From the ground up
Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, or maybe it’s just because things are so bad in the country, but after seeing The Weather Underground, a documentary film about the radical left-wing group, The Weathermen, and watching the great, independently produced television ads deriding President Bush’s policies, I’m ready to take it to the street.
Not pipe bombs and window-breaking, mind you, but I want to be more involved. There was a line from the movie last night that went something like “If you’re just living your white, suburban life, too afraid to do anything about the violence in the world, you’re responsible for the violence whether you realize it or not.”
It’s amazing to think of the differences between the time of a group like the Weathermen and today. On one hand, there’s the revolutionary spirit of old that seems to be missing today. But on the other hand, there’s this great tool – the Internet – that allows a form of organization that was never available back then.
I know that this idea is nearly as old as the Internet itself and has been pretty well absorbed by the mainstream, but I still marvel at the possibilities that are still out there. We just need to act.
