The Weather Underground

The Weather Underground Organization (WUO), commonly known as the Weather Underground, was an American extreme left-wing organization founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the w:University of Michigan. Originally called Weatherman, the group became known colloquially as the Weathermen. Weatherman organized in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their supporters. Their political goal, stated in print after 1974, was to create a revolutionary party to overthrow U.S. imperialism.

Quotes

• U.S. bombers are now raining death on all Indochina. Chemical defoliants have changed beautiful, lush countryside into a barren wasteland, uninhabitable for generations. Whole rice crops have been wiped out. And the Vietnamese revealed to scientists that defoliants cause severe genetic damage to human beings. A pregnant woman who drinks water which contains defoliant is more likely to have a malformed child than a woman exposed to atomic radiation in Hiroshima. The whole population of 5 Northeastern provinces of South Vietnam is being forcibly relocated to create 60 mile wide free-fire zone for Amerikan bombers. There is open speculation in Washington about using tactical nuclear weapons in this area. This is not a war against the people who are fighting now - it is a war against the future.
  • "Bombing of the Capitol" (1971)
• We attacked the Capitol because it is, along with the White House and the Pentagon, the worldwide symbol of the government which is now attacking Indochina. To millions of people here and in Latin America, Africa and Asia, it is a monument to U.S. domination over the planet. The invaders of Laos will not have peace in this country. Young people here will do everything we can to harass, disrupt and destroy this murderous government. The thousands of people who have begun to protest and fight this new escalation are saying to the world that we will retaliate against Ameriika's crimes. Our actions, our protests and the spirit of our resistance will be welcomed and supported by people all over the world.
  • "Bombing of the Capitol" (1971)
• The men who are running this war are a new vicious breed of murderers. Kissinger smilingly referred to Nixon's address as his "End of the World" speech, while Amerika moves closer to war with China.
  • "Bombing of the Capitol" (1971)

Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism (1974)

This accumulated productive power is used for the most selfish and backward purposes. Whereas this wealth is produced by the people of the world it is used to enrich the idle handful that controls it, and to subjugate the dispossessed with the destructive power of economic control and war.

US society is corrupted by the values that necessarily accompany piracy - racism, greed, competitiveness, brutality, sexism, callousness.

The society is the rat-race, marked by an anti-social premium on individualism. There is a stark poverty for masses of people materially and culturally, a poverty in the quality of life.

US imperialism is the greatest destroyer of human life on earth. It is in whole an economic, political and cultural system. It feeds on piracy of the Third World. It colonizes Black and Third World people with the US and dives, exploits, rapes and attempts to buy off poor and working people. Because of imperialism people live in shanty-towns in Saigon and Rio De Janeiro. The same system is responsible for the sub-standard conditions of one quarter of the housing in this country. Us imperialism is a parasite on the Third World, and traps us in a culture of waste and death. For the benefit of imperialism we live in a society either at war or producing and preparing for war all the times.

• Here is PRAIRIE FIRE, our political ideology- a strategy for anti-imperialism and revolution inside the imperial US. It comes out of our own practice of the last five years and reflects a diversity of experiences. This paper is not the product of one or two people, nor even a small handful of us. Rather PRAIRIE FIRE represents the politics and collective efforts of an organization. It has been the focus of our study groups and our political education.
  • Introduction

• PRAIRIE FIRE is written to communist-minded people, independent organizers and anti-imperialists; those who carry the traditions and lessons of the struggles of the last decade, those who join in the struggles of today. PRAIRIE FIRES is written to all sisters and brothers who are engaged in armed struggle against the enemy. It is written to prisoners, women's groups, collectives, study groups, workers' organizing committees, communes, GI organizers, consciousness-raising groups, veterans, community groups and revolutionaries of all kinds; to all who will read, criticize and bring its content to life in practice. It is written as an argument against those who oppose action and hold back the struggle.
  • Introduction
• The unique and fundamental condition of this time is the decline of US imperialism. Our society is in social and economic crisis and assumption about the US are turned on their heads. These are hard conditions to live through. But they are favorable for the people and for revolution.
  • Chapter One, "Arm the Spirit"

• Our intention is to disrupt the empire... to incapacitate it, to put pressure on the cracks, to make it hard to carry out its bloody functioning against the people of the world, to join the world struggle to attack from the inside.
  • Chapter One, "Arm the Spirit"

• Our intention is to forge an underground... a clandestine political organization engaged in every form of struggle, protected from the eyes and weapons of the state, a base against repression, to accumulate lessons, experience and constant practice, a base from which to attack.
  • Chapter One, "Arm the Spirit"

• Revolutionary war will be complicated and protracted. It includes mass struggle and clandestine struggle, peaceful and violent, political and economic, cultural and military, where all forms are developed in harmony with the armed struggle. Without mass struggle there can be no revolution. Without armed struggle there can be no victory.
  • Chapter One, "Arm the Spirit"

• In the wake of the US defeat in Vietnam comes an unprecedented governmental crisis. Watergate is a magnificent victory of the struggle of the 60's, a reflection of the war coming home. Crisis chases crisis as state leaders search for a consolidating strategy. The turmoil is indicative of serious and fatal weakness in the system. It offers an unparalleled opportunity for revolutionary and popular movements.
  • Chapter One, "Arm the Spirit"

• The empire feeds on war. War is necessary for expansion and colonial control, but unsuccessful and unjust war loosens the imperialist's hold over the home base.
  • Chapter One, "What We Think"
• Our organized forces are small, the enemy's forces are huge. We live inside the oppressor nation, particularly suited to urban guerilla warfare. We are strategically situated in the nerve centers of the international empire, where the institutions and symbols of imperial power are concentrated. The cities will be a major battleground, for the overwheliming majority of people live in the cities; the cities are our terrain.
  • Chapter One, "Arm the Spirit"
• We live in a whirlwind; nonetheless, time is on the side of the guerillas. Fighting the enemy is urgent, and we have a duty do all we can.
• Revolution is a dialectical process of destruction and creation. In the US, revolution is intimately bound to the process of defeating imperialism around the world. Any conception of socialism defined in national terms, within so extreme and predatory an oppressor nation as the US, is a view that leads in practice to fight for particular privileged interest and is every dangerous ideology. Active combat against empire is the only foundation for socialist revolution in the oppressor nation.
  • Chapter One, "What We Believe"
• Socialism is the total opposite of capitalism/imperialism. It is the rejection of empire and white supremacy. Socialism is the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the eradication o the social system based on profit. Socialism means control of the productive forces for the good of the whole community instead of the few who live on hilltops and in mansions. Socialism means priorities based on human need instead of corporate greed. Socialism creates the conditions for a decent and creative quality of life for all.
  • Chapter One, "What We Believe"

• A people's history is a powerful weapon. In the hands of the oppressors, history is twisted and caricatured. In the arsenal of the revolution, it helps us draw the difficult lessons from past struggles and identify the resistance which has always opposed the enemy.
  • Chapter Three, On the Road: Impressions of US History

• The truth about the Rosenbergs is just today being understood-another step on the long march toward exposing the crimes of this empire and uncovering the truth about our own past.
  • Chapter Three, On the Road: Impressions of US History

• US imperialism is the greatest destroyer of human life on earth. It is in whole an economic, political and cultural system. It feeds on piracy of the Third World. It colonizes Black and Third World people with the US and dives, exploits, rapes and attempts to buy off poor and working people. Because of imperialism people live in shanty-towns in Saigon and Rio De Janeiro. The same system is responsible for the sub-standard conditions of one quarter of the housing in this country. Us imperialism is a parasite on the Third World, and traps us in a culture of waste and death. For the benefit of imperialism we live in a society either at war or producing and preparing for war all the times.
  • Chapter Four: "Imperialism in Crisis: The Third World"

• The systematic domination of women is an underpinning of imperialism: under imperialism, the organization and fabric of society - the family, production, reproduction, and all social relations - keep women dependent and powerless. Sexism is the institutionalized and encouraged system of control.
  • Chapter Four
• Zionism does not represent the Jews. It is a racist ideology based on the claim that "God"chose a people superior to others. It has been consistently used as n alternative to class struggle and socialism for Jews, undermining Jewish progressive and working-class traditions.
  • Chapter Four
• Their solution is a democratic secular Palestine that will accommodate all Palestinians: Jews, Moslems and Christians. The Palestinian Liberation Organization is the umbrella organization which coordinates policy of the liberation forces.
  • Chapter Four
• The modern male-run nuclear family, when we tear away the veil of sentimentality, is the basic unit of capitalist society. Capitalism and the modern family matured together historically, feeding each other's development. In the family, women both reproduce the labor force and begin the socialization process of the new generation, which is essential to the productive system and the functioning of society. Women bear the major responsibility for the nurturing, health and education of families. These are treated like personal problems, yet they are necessary tasks, fulfilled at minimal cost and effort to the imperialists.
  • Chapter Four
• Modern US society, organized for the business of imperialism, is a place where young people face particular oppression. Schools, the family, the media, all attempt to socialize us into a competitive, acquisitive, individualized system. The end result is intended to be competitive sexual roles, marriage, and alienating, humiliating work as functionaries for imperialism.
  • Prairie Fire, Chapter Five: Imperialism in Crisis: THe Home Front.
• Profit chases greed in a reckless race across the Earth
  • Chapter Five: Imperialism in Crisis: THe Home Front.
• We are living in a huge and naturally beautiful land. The mountains, the desertsand the plains hold the riches of history from Indian tribes who dwelt here - places like Four Corners and thee Black Hills, sacred land to the Navaho and the Sioux. Eagles fly overhead in some areas, and coyotes howl at the moon. Snow lands, river lands: traveled many times, seen by people's eye.
  • Chapter Five: Imperialism in Crisis: The Home Front
• All economic activity that does not go to satisfy human need is waste. Advertising and marketing (a 30$ billion a year business), useless consumer goods, planned obsolescence, bureaucracy, the military - all aspects of waste - add up to the social cost of maintaining this outmoded system. It is working people and the oppressed of empire who bear the cost.
  • Chapter Five: Imperialism in Crisis: The Home Front
• This accumulated productive power is used for the most selfish and backward purposes. Whereas this wealth is produced by the people of the world it is used to enrich the idle handful that controls it, and to subjugate the dispossessed with the destructive power of economic control and war
  • Chapter Five: Imperialism in Crisis: The Home Front
• This irrational and revolting system leaves much social wealth wasted and undeveloped. What is produced bears little relationship to what is needed. For this reason Marxist-Leninists speak of the "anarchy of production" when we refer to the way productive forces are organized under imperialism. The great injustice of this system is that it leaves its potential unrealized while maintaining scarcity for billions of people.
  • Chapter Five: Imperialism in Crisis: The Home Front
• US society is corrupted by the values that necessarily accompany piracy - racism, greed, competitiveness, brutality, sexism, callousness. The ruling class calls the backward, criminal aspects of culture into being and sets them into motion. The society is the rat-race, marked by an anti-social premium on individualism. There is a stark poverty for masses of people materially and culturally, a poverty in the quality of life.
  • Chapter Five: Imperialism in Crisis: The Home Front
• We are taught that our biology is our destiny. We are conditioned to look and act within narrow confines to fulfill our primary role as sexual partners and reproducers. Distorted and competitive standards of beauty are the surface over a whole system of sexual objectification. We live in an anti-life culture, where women are denied control of our bodies- where sexual repression and hand in hand taboos go hand with prostitution and sexual exploitation. Men are to taught to use women.
  • Chapter Five: Imperialism in Crisis: The Home Front
• The oppression of women pervert the cultural values of the whole society. Men are alienated from children and from human emotion. Women are cut off from one another, threatened and competing. Sexism is a form of cultural conditioning which enables the system to exploit everyone.
  • Chapter Five: Imperialism in Crisis: The Home Front
• Sexism, which denies the humanity of women, destroys the humanity of men. Men, too, are understanding that sexism makes them emotionally barren and culturally warped. In response to the challenge of women, many men have begun to make a commitment to struggle against sexism. These allies are a victory of the women's movement. They are an indication of the potential for further alliances with those in struggle and with oppressed people everywhere.
  • Chapter Five: Imperialism in Crisis: The Home Front
• Monopoly capital/imperialism is an irrational system. It is not organized to meet human needs. It is run by a very small ruling class whole only morality is the morality of the maximum profit. This handful of white men control the enormous concentrations of wealth, the means of production, the government These are the imperialists, the common enemy. Thirty-two percent of the personal wealth in the US is owned by 1.6% of the population. Who res these enemies? of all the imperial dynasties and major thieves of our time, the Rockefeller family stands out: the phenomenal growth of their clan's influence and riches parallels the development of US imperialism.
  • Chapter Five, "The Anarchy of Production"
• Stolen wealth - not Yankee ingenuity - is the basis of the tremendous concentration in the US of productive forces - large factories with advanced machinery, elaborate computer systems, highly extended organization, the labor of women and men from many nations - all contributing to an astounding productive capability.
  • Chapter Five: Imperialism in Crisis
• This is a death culture. It beats its children and discards its old people, imprisons its rebels and drinks itself to death. It breeds and educates us to be socially irresponsible, arrogant, ignorant and anti-political. We are the most technologically advanced people in the wold and the most politically and socially backwards.

Sing a Battle Song (2006)

LSD, and grass, like the herbs and cactus and mushrooms of the American Indians and countless civilizations that have existed on this planet, will help us make a future world where it will be possible to live in peace.

• The day the COWboys came to town
  the red bled out from the 'merican flags,
  poured from windows and
  swirled thick in the streets
  for the marching band
  • Return of the POWS, Spring 1973
    
• We are living in a time
  when the city around us disssolves into
  a dragon-shaped land,
  the other side of the world,
  another people
  
  a history whose scroll
  unrolls in stylized battles of the orient:
  two thousand years of war
  from Mongol invaders driven back
  by women warriors.
  
  In every village
  there is a house of Tradition
  There the history of the village is preserved
  for everyone to see
  Not in monuments to famous men
  or markers of the big battles only,
  but here, this gun brought down a plane
  THis trap guarded the gate
  this letter, written by a 10 year old girl
  who died in the bombing
  
  The blood of the past waters our
  
  We honor those who went before.
  The same li
  fought over many times,
  the same road,
  built and destroyed and then rebuilt
  and again destroyed
  Read the French battle annals: An Ke, Cu Chi, Route 13
  the wrecked shells of transports
  line those impenetrable roads-
  carts, wagons, then jeeps and trucks
  and now the helicoptersanger
  • People's War

• LSD, and grass, like the herbs and cactus and mushrooms of the American Indians and countless civilizations that have existed on this planet, will help us make a future world where it will be possible to live in peace.
  • Weathereye, "Timothy Leary" (September 15, 1970)

• We are fighting in many ways. Dope is one of our weapons. The laws against marijuana mean that millions of us are outlows long before we actually split. Guns and grass are united in the youth underground.
  • A Declaration of State of War (1970)

• Last night we blew up the hall of injustice, Marin County Civic Center.
  We dedicate this act to the prisoners of San Quentin, Soledad and New York, and to all black prisoners of war. Fighting, where there is not place to hide they have turned every prison in Amerika into an advance guerilla post of the war against Pig Amerika.
  We dedicate it to the heroic prisoners of O Wing and the other inmates of Soledad Prison who retaliated for the murder of three of their leaders y executing two pig guards, and to the incredible courage of the brothers who seized and held the prisons of New York, and who faced the most vicious reprisals with their fist in the air.
  • The Weathereye, "Hall of Injustice", (October 8, 1970)
• On Saturday, August 21, 1971, George Jackson, black warrior, revolutionary leader, political prisoner, was shot dead by racist forces at San Quentin. Murdered for what he had become: Soledad Brother, soldier of his people, rising up through torment and torture, tyanny and injustice, unwilling to bow or bend to his oppressors. George Jackson died with his eyes fixed clearly on freedom
  • The Weahereye, "George Jackson" (August 30, 1971)
• -"There are too many people in the world
  and not enough food."
  -No, we said, a few control the world's food.
  Food as weapon Food as profit.
  • Malthusian Mythologies

• Mirror of history
  mirror of war, fear of the feast-breeding poor.
  "It is cheaper to kill a guerilla in the womb
  than in the mountains"
  Genocide.
  • Malthusian Mythologies
• Upside down planning from the rich
  they should be planting
  seeds
  not coils and shields.
  The poor will inherit
  the right to their fertile land.
  • Malthusian Mythologies.
• Underground is not the right word
  it makes it seem too simple,
  as if there is an easy way to disappear
  a place to go.

• • Assata Shakur (June, 1973)

Quotes About The Weather Underground

• Once upon a time, in an age long, long ago, determined bands of young people rebelled against the Empire. Embedded within the heart of empire, the belly of the beast, the mother country, young people in North America awakened to a unique responsibility: to refuse to go along with what was being done in our name in Vietnam or in Hattiesburg. Neutrality was not an option. We felt impelled to act, to interrupt, to educate - without knowing what was next, or how history would judge u. One such band was Weather.
  • Bernardine Dohrn, Exmember of The Weather Underground