The 1969 Weatherman Statement Revisited: Excerpts from Part 2

It’s not likely that the New York Times will mark the 40th anniversary of the June 1969 Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] National Convention in Chicago by reprinting excerpts from the position paper of the Weatherman faction of SDS. So following are some excerpts from Part 2 of this historic position paper (that originally appeared in the June 18, 1969 issue of New Left Notes) which might interest U.S. anti-war activists in 2009—during the current U.S. historical era of “endless permanent war abroad and economic depression at home”:

“Not every colony of people oppressed by imperialism lies outside the boundaries of the U.S.. Black people within North America, brought here 400 years ago as slaves and whose labor, as slaves built this country, are an internal colony within the confines of the oppressor nation. What this means is that black people are oppressed as a whole people, in the institutions and social relations of the country, apart from simply the consideration of their class position, income, skill, etc., as individuals. What does this colony look like? What is the basis for its common oppression and why is it important?

“One historically important position has been that the black colony only consists of the black belt nation in the South, whose fight for national liberation is based on a common land, culture, history and economic life…

“This position is wrong; in reality, the black colony does not exist simply as the `black belt nation,’ but exists in the country as a whole. The common oppression of black people and the common culture growing out of that history are not based historically or currently on their relation to the territory of the black belt, even though that has been a place of population concentration and has some very different characteristics than the north, particularly around the land question.

“Rather, the common features of oppression, history and culture which unify black people as a colony (although originating historically in a common territory apart from the colonizers, i.e., Africa, not the South) have been based historically on their common position as slaves, which since the nominal abolition of slavery has taken the form of caste oppression, and oppression of black people as a people everywhere that they exist. A new black nation, different from the nations of Africa from which it came, has been forged by the common historical experience of importation and slavery and caste oppression…

“What is specifically meant by the term caste is that all black people, on the basis of their common slave history, common culture and skin color are systematically denied access to particular job categories (or positions within job categories), social position, etc., regardless of individual skills, talents, money or education. Within the working class, they are the most oppressed section…Token exceptions aside, the specific content of this caste oppression is to maintain black people in the most exploitative and oppressive jobs and conditions…

“Thus, northern blacks…have a single class interest, along with all other black people in the US, as members of the Black Proletarian Colony.” (end of part 2 excerpts)

(New Left Notes 6/18/69)

Supreme Court Justice-Designate Sotomayor's Pavia & Harcourt Connection

Neither the special interests of French and Italian government agencies and Italian, German, Spanish and other European clients nor the special interests of Israeli government agencies and Israeli clients are supposed to be represented on the U.S. Supreme Court Bench.

Yet, ironically, the former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney that Democratic President Obama recently appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, worked between 1984 and 1991 as an associate and partner in the corporate law firm of Pavia & Harcourt—which apparently represented the special interests of French and Italian government agencies and Italian, German, Spanish and other European clients.

As the Business Wire news service revealed in a May 12, 2000 article:

“Pavia & Harcourt, a 52-year old firm founded by international lawyer Enrico Pavia, has entered into an affiliation with Studio Legale Tonucci, one of the largest and fastest growing law firms in Italy …

“Pavia & Harcourt and Studio Legale Tonucci represent American, Italian, French, German, Spanish and other European clients primarily in corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, banking, finance, real estate, litigation, arbitration, licensing, franchising, media and intellectual property….Pavia & Harcourt's clients include Unicredito Italiano, Banco di Sicilia, INVESCO Private Capital, Edelson Technology Partners, Olivetti, Fendi, Villeroy & Boch, Lavazza, Media Planning, S.A., Screenvision Cinema Network, Stagebill, Sommer Allibert, Laboratoires Arkopharma, SNPE Group, and various governmental entities of the Republics of France and Italy.

"`The alliance is a direct response to the expanding needs of our clients in the U.S. and Italy ,’ said George Pavia, managing partner of 34-lawyer Pavia & Harcourt. `We are pleased to be associated with a firm of Studio Tonucci's caliber.’…

“Pavia & Harcourt has terminated its 40-year relationship with Pavia e Ansaldo, the Italian firm that it founded in 1960. Pavia & Harcourt is located at 600 Madison Avenue .”

Besides apparently working as a prosecutor of African-American defendants when she was an Assistant D.A. in the early 1980s, former Pavia & Harcourt law firm partner Sotomayor also, coincidentally, was a member of the State of New York Mortgage Agency [Sonny Mae] board of directors--which apparently encouraged low-income tenants in New York City to saddle themselves with "low-interest" mortgages and become "first-time homebuyers" instead of just fighting for stronger federal rent control laws.

The 1969 Weatherman Statement Revisited: Excerpts from Part 1

It’s not likely that the New York Times will mark the 40th anniversary of the June 1969 Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] National Convention in Chicago by reprinting excerpts from the position paper of the Weatherman faction of SDS. So following are some excerpts from Part 1 of this historic position paper (that originally appeared in the June 18, 1969 issue of New Left Notes) which might interest U.S. anti-war activists in 2009—during the current U.S. historical era of “endless permanent war abroad and economic depression at home”:

“The contradiction between the revolutionary peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America and the imperialists headed by the United States is the principal contradiction in the contemporary world…

“So the very first question people in this country must ask in considering the question of revolution is where they stand in relation to the United States as an oppressor nation, and where they stand in relation to the masses of people throughout the world whom US imperialism is oppressing.

“…It is the oppressed peoples of the world who have created the wealth of this empire and it is to them that it belongs; the goal of the revolutionary struggle must be the control and use of this wealth in the interests of the oppressed peoples of the world.

“…We are within the heartland of a worldwide monster, a country so rich from its worldwide plunder that even the crumbs doled out to the enslaved masses within its borders provide for material existence very much above the conditions of the masses of people of the world. The US empire, as a worldwide system, channels wealth, based upon the labor and resources of the rest of the world, into the United States. The relative affluence existing in the United States is directly dependent upon the labor and natural resources of the Vietnamese, the Angolans, the Bolivians and the rest of the peoples of the Third World. All of the United Airlines Astrojets, all of the Holiday Inns, all of Hertz’s automobiles, your television set, car and wardrobe already belong, to a large degree, to the people of the rest of the world.

“Therefore, any conception of `socialist revolution’ simply in terms of the working people in the United States, failing to recognize the full scope of interests of the most oppressed people of the world, is a conception of a fight for a particular privileged interest…While the control and use of the wealth of the Empire for the people of the whole world is also in the interests of the vast majority of the people in this country, if the goal is not clear from the start we will further the preservation of class society, oppression, war, genocide, and the complete emiseration of everyone, including the people of the US.

“The goal is the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world…Winning state power in the US will occur as a result of the military forces of the US overextending themselves around the world…" (end of part 1 excerpts).

(New Left Notes 6/18/69)

Why Weatherman Faction Excluded Big Media Reporters From 1969 SDS National Convention

As we approach the 40th anniversary of the June 1969 Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] National Convention in Chicago, the newspapers of the Big Media Monopoly conglomerates seem to be characterizing some of the anti-war/anti-imperialist activists who were members of the Weather Underground during the 1970s in a morally unflattering way. One reason might be that New Left members of the Weatherman faction of SDS apparently excluded Big Media reporters from the June 1969 SDS National Convention and issued the following June 1969 press release to explain why:

“Representatives of the capitalistic media have been excluded from the 1969 SDS National Convention for the following reasons:

“1. Mass media in the U.S. serve the interests of those who own it and their allies—SDS’s goal is to build a society with no ruling class in which the interests of the people are served. Those who work for the mass media ultimately serve the interests of their bosses despite their best intentions.

“2. The mass media fool the people—create false consciousness—in many ways: distortions, half-truths, commercialization, sensationalism and the placing of ideas, words, and events out of context. As long as people have a false sense of reality, they will not move in a revolutionary way.

“3. Repressive governmental agencies use journalists in their attempt to destroy our movement. Police photographers and investigators pose as professional newsmen, and FBI agents pressure journalists to give them information. Recently a New York Times reporter, authorized by his paper, gave testimony to the House Internal Security Committee—successor to HUAC. As long as the media continues to serve the ruling class and not the people—those who work for that media will be forced to act against the people’s movement.

“4. Our revolutionary movement has developed its own media. Unlike the capitalist media—where those who own it make their money from the labor of the working press—the movement media operate in the interest of the people and serve to fill the need to analyze the true nature of the capitalist society. The workers of the movement media are active participants in the revolutionary movement, not observers. Only active participants in struggle can portray that struggle with the necessary clarity, honesty, and creativity.”

1998 Interview About 1968 Columbia Student Revolt With Ex-Weatherman Leader Bernardine Dohrn--Conclusion

(The following 1998 interview first appeared in the May 1998 issue of Z magazine. See parts 1-6 below. To see the current issue of Z magazine, you can check out its web site at

http://www.zmag.org/zmag ).

We’ve seen a revival of the anti-war movement on campuses like Ohio State [in 1998]. What’s behind this?

Bernardine Dohrn [BD]: The protest at Ohio State [in 1998] was startling, because the campuses were again denied to the warmakers. It’s extraordinary that the [Democratic Clinton] Administration thought that they could go to the campus to make war. I think they were lulled into it because they somehow thought that the Gulf War put Vietnam finally behind them.

Vietnam will never be behind the U.S. So the fact that students spoke out, disrupted, and asked demanding, probing questions: “Why? Why does it make sense? How can you bomb somebody into agreement with you? Why should a civilian population pay the price for its despicable leaders? How can the United States act alone against the rest of the world? Shouldn’t the United Nations and international law bodies be in play here?”

Those questions about American policy toward Iraq were not fully shaped into a whole analysis. But they were the right questions, the moral questions, the ethical questions. We will not allow immoral, unjust and illegal policy to be conducted in our name. That’s the heart of democracy. And the everlasting legacy of Columbia.

If the immorality of U.S. foreign policy is not altered, could the Columbia Student Revolt happen again?

BD: You know the plight that we have today [in 1998] is the plight that we started with in 1968, too. The notion that “people can’t make a difference.” The students who occupied the buildings at Columbia began as a small minority. It was not a majority. Remember that people who occupied the buildings were immediately surrounded by thousands of opposing “jocks” and right-wing students jeering at them. But the forces they unleashed there by being on the right track—not right about everything, but mainly on the right track about the oppressive U.S. role in the world, and in the Black community nearby, meant that the Cox Commission Report on Columbia University—by the final days of the Columbia Revolt—found that: “the revolt enjoyed wide and deep support among the students and junior faculty; and, in lesser degree, among the senior professors. The grievances the rebels felt were felt equally by a still larger number, probably a majority of the students.”

That’s what happens. A small group of people acting in concert for justice and peace throw into motion invisible questions held by a lot of people. They challenge that notion that “we can’t make a difference.”

We all have a drive to be free, to be connected to others, to recognize and reject the fact that many of us are non-poor because someone else is poor. Today [in 1998] enormous effort goes into convincing the American public that we’re just consumers of media manipulation and sound-bites and spin doctors. That we care only about ourselves, money, and “stuff.” That acting out of passion and conviction “doesn’t make a difference.” But all of history shows that it does. (end of article)

1998 Interview About 1968 Columbia Student Revolt With Ex-Weatherman Leader Bernardine Dohrn--Part 6

(The following 1998 interview first appeared in the May 1998 issue of Z magazine. See parts 1-5 below. To see the current issue of Z magazine, you can check out its web site at

http://www.zmag.org/zmag ).

In the 1970s, the women’s liberation movement developed and grew. Were you involved in any feminist groups when the new wave was originating?

Bernardine Dohrn [BD]: When I came to New York in 1967, I became part of a group of women. Suddenly we were meeting once a week, talking with other women. It seemed to be happening spontaneously everywhere. This small women’s group met through 1967-1968, just discussing our lives, really. How our personal concerns tied to bigger issues. We worked our way toward our understanding of how much gender influenced how we thought about ourselves and ways in which being a woman at that moment in time created barriers to full humanness. We “discovered” together the ways in which male supremacy influenced every aspect of our lives.

The women students who took part in the Columbia rebellion, of course, on the one hand had a secondary role and were relegated to the service of the great men speakers. On the other hand, Columbia and Barnard women were, themselves, critical organizers, analysts, thinkers, and speakers.

So women were coming to radical consciousness at that period of time. Part of what we were doing was, I think, not surprisingly, coming back to ourselves through the process of having been involved in struggling for equality and freedom and justice on behalf of others.

One of the most interesting things about Revolution and social change struggle is the relationship between external and internal change. It’s not an either/or process. You are transformed and opened to the possibility of who you can become, in the process of getting involved in justice and fairness for other people.

The real heart of the 1960s movements to me was that rejection on the part of millions of young people in the United States that “other people are not like us,” that there’s a “them” and an “us”, that the enemy is not human. The solidarity of humanity can be forged across different lines.

Today [in 1998] we’re told that people act only in their immediate self-interest. History is replete with examples which belie this reductionist, reactionary notion. Columbia exemplifies the capacity of people to choose to engage with a resistant world, to act as if people can be better, to challenge racism and national chauvinism.

Do you think the gains the women’s liberation movement made can ever be rolled back or reversed?

BD: Gains can always be unraveled. And frequently are. Unintended consequences happen all along the way of social change. Some things were changed forever, obviously. The role of women in the United States and in the world is not going to go back to what it was. There are powerful forces at work trying to control women’s bodies, to put women back in “their place”, to lock us exclusively back in the home, to divide more privileged women from women who suffer the most, as in welfare reform. All of these forces are constantly at work. Not just in the women’s movement, but in all social change movements. (end of part 6)

1998 Interview About 1968 Columbia Student Revolt With Ex-Weatherman Leader Bernardine Dohrn--Part 5

(The following 1998 interview first appeared in the May 1998 issue of Z magazine. See parts 1-4 below. To see the current issue of Z magazine, you can check out its web site at
http://www.zmag.org/zmag ).

Where were you and what were your first thoughts when you heard that Martin Luther King had been assassinated? You had some personal contact with Martin Luther King, hadn’t you?

Bernardine Dohrn [BD]: When Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference [SCLC] came to Chicago in 1965, I was a law student. I went to work for them on the West Side of Chicago, helping to organize a city-wide rent strike against slumlords. People put their rent into escrow accounts and fixed up their own buildings. SCLC organized marches for open housing into exclusively white neighborhoods every weekend.

So my life was transformed. My understanding of society was deepened through practical legal work with King and his civil rights organizers in Chicago that Winter and Spring of 1965-1966.

I was attending a meeting at the Guild offices to plan the Democratic National Convention protest legal support when somebody ran in saying that King had been assassinated in Memphis. We didn’t know what to do, but we all went downstairs—this was on Beekman Street—and got on the subway and went to Times Square. Which apparently tens of thousands of other people were doing. I don’t even know why we went there.

King’s open opposition to the War in Vietnam and his determination to move toward the labor movement, toward support of Black labor, those two forces were pushing him to connect issues. And that connection of issues, I think, is what pushed students, pushed me, pushed the Black movement into revolutionary consciousness. In a way, part of what was going on that Spring of 1968 was the recognition that the issues we cared about were not separate. That it was part of one system. And it was that understanding which became explosive.

Martin Luther King was a victim of COINTELPRO. Other people who have been victims of COINTELPRO are still locked up in the 1990s [and currently]. In terms of Columbia SDS, you have Dave Gilbert still locked up. In other countries they give amnesty to political prisoners. In the U.S. that doesn’t happen. Why do you think the establishment’s so reluctant to release some of the activists from the 1960s? And, in terms of the Columbia Revolt and student activism, what was Dave Gilbert’s role?

BD: I met David in 1967 when I spoke at Columbia Law School to organize a Guild chapter there. Then saw him during the November 1967 anti-war Rusk demonstration. I met Teddy Gold both of those times, too. Teddy, who died in March 1970 in an explosion at a New York townhouse, was an activist and a leader of the SDS chapter at Columbia.

David, you know, is one of those brilliant figures who was a real intellectual. A classic Columbia student. A political economist, who loved to talk theory. Who, if it hadn’t been 1968, would surely have become a professor and an academic and written books. Who was and is a gentle person.

But David and Teddy, like all of us, were thrown into this, were lucky enough, really, to be offered the opportunity to step into this cauldron. We felt the world didn’t have to be like this.

David remains both an intellectual and a determined freedom fighter in prison. I think the other Columbia alums think about him and acknowledge his determination and his clarity of vision in a very special way.

There’s no question that it’s important to the government to pretend that the political activists of that period were “violent”, “criminal” and “crazy”. I think the authorities remain reluctant to put that period behind us with justice, rather than propaganda wars. Amnesty should be granted not just to draft resisters, which was done in the late 1970s, but to all prisoners of conscience from that period. We criminalize so much behavior in this society, it is essential for the government to pretend that these were not acts of social commitment, but “crimes”. (end of part 5)