ah, welcome to our contact today we discussed political violence with mark, right. i had to, to go deep to try to figure out what was going on in my mind. and i think there was a kind of an arrogance of self expression that because we felt so deeply that we would make bombs and because other people were there was no innocence when, when the united states military is murdering millions of people in vietnam, our self righteousness carried over and we said well, the expression of the self righteousness would build the movement. that's crazy it's. it's substitute self expressions for strategy. and that's pretty much what's happening or what has happened with the very few people who think that

they're fighting cops and fascists in the streets is somehow going to build the move strategy is much more important than self. ah, in the weather underground, a clandestine revolutionary organization that carried out a wave of bombings in the 1970, was seen by my father and other clergy members who were involved in viet nam, anti war protests. as one of the most self destructive forces on the left, these members of the clergy, many of whom including my father, were world war. 2 veterans had often become ministers because of their experiences . in war. they understood the poison of violence. one of the most prominent leaders of clergy and laity concerned about via dam to which my father belonged. was the catholic priest, phil berrigan, who was a highly decorated army, 2nd lieutenant who fought in the battle of the bulge. the young radicals of the vietnam era, including mark, who in 1968 as a leader of the students for

a democratic society, led the occupation of 5 buildings at columbia university. and later helped form the weather underground. did not turn to those on the religious left whose personal experiences with violence might have saved s t f, the weather underground, and the student anti war movement from self immolation. blinded by hubris, intoxicated by the last for violence and hyper masculinity and infected with the disease of moral purity, the leaders of the weather underground destroyed the largest anti war movement in the country. it was perhaps the single most important blow to the left since the which once led by senator joseph mccarthy, the leaders of the weather underground dismissed, but non violent left as useless cowards claiming they were the only true revolutionaries they embark as have many of those in today's black block and, and t for on

a campaign that proved to be counterproductive to the social and economic goals. they said they advocated rud. 50 years later, plays the role once played by the priests. phil and daniel berrigan, martin luther king and rabbi abraham heschel, his book underground. my life with s d. s, and the weatherman is a brutally honest deconstruction of the dangerous mis that captivated him. as a young man. i suspect that many of those in the black block, and then people will know more listen to his wisdom than did the young radical 5 decades ago, who dismissed the warnings from those on the religious left for whom violence was also not an abstraction rud, seize his old self in the mast faces of the black block and people who advocate violence and property destruction in the name of anti fascism. these faces he said, ignite deep embers of shame and guilt. join me to discuss his memoir underground.

my life with s. d. s and the weatherman and the lessons that the left must heed if it is to be successful and its struggle against the increasingly powerful forces of neil fascism is mark run. so mark is, you know, i think your book is brutally honest and incredibly important and took a lot of courage to write because you don't spare yourself in this. as all, i think, honest memoirs do not. so let's begin by talking about the allure of violence. some would say the intoxication of violence, that was something that you confronted when you went underground. and certainly at the fort dix planning for the bombing of fort dix that would have taken quite a few lives you were aware of that potential bombing, which never came off because the bomb makers blew themselves up. but let's talk about the allure of violence. well,

i can honestly say that i've never been attracted to violence, per se, for example, context sports or, or fighting and start from port terrify the violence, the way any normal person would. at the time though, i thought it was necessary. i convinced myself and my friends it was, it was more of a collective delusion. i've certainly the word delusion is often used by noam chomsky to, to describe the weatherman that we were deluded. and part of it was our believes that the country was right for revolution. then also associated with that and with it with no particular evidence, that was the case, just get more and more freshmen at columbia university where because we're a,

we're radical coming in to a school. so s t s was growing and that was somehow proves in our minds that revolution was great, was, was on the agenda. it was wishful thinking. and i think it was a self delusion of intellectuals. now, coupled with that, there was a theory we were followers of che guevara, we believe, the chaise model or chain fidel in the cuban revolution of a small band beginning. what we call arm struggle beginning guerrilla warfare against the repressive apparatus of the state, would then lead to a mass movement which would overthrow the model of cuba, the dictator. and in the model of the united states,

the militarism that was in power. so it was, it was, it was the the delusion of intellectuals, young intellectuals, i think, a form of idealism. and personally, i felt that that arm struggle or grew workfare was necessary. so i, we created the concept in our minds of been soldiers in a just revolutionary war. but of course got is the loser. it's, this is a certain center, right country. and what had been successful was organized and traditional student organizer, or rather student organizing, based on the traditions of unions, the civil rights movement of the even,

even the socialists and communists movements. you talk with people, you bring people in, you build the movement. when i got to columbia at the age of 18 and 965 right after the war had begun with main force troops. after the united states attacked vietnam was main force troops. i found that there were already people fellow students who were learning about the war and, and educating others. and trying to build an anti war movement. many of them were red diaper babies. that probably does ring a bell for you. red diaper babies. no. yeah. does we pair the sons and daughters of members of the old communist party or socialists who tended to be called think they were babies or labor people? and i think to some extent, as yourself, as, as a son of, of

a liberal clergyman who was himself a antiwar. would you say you qualify? there's a red diaper, baby of sorts. yeah, i mean, the religious left is a little different. but yes, i mean, clearly that experience when my father, i was a boy would take me to anti war demonstrations. my father was also like a lot of the clergy, of his generation had been in the war and been in combat. and, and there was a huge percentage, i'm not sure how much the secular, any war movement was aware of it, but a huge percentage of that clergy were combat veterans. uh huh. very important, very important. the. what i learned from the red diaper babies for the other kids was. busy we have to organize, bring people together, educate aside on a strategy creat coalitions. that's

a traditional methodology of organizing. and it was worse or less successful at columbia university from $965.00 to 1968. when the big uprising against the war and racism universe is involved with the war and it's an expansion of the harlem happen. so the, the, the military see and the aggressiveness. and the fascination with the necessity for violence came after that we miss identified what had been successful, the organization. and we said, no, we found a shortcut. the shortcut is militancy fighting cops showing, expressing how much we despised the war and how, how much were willing to sacrifice all the things that did not

help build the movement to organizing is strategic. the goal of organizing is always to the, to increase the numbers and power of a movement. we thought that was going to happen to violence. that's crazy. the opposite happened. we got isolated. and we, as you said, we split the movement over the, the bogus issue of our right to organize and know it was, there was a terrible defeat the weather underground. and i returned to the topic so often in my life. because i want to get a experi, i want to offer the experience to young people, so they don't have to make the same mistakes. i want to talk about mark a couple issues which you actually write about in the book. and that is 1st, the whole focus theory was a complete distortion of the cuban revolution. it was propagated by k and by feet

l, because they're the ones with the guns. but that's not how about tuesday was finally overthrown. in fact, of course, they were in the sierra, my estimate took him 4 days and trucks to get a vana after the dictator and flood b. essentially, they rewrote the history of the revolution to justify one party rule. and they eliminated other elements of the anti ben battista forces, such as, for example, the labor unions. the middle class elements, the religious elements, young people in the streets, 20000 people died in the cities, took to overthrow, but he sta. and it was not only fighting in the mountains but,

but once in power, you know, does this strong to f, her blood has been shed. you don't want to give up power. nobody does. that blood has, has solidified. and it's solidified the, the right to rule. so to speak, its anti democratic violence in its essence, i've talked a lot about this, but, but what that would change, you know, were doing was justifying one party rule, but also, in a sense, even worse than that, they were trying to use this model to create revolution throughout latin america. it never worked. it didn't work. and lead to change death in bolivia, of course in 1010 the server. yeah, we're talking yeah. oh good. right. we're talking now about events in $69.00,

where we were so intoxicated by the idea of guerilla warfare that we, it's the fact that she had been murdered assassinated and that the revolution, or rather the guerrilla warfare in, in bolivia handler, had led to defeat. that can even sink in because it was counter toronto, our ideology. that's the power of idealism. you know, in the words, sense of idealism. you think you're, i gives a real. but the only data you have for their reality is that you have them. there's a lot of idealism, not only on the left, but on the right to, i mean, when george w bush invaded iraq, he thought he was, he actually thought he was going to bring iraq and afghanistan. it was going to bring a democracy, american style, democracy. yeah, although,

because you're not quite as intellectually limited as george w bush, when we come back, we will continue our conversation about students for democratic society and the weather underground with the author, an activist, mark, rod blue, a ha, ah, working room, or should she popped in she said, well, i'm getting ready to go shopping for christmas. i wish there was a girl to buy another, shooting another safe part of american life shattered by violence. the gunman was armed with an a ar 15, semi automatic rifle. when the issue comes home, it's time to act. when we're filing on this issue, the other side wins by default,

lady that lived over there, i was walking. one of the dogs says, why do you wear again? were you scared me? nothing could take it off. it, i think that people need to take responsibility into their own hands and be prepared if those kinds of weapons were less available. we wouldn't have a lot of shootings that we certainly wouldn't have the number a desk with i welcome back on contact. we continue our conversation about the weather underground and political violence with the author, an activist, mark rud. there are 2 things in your book. i love your book by the way. i think it's a very important book. but i just want you to talk about them one,

you organize days of rage, i'll let you explain what that is in chicago, but the great black panther icon leader, fred hampton. it was later assassinated by the f. b i and the cargo police ah, is extremely critical. i think he calls that custer right or something. i'll let you talk about it. you don't listen and also, when you are about to go underground, which destroys s. d s over 100000 members across the country, the most potent anti war organisation in the country, the north vietnamese, who you are sympathetic towards. tell, tell you not to do it. we were on a trajectory, we couldn't stop ourselves literally. and even though we gave lip service to black leadership and to, to, to the 3rd, to the vietnamese, as, as the vanguard, or of anti imperialism. we thought we knew better. the only way i could

explain it is, is kind of white arrogance. we thought our ideas were so real. we also, i want to in, we want to, we want to be heroes. i want to be che guevara. you know, did you say you are, was the coolest person around? talk about days of rage. a colossal failure really. but explain what happened we called on revolutionary youth to gather in chicago, one year after the democratic national convention of well protests and the police riots. it was the opening of the conspiracy trial which was at the time known as the chicago 8th

of 4 in which they were 8 people, including bobby sealed from the black panthers were accused of conspiracy to riot. the it's kind of like we wanted to keep that level of a militancy and fighting alive a year later. we thought we would bring $10000.00 revolutionary youth. about $300.00 of us showed up and it was a terrible defeat. hundreds were beaten and jailed char, myself included, and we with, but we didn't stop and analyze and look at that as a test which we had failed. what we said instead was that was our one,

kara, now mankato was an original attempt to begin. the guerrilla warfare in cuba, let's say, was that around 53 or 50 for the, the, the, the 56 was the july 19th movement, 1956. but it failed. the original attempt an attack on a few been army barracks in the eastern part of the country at a place called the ca to was a terrible defeat, including fidel himself, being jail at our thinking was you have to start with defeats and then you, you, you come to final victory. so we had all kinds of intellectual rationalizations for why we were right. but it all comes down to arrogance and the inability to,

to, to actually evaluate the real situation. and it's not that different from now. the small amount of violence that happens in, in protests say for example, in june of 2020, after the murder of george floyd, that small amount of violence is used continually to justify the violence of the state. and the violence of the neo fascist. are you aware that in january 6, tonight of january, 6, after the neo fascist said attack the capital fox news played continuous clips footage of this of of, of, of a violent incident from june of 2020 in minneapolis. and that was somehow

their justification for the violence, the violent attack drunk on congress. so that plays into the hands of the government and of the fashions well, that's the whole, certainly those people like my father with a townhouse explosion. so this was to they were building any personnel bomb that would have gone off at a non commissioned officers dance at fort dix. you would have wounded and killed dozens of people who are feeling was that that would have given nixon a license to essentially declare martial law. that would have been a gift to the nixon administration. and many, many, many people, millions would have turned away from the anti war movement. it's i had to, to go deep to try to figure out what was going on in my mind. and i think there was

a kind of an arrogance of self expression that we cause we felt so deeply that we would make bombs and because other people were there was no innocence when, when the united states military is murdering millions of people in vietnam, our self righteousness carried over and we said, well, the expression of the self righteousness would build the movement. that's crazy, it's, it's substitutes. self expression for strategy. and that's pretty much what's happening. or what has happened with the very few of people who think that they're fighting cops and fascists in the streets is somehow going to build the movement. strategy is much more important than self expression. well,

he gets to this in the black block and parts of n, t for guilty of this, this idea that revolutionary activity is a form of catharsis. you know, of, as you call it self expression. i want to talk about what happened when you go underground, because i think that's also relevant to these cultish groups within black block in n t for you, right? i did not realize at the time that we had unwittingly reproduced conditions that all hermetically sealed coal, youth isolation, sleep deprivation, demanding arbitrary acts of loyalty to the group, even sexual initiation as bonding. it's strange that these practices can arise within any conspiratorial mastermind or leadership cabal. can you talk about that? well, our curry, that was the period before we went under ground, that was when the legal was that was the transition from

students for a democratic society to the weather underground. and, and you find me hermetically sealed, thinking and the isolation of idealogues to be very dangerous. now, now i don't know how to compare that our thinking to say something like oh man, i'm blocking what's, what's the name of it? a q and on a pure and on. but that involves billions of people who believe completely crazy stuff. like all democrats or satan, worshippers, and 10 of files, there's no evidence for any of that. and yet, they've created their own world. i think the problem appears to be that social

media allows for that development of polls based on reality it at a level much, much greater than than 10 people in the room. would you describe the weather underground as a cult? oh yes. that's. that's essentially what i was explaining in that person and it would you go so far as to say that at the time bill errors was the cold leader and bernard dorn, i don't want to single anybody out. the error was a collective error. we all made that error together. on the other hand, i do honor the people who got out people who left and realized that it was not. it was the wrong road and it was going to lead to defeat . whenever i meet somebody like that, who got out before i did, i say,

how come you were much more so much smarter than i was? let's, let's bring it into today. you've been very critical of the black block and anti fi would, and i agree with you. but let's take all of the issues we've discussed and apply them to where we are at this moment. that's somewhat difficult for me in that i suffer from my own p t s d. i know you and i when we've met before have discuss p t s day and and you as a war correspondent, you certainly have, you have had your struggle with it and i have to losing friends and, and comrades and, and making their choices. my form a p t s d is that i can't i don't know how to approach people who are making the same error,

the errors that i made 50 years before with obvious, disastrous results. i get all i get all emotional. i get angry. i say crazy things around which, which are counterproductive, you know, like typically i'll say an auntie. if i meet anybody who advocates violence, i'll say look, there's really only 2 kinds of people who advocate violence, very stupid people of which i was one of them or, and cops, which are you, are you very stupid or are you a cop? now that does, for some reason, people don't like to hear verse, i don't know why. well, i've dealt with both groups, black loc, an antique fo, and, ah, you know, just as you couldn't hear, fred hampton or the north vietnamese, you know, they live within their own echo chamber. and that of course is part of the tragedy that was author mark rod on his memoir, underground, my life with sds and the weatherman. thanks,

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