased?

That had certainly occurred to me, but it appears to be the source for that quote in every other book I've been able to find that mentioned that quote. If someone can find some other primary source, I'd be happy to see it.
posted by empath at 5:27 PM on October 11, 2008

> This seems like mainstream Democrat gun policy to me, to be honest.
> Perhaps that's the problem? I don't know, it's why I ask.

Well, thanks for that; I'll try to answer sincerely. Bear in mind that (aside from being a rabid treehugger) I am very much out of the political mainstream...for Metafilter. According to the Political Compass quiz, which gets linked here from time to time, I'm only a tiny bit left of center on the left-right axis, and only a tiny bit on the libertarian side on the authoritarian-libertarian axis. As a result of that (and a posting style that displays either an indomitable spirit or infantile contumacy, your choice) many folks around here believe, or affect to believe, that I'm an extreme right-wing fascist lunatic and a Bush spear-carrier. In spite of that, I plan on voting for the Democrats' guy this time around, largely because I think the pot need stirring in a big way right now. I'm not sure he can manage it, but I'm sure McCain won't even try.

As for the details of the O guy's stated platform policy that you quote...

> As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts
> the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information,
> and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun
> crimes and fight the illegal arms trade.

...I trust the government with that information exactly as much as I trust it to tap my phone and internet and, y'know, only use what they collect to stop those bad furrin terrorists, and never ever abuse their power just to keep tabs on annoying people they don't happen to like.

I won't ramble on about the rest of it (since party platforms have essentially zero effect on what a new president actually does or tries to do or is able to do) except to say that each of the three points gives me the cold willies. In general I expect any big legislative or regulatory initiative to start out malformed and end up broken, like the machine from In the Penal Colony. What do I hope for, then? If Obama can at least rein in some of the worst public-sector evils (Abu Ghraib, Guantanimo) and even slightly disrupt the power of private-sector organizations that are so massive they have become quasi-governmental (only without any constitutional restraints) he will have passed a miracle and I will be entirely satisfied with his presidency no matter what else he does or doesn't do.


> let me just say they were fucking idiots, and boring at that. Yes, a few of them
> were "organized" but their means and their ends were fallacious at best.
> posted by philip-random at 7:44 PM on October 11

A quote that stuck with me from one of the "summing up an era" movies of the period (I think it was Zabriskie Point, but I can't prove that with a link.) The only black character in the film says "White radicals? Half bullshit, half jive." There were a (very) few of these that were hardcore enough to actually blow some minor stuff up (including not infrequently themselves, like that bunch of Weatherpeople who had such a dramatic "oops" moment while making bombs in mom's basement.) This hard core was surrounded by a much larger penumbra of others, guys with bushy white-boy-Afro hair and aggressive-looking shades who were there strictly to look gangsta, carry around copies of Frantz Fanon, and shout Little Red Book slogans to impress coeds. I think it most likely that our notorious Prof. Ayers was of this second group.
posted by jfuller at 5:44 PM on October 11, 2008

Without getting into a discussion on your points, vorfeed, I do thank you for taking the time to make your thoughts on this clear and detailed.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Really, the assault/semi-auto/concealed carry issues are the only ones of those which have me incensed, as opposed to just annoyed by politics-as-usual, but they are major issues. Like enn said: "wait, what?" The semi-auto thing in particular is just mindboggling. The only charitable way to read it is that Obama either thought (correctly or incorrectly?) that the question was referring only to assault weapons, or he's not clear on what "semi-automatic" means. And I'm not trying to pull a patronizing "senator Obama just doesn't understand" McCain-style thing here -- the term is rather widely misunderstood.

All semi-auto means is self-loading: when you pull the trigger, a mechanism loads the next shot for you. One trigger pull, one shot, one trigger pull, one shot, repeat until unloaded. When they hear "semi-automatic", people tend to envision machine guns, but those are fully-automatic: they fire continuously as long as you hold down the trigger. The sale of new full-auto firearms is already banned, the transfer of existing full-auto firearms is tightly regulated on the Federal level, and possession is illegal in many states. Semi-autos are very common (most shooters probably own one, and if they don't, they know five people they could borrow one from), full-autos are not (most shooters have probably never even seen one in real life, much less shot one).

There's an excellent Youtube video which demonstrates the difference between both types of rifles, as well as the (rather nebulous) difference between "assault weapons" and other semi-autos. Wish somebody would take Obama to the shooting range for a demonstration like that (note to the Secret Service: I mean as a shooter, of course, not a shootee). We could even call it -- wait for it -- "Range We Need!"

The problem with state regs is that this is the USA, and you can get in a car and drive to another state to buy guns.

Yes, but the problem with Federal regs is that this is the USA, and I don't much appreciate losing my rights as a New Mexican because you have problems nearly 2000 miles away, in another state. There's a reason why these powers are separated: what makes sense in Philadelphia does not necessarily make sense in Albuquerque, and vice versa.

Besides, the very same "drive across the border" argument can easily be applied to Mexico, and to the black market for that matter, so I don't see where a national sales-licensing law is going to solve the problem. If anything, it would probably create a whole new black market for guns where the grey market once existed, and I doubt that's your goal.

Americans are going to have guns, full stop. Hell, even if we were to get everyone to agree on a total firearms ban, we already have more guns than we could deal with effectively. It'd be like trying to ban rocks in the desert. Thus, I think we can get a lot further by addressing the root causes of violence than we can by trying to regulate guns.

Guns aren't the problem, gun violence is... there are two sides to that equation, and only solving one of them is going to keep people from hurting each other, as opposed to keeping them from hurting each other with guns.
posted by vorfeed at 5:52 PM on October 11, 2008

Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people.
posted by philip-random at 6:08 PM on October 11, 2008

Really, the assault/semi-auto/concealed carry issues are the only ones of those which have me incensed, as opposed to just annoyed by politics-as-usual, but they are major issues.

That's really sad.
posted by JackFlash at 6:35 PM on October 11, 2008

So, back when I sold guns, most "civilian assault rifles" (the semi-automatic versions like the AR-15 and the various HKs, etc.) could easily and inexpensively be modified to become their full-auto military siblings with kits (or instructions for do-it-yourself folks) sold through the Shotgun News and similar publications. Is this no longer true?
posted by maxwelton at 6:44 PM on October 11, 2008

WRT "misconduct by federal authorities tasked with investigating them," there's this:

Re “Politics of Attack” (editorial, Oct. 8) and “Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths” (front page, Oct. 4):

As the lead federal prosecutor of the Weathermen in the 1970s (I was then chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of Michigan and took over the Weathermen prosecution in 1972), I am amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child.

Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.

Because Senator Obama recently served on a board of a charitable organization with Mr. Ayers cannot possibly link the senator to acts perpetrated by Mr. Ayers so many years ago.

I do take issue with the statement in your news article that the Weathermen indictment was dismissed because of “prosecutorial misconduct.” It was dismissed because of illegal activities, including wiretaps, break-ins and mail interceptions, initiated by John N. Mitchell, attorney general at that time, and W. Mark Felt, an F.B.I. assistant director.

William C. Ibershof

Mill Valley, Calif., Oct. 8, 2008

You may remember W. Mark Felt from a different context.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:14 PM on October 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

That's really sad.

I've already said that I'm a Democrat, and that these issues are not enough to keep me from voting for Obama, so I'm afraid I don't see what's so "sad" about my having secondary priorities which don't happen to match yours. And if you really think that banning tens of millions of commonly-owned weapons wouldn't be a "major" issue, especially in a divided nation where gun rights is a deeply contentious topic, I'm not really sure what to say. A total semi-auto ban seems quite likely to turn into a Drug War style mess, even if successfully passed... I can tell you that a hell of a lot of guns would "go missing" overnight, thus removing even the current amount of legal oversight into their use.

So, back when I sold guns, most "civilian assault rifles" (the semi-automatic versions like the AR-15 and the various HKs, etc.) could easily and inexpensively be modified to become their full-auto military siblings with kits (or instructions for do-it-yourself folks) sold through the Shotgun News and similar publications. Is this no longer true?

Those kits are illegal when possessed along with a semi-auto rifle, and the ATF has cracked down on them a lot in recent years, though I'm sure you can still get them from shady sources, same as with drugs and the like. I wouldn't suggest it, as the fine for possession of an unlicensed machine gun is very steep.

Guns simply aren't all that complicated; like I said before, they're based on pre-1900s technology. If you know what you're doing and are willing to make or source parts, you could certainly convert a semi-auto to full-auto (and that goes for all semi-autos, not just so-called "assault rifles"; I've heard of people doing it to a Ruger 10/22, presumably for emergency defense against a full-scale prairie-dog invasion). Hell, you could easily build a full-auto weapon from scratch, if you've got a tool shop and the proper know-how. This is one of the reasons why gun control isn't particularly likely to succeed, at least not if the goal is to keep people who want arms from arming themselves.

At any rate, the end of the video I linked to earlier addresses this. Despite the relative "ease" of such conversions, they're not that common in the wild, mainly because firing on full-auto is illegal, expensive (all that ammo, noooo~!), and difficult to aim (this is why most modern military rifles have a burst mode). On top of that, the conversions don't always work well, and often involve putting holes in your expensive gun... and probably also yourself, if you screw up the conversion and then try to fire it. The vast majority of shooters just don't bother, and the ones who do often end up converting it back.

Besides, it seems somewhat moot either way. People buy semi-auto firearms, and then they go target shooting. They convert them to full-auto, and then... go target shooting. There have been very few known crimes committed with full-auto weapons in the last forty years or so, so the fearmongering on this issue seems more than a little misplaced. Civilians don't tend to kill each other with rifles, regardless of type, which is why the hype over "assault weapons" and the like seems naive at best, and suspicious at worst.
posted by vorfeed at 8:40 PM on October 11, 2008

I'm sure that the gunhumpers going on and on about how their guns are protecting everyone's freedom doesn't at all put people off.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:13 AM on October 12, 2008

willy ayers is my homeboy
posted by xorry at 12:52 AM on October 12, 2008

My understanding is that speed was HUGE on the East Coast/SDS scene. That would certainly explain the radical paranoia and increasing disconnect. Sad.
posted by wuwei at 1:28 AM on October 12, 2008

If the fearmongering on the issue of automatic weapons is misplaced, the fearmongering on automatic weapons bans is equally misplaced. AFAIK many countries have successfully banned these weapons without encountering a "Drug War style mess;" in fact, could you be any more hyperbolic?
posted by mek at 2:45 AM on October 12, 2008

If the fearmongering on the issue of automatic weapons is misplaced, the fearmongering on automatic weapons bans is equally misplaced. AFAIK many countries have successfully banned these weapons without encountering a "Drug War style mess;" in fact, could you be any more hyperbolic?

Again: "automatic weapons", if by that you mean full-auto, are already effectively banned in the United States, and have been since the 30s. So yes, it's entirely possible to ban these weapons, and I never said it wasn't.

Banning semi-autos is an entirely different story. "Many countries" have not banned semi-autos -- even strict places like Germany and Japan allow you to possess semi-auto weapons with the correct gun license. The UK and Australia are about the only countries I can think of that have specifically banned all semi-autos, and it has indeed turned into a Drug War style mess in England, with more handguns and more handgun crime than ever before, and less oversight into the gun (black) market. Stabbings are way up there, too, so it's not as if the gun ban kept people from attacking each other. The Aussies turned in less than a million of their roughly seven million semi-autos, and crime rates in Australia have pretty much followed exactly the same pattern since as before, which makes one question why the ban was necessary in the first place... and why Australians should have to continue to risk arrest in order to keep the guns they're clearly not interested in getting rid of.

Besides, "many countries" don't have tens of millions of semi-auto firearms; we do. They also don't have a gun culture which reacts very strongly to these kinds of gun grabs; we do. And they don't have a justice system which seems to exist largely to fuel a violent, for-profit prison-industrial complex; we do. I don't think that banning semi-autos will always and everywhere lead to a Drug War style mess, but in America? Definitely, without question.

Trying to base our policy on those of other countries is not going to work, because guns are not even remotely the same issue here as elsewhere. We can look to other countries for ideas and examples (personally, I really like Switzerland), but the truth is that our gun policy has to address our issues, not someone else's, and that includes widespread ownership of semi-auto sporting arms.
posted by vorfeed at 8:07 AM on October 12, 2008

I'm sure that the gunhumpers going on and on about how their guns are protecting everyone's freedom doesn't at all put people off.

Actually I think vorfeed and jfuller have been exceptionally considerate explaining why they care about this particular issue without calling people names who disagree. You could maybe note their style.
posted by jessamyn at 12:43 PM on October 12, 2008 [6 favorites]

"River's Edge"? That movie came out, like, twenty years ago! The 80's are over, man.
posted by hydrophonic at 4:50 PM on October 12, 2008