Another False Left- Right "Equivalence"

I read a comment at Confederate Yankee yesterday:

"The ideologues at the increasingly partisan Times managed to slip in another attack against the Tea Party Movement several days ago, comparing them to the domestic terrorists of the Weather Underground."

This is similar to a number of comments about the Weather Underground I have seen from the right, and I think it is time for me to tell my tale about this organization.

The story begins, rather uninterestingly, at the last SDS convention, I think in 1969. It is necessary to talk for a moment about internal movemet politics of a type all too familiar to us all on both sides of the political spectrum, to be very interesting. Naturally, the SDS was fragmented into innumerable factions, most of them, as we look back, clearly little more than self-serving power groups. The most right wing of all of them was an organization known as the Progressive Labor Party, as close to being neo-Stalinist as anything I ever saw on the left. Now, in the run-up to this convention, I saw for the first time a right wing tactic that we have since then become all too familiar with, most recently in the Texas school board packing. The Progressive Labor Party at that time had a membership of around 800 to 1000, in a movement that was routinely mobilizing millions around the country to protest the Vietnam war. Yet, by systemsticall packing the local meetings at which convention delegates were chosen, they managed to amass a voting bloc of (I estimate) about 600 of the convention's 1500 delegates. This, combined with the typical right wing dishonesty about their intentions, gave them virtual control of the convention.

After a couple of days, when it became clear that this minuscule faction had effectively seized the SDS, approximately 600 of the 1500 delegates walked out of the main convention room, into another room, and began discussing what to do. As a couple of more days passed, this increased to about 900 delegates, leaving a minority still participating in the main convention. And yes, I counted. I am the only person I know who did. When I have said on my blog that I have been counting meeting attendees since the '60's, I wasn't kidding.

Participating in this meeting was a group including the now infamous Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who seized the opportunity to press an agenda which, while not as extreme as what they would advocate later, was far beyond what most of us were interested in. So, within a short period of time, this group split again, leaving perhaps 300 to 400 people still in the room with Ayers and Dohrn. These people acted to establish what became known as the Weatherman

But there is more to the story. A large number of these people were alienated from the Weatherman within the first couple of months, as they began to understand the grotesque inappropriateness of their apocalyptic plans.

So, what are we left with? By the time the Weatherman went "undergroud" and set about blowing themselves up and heading themselves toward prison, I believe there were only a few dozen, or perhaps a hundred people at the outside, who were the true adherents of the Weatherman. And they were angrily opposed by the entire rest of the movement.

So this is what we have now: On the one hand, a political faction of, allegedly, millions of people, created and constantly egged on toward violence by national news media, and members of one of our two major political parties, versus something on the left which was a minuscule, outcast group, widely condemned for their violent positions. In fact, the rest of us on the left were more critical of the Weatherman than people on the right have been toward the lunatic madmen in the Hutaree Militia.

There is, as usual, no equivalence on the left and the right. You have millions of potentially violent people, versus dozens, supposedly mainstream leaders who clearly support these people, versus essentially no support at all, and above all, a toying with violence versus a rejection of it.

Comments

Montana said…
I love that they asked for “Public Defenders” (and they thought they could bring down our government), undercover FBI agent, sweet. Since their inception the Teaparty crowd (not a movement since they do have the numbers or clout) because they are haters not debaters or as others have dubbed them screamers not dreamers. The simpleton Tea baggers are the same whiners that were crying when the McCain/Bailin ticket lost. Now that their yelling and screaming failed to stop the health care debate and the bill from passing they are crying again. Lets face it the Republicans had eight years to deal with health care, immigration, climate change and financial oversight and governance and they failed. The Republicans are good at starting wars (two in eight years, with fat contracts to friends of Cheney/Bush) but not at winning wars as seen by the continuing line of body bags that keep coming home. Instead of participating in the health care debate of ideas the Republicans party turned inward to your old fashion obstructionist party. In my opinion the Republican Waterloo loss was caused by the party allowing a small portions (but very loud) of the republican party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” to take over their party. I will admit that this fringe is very good at playing “Follow the Leader” by listening to their dullard leaders, Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush, Savage, Sarah Bailin, Orly Taitz, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the Blowhards and acting as ill programmed robots (they have already acted against doctors that preform abortions). The Teaparty crowd think they can scare, intimidate and force others to go along with them by comments like “This time we came unarmed”, let me tell you something not all ex-military join the fringe militia crazies who don’t pay taxes and run around with face paint in the parks playing commando, the majority are mature and understand that the world is more complicated and grey than the black and white that these simpleton make it out to be and that my friend is the point. The world is complicated and presidents like Hamiliton, Lincoln, and Roosevelt believe that we should use government a little to increase social mobility, now its about dancing around the claim of government is the problem. The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition. Although some Republicans are trying to distant themselves from this fringe most of them, having no game plan/ vision for our country, are just going along and fanning the flames. For a party that gave us Abraham Lincoln, it is tragic that the ranks are filled with too many empty suits. But they now claim they have changed, come on, what sucker is going to believe that? All I can say to you is remember Waterloo.
Poll P. said…
Wow. good stuff, both of you.
Green Eagle said…
Montana,

You have a lot of interesting things to say. I see that your name is in black, which leads me to believe you don't have a blog of your own. I think you would be a good blogger. It's pretty easy to set one up, and it's free. I think you should give it a try.

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