By Larry JohnsoncloseAuthor: Larry JohnsonName: Larry Johnson Email: larry_johnson@earthlink.net Site:http://NoQuarterUSA.net About: Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm with expertise combating terrorism and investigating money laundering. Mr. Johnson works with US military commands in scripting terrorism exercises, briefs on terrorist trends, and conducts undercover investigations on counterfeiting, smuggling and money laundering.
Mr. Johnson, who worked previously with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk management.
Mr. Johnson has analyzed terrorist incidents for a variety of media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, ABC's Nightline, NBC's Today Show, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for publications, including Security Management Magazine, the New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. He has lectured on terrorism and aviation security around the world, including the Center for Research and Strategic Studies at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, France. He represented the U.S. Government at the July 1996 OSCE Terrorism Conference in Vienna, Austria.
From 1989 until October 1993, Larry Johnson served as a Deputy Director in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He managed crisis response operations for terrorist incidents throughout the world and he helped organize and direct the US Government’s debriefing of US citizens held in Kuwait and Iraq, which provided vital intelligence on Iraqi operations following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Mr. Johnson also participated in the investigation of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am 103. Under Mr. Johnson’s leadership the U.S. airlines and pilots agreed to match the US Government’s two million-dollar reward.
From 1985 through September 1989 Mr. Johnson worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. During his distinguished career, he received training in paramilitary operations, worked in the Directorate of Operations, served in the CIA’s Operation’s Center, and established himself as a prolific analyst in the Directorate of Intelligence. In his final year with the CIA he received two Exceptional Performance Awards.
Mr. Johnson is a member of the American Society for Industrial Security. He taught at The American University’s School of International Service (1979-1983) while working on a Ph.D. in political science. He has a M.S. degree in Community Development from the University of Missouri (1978), where he also received his B.S. degree in Sociology, graduating Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1976.See Authors Posts (824) on April 24, 2008 at 10:42 AM in Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Black Agenda Report, Black nationalism, Frank Davis, Martin Luther King, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., Weather Underground, William Ayers
Give Barack Obama his due. He has revived feelings and emotions that recall the Sixties. But not all of the feelings and emotions of that era are good or decent. Unless you are at least 53 years old, you have no real clear memory of the struggles of the period. So I am guessing that most folks reading this blog only know the Sixties through movies and TV shows.
We are proud to present Flineo’s latest work. It is brilliant. It combines images of today with the words of yesterday.
It is important to acknowledge that Barack is able to run for President today because of the civil rights movement that came to full flower in 1968. It was a movement born in blood—Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy are among the most prominent and best-known martyrs. But the Sixties also stands as the Ying and Yang of good and bad political movements. On the one hand, King and Evers preached non-violence and defied the racists to attack them with clubs, dogs, guns, and mobs. On the other hand there were groups like the Weather Underground, the Students for a Democratic Society, and the Black Panthers. They advocated violence.
As a young boy living in Indonesia, Barack had no firsthand experience with, or knowledge of, this period of upheaval in the United States. He learned about it later, in large measure from Frank Davis, a black activist and communist who favored the tactics of the Black Panthers over the non-violence of Martin Luther King.
And here is the critical point for us today. Barack Obama has not surrounded himself with those who represent and espouse the views and vision of Dr. King. He has cast his lot with the likes of Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers. The hope he offers is not the hope of Dr. King. Dr. King saw beyond skin color. Barack has embraced a religious movement that is Africentric and prone to sharpen divisions between black and white. That’s a movement I can live without.
I just can’t believe how amazingly perceptive Flinneo is. It’s as if he was There and he Recognizes the signs again. And they are there. Frighteningly so. The children have been taken. That was the first step to the carnage.
I need to read up on the Weather Underground and Black Panthers…I was right on the cusp, at the time, middle school but familiar with the situation. Why on earth were members of these home-grown terrorists allowed to remain in this country? Why weren’t they exiled? After watching this video, it should be very clear to all that Obama has taken his inspiration from these hate filled radicals. And yes, he has taken the children….Ayers has also been in a position to influence. I cannot believe Obama has gotten this far in the election process. I pray it is not too late.
I wrote a paper about the Weathermen when I was a sophmore in high school in 1973. I started off thinking they were this misunderstood, kind of romantic group of idealistic heroes. What can I say, I was 16 and at that time it was pretty hard to find information for someone in a small rural town to find current information.
By the time I finished the paper, I hated them all and wanted them thrown in jail forever. I had two brothers in the military, one in Vietnam, at the time.
The Weathermen were the antithesis of the peace movement and the principles of King and Gandhi. I hated them then and, after 40 years of reflection, I hated them now — they severely damaged the peace and social justice movement in this country for a long time. The anti-war rallies I attended then were mostly peaceful with a real spiritual air about them — the students I was friends with in the 60’s thought these Ayers/Dohrn types were crazy and/or sadistic.
Bill Ayers appears to live not in a Copernican universe, but an Ayersian one.
Comment by workingclass artist
| 2008-04-24 11:31:13
You know Larry….You’re right…I’m 47 about Barry’s age….I remember what I remember through a combination of childhood memories ( my folks arguing with my sister about why she could’nt go to Woodstock ) and how my friends brother was killed in Viet Nam…The thing is I remember enough…I know the difference betweena real movement and a phony one…I was lucky enough to have good teachers in College…((many of whom were involved). I do remember the fear that the Weather Underground inspired….I’m grateful that you guys speak TRUTH TO POWER and always have….I’m just sayin’….Even those of us who were babies know the difference between a phony and the real thing.
Comment by Untilthelastdogdies
| 2008-04-24 12:10:41
Larry,
Logging on to my morning west-coast session, this profoundly powerful
video greeted me. Thank-you for posting it.
Like the commentator before me, I’m 47 and the youngest of 6 children. As a late baby, my older siblings were all teenagers and draft-age adults during these turbulent times. As you all might imagine, I was greatly effected by their reactions to the social environment they found themselves in. I will NEVER forget my mother crying at the news of MLK, and I will NEVER forget my sisters bursting into each bedroom of the house screaming in virtual hysteria that Bobby Kennedy was just shot.
The Revolution may not be televised, but it sure as hell always eats it’s own, this I learned from Robespierre.
As a student of history, it is not linear, it is indeed cyclical and this fine
effort by Flineo illustrates the point.
Yes, when it comes to inspiration, we must give Barrack his due and then-some, yet I cannot caste Hillary as HHH in this full circle drama.
Nor can I ignore the Nixon re-election results of 1972, even though George McGovern was a decent, decent man. I wonder if the first-time voters of today will live to see THIS political era in re-run.
I turned 18 in 1972. I was among the first group of 18 year-olds allowed to vote. I considered myself very liberal, very anti-establishment, and had every intention of voting for McGovern. Then, on election day, I walked into the voting booth, felt the immense responsibility of the act of voting, and decided at the last minute that my parents were older and wiser and had more experience, and voted for their candidate. It was the only time I voted Republican in my life. But it was the time that made a difference.
I think now about the youth movement that carried McGovern to the Democratic nomination, and how it failed to deliver him to the White House, and in fact resulted in the most humiliating defeat of any presidential candidate ever. And I hope that this is not the year that history will repeat itself.
For the longest time I have been wondering why I have felt such strong feelings against Obama. His campaign has railed me up more than Lewinsky, Iraq, and the incredible fraudulence of GWB.
I came of age in the late 60’s in LA near UCLA and witnessed the whole turbulent 60’s unfold on TV and in my neighborhood. The SDS leaflets in high school, the protest rallies, dead and wounded friends from war, the drugs, the moral belief that we knew what was best for the country and that we were going to change it.
I don’t remember hope lasting very long. Instead, the violence and disillusionment, drugs and reality got in the way. Some managed to hold on to their young ideals but most slowly bought back into the system becoming a newer version of their mostly middle class parents. From my perspective the Weather Underground and other violent youth organizations destroyed the “dream”.
Looking back as an older typical white woman who has had to carry a 41 mag in a shoulder holster for survival, who has lived on food stamps and the life of a rich white person, who has withstood sexual discrimination and harassment that would net me hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal settlements in this day and age, who has worked hard, demeaning jobs to get through college and graduate school, who is now struggling to survive because of the chemical industry, health industry and the failed government agencies created to monitor these industries, looking back after all this and more I feel I can honestly say I don’t want another movement. I want someone who can work the system, who has been hardened and strengthened by adversity, who knows how to choose their battles, who has developed humility through recognition of human failings. I don’t want words I want actions.
I look at Obama and he scares the s**t out of me. It feels like the run up to Iraq. That people are dismissing Ayers and Rev Wright and not seeing the connection to the age old adage “you are the friends who you keep” is beyond me. That the democratic party wants to go down this road without cleaning off the rear view mirror saddens me.
I hitched a ride last time. You can count me out on this one.
The 60’s had a duality which is hard to come to terms with. In some ways it was a peaceful and prosperous time in the nation as well as in our souls and yet it was one of the most violent decades in our history. Vietnam–the immoral war continued, the 1965 Civil Rights Act was supposed to secure prosperity in the AA communities instead caused rioting in our cities. President Johnson was confused by this. He fought very hard along with MLK to bring this act to completion. He is known to have said to a subordinate. I gave them what they wanted — why do they hate me?
Then there was the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers who took advantage of the upheavel to do everything they could to destroy the underpinings of this nation. Did any of them ever go to prison? Why were some pardoned and why was Ayers never tried for his crimes? However, the worst act for me was when the National Guard fired on the Kent State students. Nothing had so sickened the American People as the sight of our military firing on American students. The 60’s were officially over off came the love beads and the floppy hats and we settled in with Nixon (for a while).
So the music was great — the economy was strong –the young people out in the streets for civil rights, human rights, women’s right and demonstrating to end the Vietnam War were all good things. I prefer to remember those times for the good which was accomplished.
As any student of rhetoric will tell you, Obama talks about unity precisely because he’s a divisive candidate. “We are united” means that there are divisions, and Obama has deepened these divisions. The fact that he could conflate Rev. Wright’s hate sermons with Gerri Ferraro’s simple observations shows how divisive and self-serving he really is. No thanks.
MATTHEWS: Well, that will never sell (referring to Reverand Wright). You don’t blame the crime, at least not the worst crime in modern history since the Holocaust on the victims.
I think we have already heard the most hate-filled speech in this campaign, and it came from Senator Obama’s uncle. If that was okey doke with you, then your shock and outrage is a ruse.
I think we have already heard the most hate-filled speech in this campaign, and it came from Senator Obama’s uncle. If that was okey doke with you, then your shock and outrage is a ruse.
It wasn’t okey doke with me. Neither is calling Senator Obama a fascist, or comparing him to Goebbels. Just because it’s the internet doesn’t mean you just trot out anything, no matter how despicable and untrue.
I agree with you. Obama is many things but he is most definitely not a fascist. I deplore the way that word gets carelessly thrown around. Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rumsfeld come close to being fascist-minded with the neocon philosophy and their bizarre Pax Americana. I can’t get a fix on Obama’s actual political philosophy because he picks and chooses from among many radical thinkers. From the neoliberal free-market Friedmanite economics of his chief economic advisor Goolsbee to personal mentoring and admitted father-son relationship with Communist Party USA member Frank Marshall. Obama is ideologically all over the map — and that makes me nervous.
Take John Deans book and flip it on Barak’s “world”. Instead of Con use LIB it does not matter what side of the coin it is on. It is what it is.
Deal with it.
Comment by workingclass artist
| 2008-04-24 13:43:37
Look it up in the dictionary….BABY-O fits 2 out of 3 criteria….Facists are usually proud to be identified….Sorry if the word upsets your delicate psuedo liberal sensibilities…Perhaps you will go back to camp now and bite your pillow….
Is this kind of stuff really necessary? Don’t we want to help Hillary to victory by reasonably showing why Obama is wrong for this country? I don’t understand why many on the Clinton side are now employing the same dirty online tactics that made most of us so disgusted at Huffpo and Kos.
We can win our argument with facts. We don’t have to insult people. How does that help our cause?
What becomes again evident in this piece is everyone questions how bin Ladin can get young men to blow themselves up, just watch the video and the one statement by Flanagan “If you think that you have the moral high ground that is a very dangerous position and you can do some really dreadful things”
Reading this excellent blog it occurred to me that there are those who incite a response, violent and non-violent mostly from impressionable minds about the woes of the society at large. They build their support by citing everything that is wrong with the world — a protest group for unnamed vices. They are mostly successful in bringing attention to the pressing needs of the society at that time. But mostly and woefully short on providing solutions, remedies, fixes for what ails the people. Obama seems like such a candidate. He has left no trail of evidence to show that he can actually fix the problems. He did not do much with his ailing district during his Illinois senate years; he did not do much for stopping the continuation of Iraq war in his US senate years and did not even exhibit much commitment to anti-war movement until it became politically expedient. Nothing in his past tells us that he can translate words into actions — in fact there does not seem to be any significant words either. So his past so far appears to be insignificant and of no consequence. And his current position seems to be don’t ask questions but “make me the President first.”
So his past so far appears to be insignificant and of no consequence.
I will go ahead and add that whatever we know about his past so far is more problematic from the practical considerations of winning the presidency.
Every job in the world requires a resume and you get the job depending on how strong it is. It is beyond belief that this man is getting away with what he has done (or not done). His supporters are putting this country and their party in peril.
It suffers from subtlety, though. Conversion of the faithful will not occur because cognitive dissonance of the True Believer has to be sledge hammered. Add to that the problem that the MTV generation has an attention span in the milliseconds.
It is also over the top to compare Obama worshipers to the SDS or the Weather Underground. Obama’s minions are pussys.
It may be also be moot. When the 60’s “happened” the baby boomers were that big bulge moving down the snake. We were one hellova demographic. The young people caught up in the Obama frenzy just do not have the same numbers we did. Ergo it is foolish to broker the comparison.
It is also necessary to point out that even with the baby boomer demographic we were still unsuccessful in electing McGovern. That is the bottom line.
Maybe so, to some degree, but do not forget that out of the masses of the SDS came the few in the Weather Underground who did not feel that their agendas were being met, thus the terror that resulted from the few!
Took only a few to do all that distruction on 911, took only a few to do the distruction in Oklahoma.
The learning from the ’60’s was a simple one, create a movement and from it will always be those who are not satisfied.
I do not know how that reply addresses any of the my arguments. No matter, this is a place to express yourself.
However I do think you are viewing the yuppies that flock to Obama in an altogether too warlike vein. I see young ladies that only want to have Obama’s baby accompanied by young men who walk the walk just to get laid.
Nonwithstanding my penetrating insights into their libidos, this group would not know a brick of C-4 from a wedge of Brie. Ask for Semtex and you would get a prophylactic. BRASS to them is something that always has to be polished on the yacht.
Only 51 Uppity- but I distinctly remember- lots of politics talked around the dinner table in our house.
Flineo does an excellent job. I read and rec’d this over at MyDD.
Hope lots of parents of college and high school aged kids see this and take steps to get their kids out of that cult.
Comment by workingclass artist
| 2008-04-24 12:30:40
Well….sad to say she is the only one at her highschool who is for Hillary….She just keeps printing up Hillary’s stuff and handing it out…She has become quite a little wonk and has been driving her republican daddy crazy since Gore 2000….It is because of her I have great faith in the younger generation…But we may be movin to Canada….Depending on which way the wind blows…
I was curious enough to send this to my son (27 yrs). He isn’t a follower, but he has also taken a “stay-back-away-from-it-all” approach (all sides) from the beginning. I just sent him the link to this blog post/video and told him I want to hear his take after he watches and reads.
Ah the irony of the young, passionate followers of the New Guy heading down the same path as the forebears they despise. The more things change, the more they stay the same. How many of the flying-spittle Obamabots would have ended up in the Weather Underground forty years ago? I see a lot of Stalinist rhetoric and behavior from Obama and his followers.
What is frightening, is that the Weather Underground did not have the internet. If you factor in the internet’s ability to unite people all over th world in an instant, and recruit, and be faceless and anonymous, it’ a recipe for disaster. So, there is definitely a danger of repeating the WU experience, only exponentially becase of instant communications. Somehow the most deranged ideas and movements seem less so when wrapped in an internet community.
The Children are bored. Obama offers them rallies and excitement. How clever of him.
Unfortunately, the history of the world tells us of many charismatics who took their swooning chanting followers straight to hell. And this guy would not be an exception. You can see the similarities to the Ayers era. The hatred. The spitting. The insults. The filth. The disrespect for adults of all kinds. The threat of violence. It’s all there, compliments of Barack Obama.
That is why he will never be president. Adults don’t let children pick presidents. Especially not adults who Remember.
I’m 54, remember wearing black armbands in a Catholic high school in 1969 to protest the war… half of the nuns wore them as well. The Weathermen inspired nothing but anger, hatred and fear. If they stood for anything deeper than just anarchy and fear, I never heard about it.
I hear all the time from Obama followers about a “movement”. No one has ever explained that one in terms of say human rights, or help for the poverty stricken, no. Obama has nothing in his platform that would be called a “movement”. Kind of makes me wonder, when I hear that kind of talk, what in hell are they referring to? If Larry is right, then all the more reason we should fight to flush Barry and his movement now, for good.
What is frightening, is that the Weather Underground did not have the internet
But given what a klutz Obama, and even Ayers are, is that really, in retrospect, a threat?
No, it’s not.
As the District Attorney put it, while on Lou Dobbs, “Of all the people who have bombed the Pentagon, I’m sure Ayers is the nicest” he’s just one in a long line of terrorist morons, isn’t he?
So why would the psychology of a hacker, or a cyberterrorist, be any more threatening, given, even, how they tried to hack NQ, and their inability to understand how they’re being gamed, maybe baited into an attack? Someone brought up Obama and Alinsky, purposely making people angry to keep them confused, but who is angry and confused here? Obama, and the gangstas, right, shot with their own guns?
That’s what I call DUMB.
Even Cheney, with all his attempts to squash the Constitution, failed, that whole neocon group, nothing more than a flat tire.
And I understand people have died unnecessarily under Cheney’s watch, but that’s between Cheney and God, and maybe the Hague.
the real question is how did they get their jobs? answer ayer’s daddy had some pull and got the jobs for them. dohrn has a criminal background, so who would hire her? pull!
Comment by workingclass artist
| 2008-04-24 11:36:30
Want more…..Go to the Vatican Website or the Catholic Encyclopedia and you can learn all you want about LIBERATION THEOLOGY….Wright’s version is Afrocentric but basically the same ol’ shit….
Comment by workingclass artist
| 2008-04-24 12:25:39
Yeah….you are correct…This shit has been a pain in the ass for the RCC for like 30 yrs…it’s very popular for the elite college crowd….Marx always is especially when you gloss over Stalin and Mao….What’s a few million people anway….
AHHH i remember like yesterday the fires in Newark NJ and Asbury Park and Philly and the bombs and the Watts riots..threats on NYC..it was a very frightening time..
Kent State..
and then we moved onto the SLA and Patty Hearst!!
Geez they were working big time on the New World Order then..they just didn’t have it perfected well enough then or the right people..Nixon let them down..
and people think things are bad now?????????
Well they are just smarter now..and they have had more time to do it in a more orderly manner i believe..
they fool us into thinking we have real elections..after years of taking over our entire system of voting and walla..we get an Obama..then they get the kids all riled up..( they need some group now don’t they..and they have worn out their welcome with the fundies..so its on to college kids again..everything is cyclical don’tcha know!!)
and is it any wonder the grown ups are voting for Hillary..we have seen this shit before!!..and we are very familiar with it..that is why they are trying so hard to shut us up in the media and to marginalize us!
don’t ever forget..with age comes wisdom..most of it.. learned wisdom from living ..
oh and i was one of those who was stuck on the NY Throughway ..and didn’t make it to Woodstock..but we had a ball in the farm fields along the NY Throughway..but i am not telling any of my secrets…lol!!
Thanks for the brilliant Video Flineo…just great!!
oh and i was one of those who was stuck on the NY Throughway ..and didn’t make it to Woodstock..but we had a ball in the farm fields along the NY Throughway..in a VW Bug…but i am not telling any of my secrets…lol!!
Those of us that do remember those days know how the things that we believed in were distorted until we could no longer believe. And then like now we were told “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” The problem with that attitude is that the only solution considered by those that utter those words, is the solution they believe is best.
For many of us those that hi-jacked a peace movement and made it violent are an enemy we will never forget or forgive.
Ayers and Dohrn are two of the most egregious. They both should have been put behind bars and kept there for a very long time.
The first time I heard Barack Obama say “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for I knew I could never support him.
I cannot, I will not ever vote for a Republican, but I cannot and will not vote for some Media Darling that I think of as a cult leader. I’m a Democrat, a lifelong Democrat who has been voting for Democrats, good, bad and ugly for 40 years. But I draw the line here.
I cannot, I will not ever vote for a Republican, but I cannot and will not vote for some Media Darling that I think of as a cult leader. I’m a Democrat, a lifelong Democrat who has been voting for Democrats, good, bad and ugly for 40 years. But I draw the line here.
Barack Obama has made it clear that he is not a Democrat in the Jacksonian/Wilsonian/Roosevelt/Truman tradition. He is not a Democrat. I don’t know what he is, and nobody outside of his VERY inner circle knows either.
If I lived in a competitive state, I would vote for McCain over Obama. As an American, I’d have to.
Living in a state Hillary might have made competitive, I will write in her name if I can’t vote for her.
None of the Obamabrats could spend a day without their Ipods or their cell phones. “Revolution?” Not if they have to do without something. That’s not what they signed on for. They think that sacrifice is for someone else.
I just can’t believe how amazingly perceptive Flinneo is. It’s as if he was There and he Recognizes the signs again. And they are there. Frighteningly so. The children have been taken. That was the first step to the carnage.
It’s all the same Playbook, isn’t it Larry.
…shiver…
I need to read up on the Weather Underground and Black Panthers…I was right on the cusp, at the time, middle school but familiar with the situation. Why on earth were members of these home-grown terrorists allowed to remain in this country? Why weren’t they exiled? After watching this video, it should be very clear to all that Obama has taken his inspiration from these hate filled radicals. And yes, he has taken the children….Ayers has also been in a position to influence. I cannot believe Obama has gotten this far in the election process. I pray it is not too late.
Read up on the international development of terrorism…Paris and Berlin..and of course PLO….It’s imporant reading…splains alot…
I wrote a paper about the Weathermen when I was a sophmore in high school in 1973. I started off thinking they were this misunderstood, kind of romantic group of idealistic heroes. What can I say, I was 16 and at that time it was pretty hard to find information for someone in a small rural town to find current information.
By the time I finished the paper, I hated them all and wanted them thrown in jail forever. I had two brothers in the military, one in Vietnam, at the time.
FLINEO…THAT WAS GENIUS… thanks for posting a good post Larry…
The Weathermen were the antithesis of the peace movement and the principles of King and Gandhi. I hated them then and, after 40 years of reflection, I hated them now — they severely damaged the peace and social justice movement in this country for a long time. The anti-war rallies I attended then were mostly peaceful with a real spiritual air about them — the students I was friends with in the 60’s thought these Ayers/Dohrn types were crazy and/or sadistic.
Bill Ayers appears to live not in a Copernican universe, but an Ayersian one.
Ah, you Remember too!
Uppity,
Was strolling over for my daily look at your blog and found this message:
Blog name hyper-eductated-uppity-woman is available to register!
Hope everything is okay and you have not been hacked.
It’s working fine far as I know. I just checked.
But nothing would surprise me.
Ah I see what’s wrong. I had to retype it in the white space here because I cleared the cookies and I spelled it wrong. Try now.
Thanks for telling me!
I loved the “Hope Bong”!
God I was so tired of being sucked on. I’m all burnt out now. Put me on the shelf and let me rest in peace will ya Obama and friends.
educated is spelled wrong - that’s probably why it appears available.
Rather ironic that was the typo, yup. Well at least it wasn’t EDUCAMATED.
You know Larry….You’re right…I’m 47 about Barry’s age….I remember what I remember through a combination of childhood memories ( my folks arguing with my sister about why she could’nt go to Woodstock ) and how my friends brother was killed in Viet Nam…The thing is I remember enough…I know the difference betweena real movement and a phony one…I was lucky enough to have good teachers in College…((many of whom were involved). I do remember the fear that the Weather Underground inspired….I’m grateful that you guys speak TRUTH TO POWER and always have….I’m just sayin’….Even those of us who were babies know the difference between a phony and the real thing.
Larry,
Logging on to my morning west-coast session, this profoundly powerful
video greeted me. Thank-you for posting it.
Like the commentator before me, I’m 47 and the youngest of 6 children. As a late baby, my older siblings were all teenagers and draft-age adults during these turbulent times. As you all might imagine, I was greatly effected by their reactions to the social environment they found themselves in. I will NEVER forget my mother crying at the news of MLK, and I will NEVER forget my sisters bursting into each bedroom of the house screaming in virtual hysteria that Bobby Kennedy was just shot.
The Revolution may not be televised, but it sure as hell always eats it’s own, this I learned from Robespierre.
As a student of history, it is not linear, it is indeed cyclical and this fine
effort by Flineo illustrates the point.
Yes, when it comes to inspiration, we must give Barrack his due and then-some, yet I cannot caste Hillary as HHH in this full circle drama.
Nor can I ignore the Nixon re-election results of 1972, even though George McGovern was a decent, decent man. I wonder if the first-time voters of today will live to see THIS political era in re-run.
That’s rhetorical, I know they will.
I turned 18 in 1972. I was among the first group of 18 year-olds allowed to vote. I considered myself very liberal, very anti-establishment, and had every intention of voting for McGovern. Then, on election day, I walked into the voting booth, felt the immense responsibility of the act of voting, and decided at the last minute that my parents were older and wiser and had more experience, and voted for their candidate. It was the only time I voted Republican in my life. But it was the time that made a difference.
I think now about the youth movement that carried McGovern to the Democratic nomination, and how it failed to deliver him to the White House, and in fact resulted in the most humiliating defeat of any presidential candidate ever. And I hope that this is not the year that history will repeat itself.
Can you elaborate?
For the longest time I have been wondering why I have felt such strong feelings against Obama. His campaign has railed me up more than Lewinsky, Iraq, and the incredible fraudulence of GWB.
I came of age in the late 60’s in LA near UCLA and witnessed the whole turbulent 60’s unfold on TV and in my neighborhood. The SDS leaflets in high school, the protest rallies, dead and wounded friends from war, the drugs, the moral belief that we knew what was best for the country and that we were going to change it.
I don’t remember hope lasting very long. Instead, the violence and disillusionment, drugs and reality got in the way. Some managed to hold on to their young ideals but most slowly bought back into the system becoming a newer version of their mostly middle class parents. From my perspective the Weather Underground and other violent youth organizations destroyed the “dream”.
Looking back as an older typical white woman who has had to carry a 41 mag in a shoulder holster for survival, who has lived on food stamps and the life of a rich white person, who has withstood sexual discrimination and harassment that would net me hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal settlements in this day and age, who has worked hard, demeaning jobs to get through college and graduate school, who is now struggling to survive because of the chemical industry, health industry and the failed government agencies created to monitor these industries, looking back after all this and more I feel I can honestly say I don’t want another movement. I want someone who can work the system, who has been hardened and strengthened by adversity, who knows how to choose their battles, who has developed humility through recognition of human failings. I don’t want words I want actions.
I look at Obama and he scares the s**t out of me. It feels like the run up to Iraq. That people are dismissing Ayers and Rev Wright and not seeing the connection to the age old adage “you are the friends who you keep” is beyond me. That the democratic party wants to go down this road without cleaning off the rear view mirror saddens me.
I hitched a ride last time. You can count me out on this one.
The 60’s had a duality which is hard to come to terms with. In some ways it was a peaceful and prosperous time in the nation as well as in our souls and yet it was one of the most violent decades in our history. Vietnam–the immoral war continued, the 1965 Civil Rights Act was supposed to secure prosperity in the AA communities instead caused rioting in our cities. President Johnson was confused by this. He fought very hard along with MLK to bring this act to completion. He is known to have said to a subordinate. I gave them what they wanted — why do they hate me?
Then there was the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers who took advantage of the upheavel to do everything they could to destroy the underpinings of this nation. Did any of them ever go to prison? Why were some pardoned and why was Ayers never tried for his crimes? However, the worst act for me was when the National Guard fired on the Kent State students. Nothing had so sickened the American People as the sight of our military firing on American students. The 60’s were officially over off came the love beads and the floppy hats and we settled in with Nixon (for a while).
So the music was great — the economy was strong –the young people out in the streets for civil rights, human rights, women’s right and demonstrating to end the Vietnam War were all good things. I prefer to remember those times for the good which was accomplished.
As any student of rhetoric will tell you, Obama talks about unity precisely because he’s a divisive candidate. “We are united” means that there are divisions, and Obama has deepened these divisions. The fact that he could conflate Rev. Wright’s hate sermons with Gerri Ferraro’s simple observations shows how divisive and self-serving he really is. No thanks.
Agree…..Goebbles 101…..He is a sham…and a facist one at that…..
“Agree…..Goebbles 101…..He is a sham…and a facist one at that…..”
That is a sickeningly obnoxious statement. A fascist? Good lord, grow up. Tell that Mussolini and Hitler’s victims.
MATTHEWS: Well, that will never sell (referring to Reverand Wright). You don’t blame the crime, at least not the worst crime in modern history since the Holocaust on the victims.
I think we have already heard the most hate-filled speech in this campaign, and it came from Senator Obama’s uncle. If that was okey doke with you, then your shock and outrage is a ruse.
I think we have already heard the most hate-filled speech in this campaign, and it came from Senator Obama’s uncle. If that was okey doke with you, then your shock and outrage is a ruse.
It wasn’t okey doke with me. Neither is calling Senator Obama a fascist, or comparing him to Goebbels. Just because it’s the internet doesn’t mean you just trot out anything, no matter how despicable and untrue.
I agree with you. Obama is many things but he is most definitely not a fascist. I deplore the way that word gets carelessly thrown around. Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rumsfeld come close to being fascist-minded with the neocon philosophy and their bizarre Pax Americana. I can’t get a fix on Obama’s actual political philosophy because he picks and chooses from among many radical thinkers. From the neoliberal free-market Friedmanite economics of his chief economic advisor Goolsbee to personal mentoring and admitted father-son relationship with Communist Party USA member Frank Marshall. Obama is ideologically all over the map — and that makes me nervous.
thanks, Laurie.
You ARE Laurie.
fascist-minded with the neoLIB philosophy,
Take John Deans book and flip it on Barak’s “world”. Instead of Con use LIB it does not matter what side of the coin it is on. It is what it is.
Deal with it.
Look it up in the dictionary….BABY-O fits 2 out of 3 criteria….Facists are usually proud to be identified….Sorry if the word upsets your delicate psuedo liberal sensibilities…Perhaps you will go back to camp now and bite your pillow….
Laurie — we know one thing about Obama and that is he doesn’t like white workers. That really terrifies me.
Jeff….Take your unity patch off your brown shirt and shove it in you ear….Which is where your ass is…..
Is this kind of stuff really necessary? Don’t we want to help Hillary to victory by reasonably showing why Obama is wrong for this country? I don’t understand why many on the Clinton side are now employing the same dirty online tactics that made most of us so disgusted at Huffpo and Kos.
We can win our argument with facts. We don’t have to insult people. How does that help our cause?
Oh…..I’m sorry….How very working class of me….
Agree with Laurie. I think toning down the rhetoric helps, as does being precise in our definitions.
They’ve already labeled Clinton supporters as racist, out-of-touch, old, co-opted, ignorant, uneducated, etc. etc. etc. etc.
What becomes again evident in this piece is everyone questions how bin Ladin can get young men to blow themselves up, just watch the video and the one statement by Flanagan “If you think that you have the moral high ground that is a very dangerous position and you can do some really dreadful things”
opps, doesn’t a candidate continually speak from a moral high ground?
Reading this excellent blog it occurred to me that there are those who incite a response, violent and non-violent mostly from impressionable minds about the woes of the society at large. They build their support by citing everything that is wrong with the world — a protest group for unnamed vices. They are mostly successful in bringing attention to the pressing needs of the society at that time. But mostly and woefully short on providing solutions, remedies, fixes for what ails the people. Obama seems like such a candidate. He has left no trail of evidence to show that he can actually fix the problems. He did not do much with his ailing district during his Illinois senate years; he did not do much for stopping the continuation of Iraq war in his US senate years and did not even exhibit much commitment to anti-war movement until it became politically expedient. Nothing in his past tells us that he can translate words into actions — in fact there does not seem to be any significant words either. So his past so far appears to be insignificant and of no consequence. And his current position seems to be don’t ask questions but “make me the President first.”
Why should we?
Oh so much like George McGovern in so many ways. Only McGovern was a gentleman. It was his sycophants that got him a 38% in the GE.
Obama will never be president.
Agree….BABY-O is headed for POLITICAL OBLIVION….
I will go ahead and add that whatever we know about his past so far is more problematic from the practical considerations of winning the presidency.
Every job in the world requires a resume and you get the job depending on how strong it is. It is beyond belief that this man is getting away with what he has done (or not done). His supporters are putting this country and their party in peril.
good morning ,,,hill supporters
ready to blog
ready to make calls
ready to roll up ur sleeves
ready to take our country back into our hands
ready for a woman in charge
I AM YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYHILLARYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYHILLARYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
ARE YOU ???
True I only know the 60’s from a distance; this is a powerful video.
I liked the video.
It suffers from subtlety, though. Conversion of the faithful will not occur because cognitive dissonance of the True Believer has to be sledge hammered. Add to that the problem that the MTV generation has an attention span in the milliseconds.
It is also over the top to compare Obama worshipers to the SDS or the Weather Underground. Obama’s minions are pussys.
It may be also be moot. When the 60’s “happened” the baby boomers were that big bulge moving down the snake. We were one hellova demographic. The young people caught up in the Obama frenzy just do not have the same numbers we did. Ergo it is foolish to broker the comparison.
It is also necessary to point out that even with the baby boomer demographic we were still unsuccessful in electing McGovern. That is the bottom line.
Maybe so, to some degree, but do not forget that out of the masses of the SDS came the few in the Weather Underground who did not feel that their agendas were being met, thus the terror that resulted from the few!
Took only a few to do all that distruction on 911, took only a few to do the distruction in Oklahoma.
The learning from the ’60’s was a simple one, create a movement and from it will always be those who are not satisfied.
And do not forget, the SDS is still active today!
I do not know how that reply addresses any of the my arguments. No matter, this is a place to express yourself.
However I do think you are viewing the yuppies that flock to Obama in an altogether too warlike vein. I see young ladies that only want to have Obama’s baby accompanied by young men who walk the walk just to get laid.
Nonwithstanding my penetrating insights into their libidos, this group would not know a brick of C-4 from a wedge of Brie. Ask for Semtex and you would get a prophylactic. BRASS to them is something that always has to be polished on the yacht.
You may stop digging the bunker now.
Yes, it occurs to me teletubbies are not warriors.
It seems rather apparent, but strangely, many miss this pertinent fact.
I just see teletubbies, every time these wannabe warriors “attack.”
You know, plump little old men running around in circles, speaking gibberish, unable to find their targets, or a clue.
Oh, wait, that’s Cheney’s staff.
Sorry.
That he personally knows Ayers–on the face of it.
It’s a million to one thing IMHO.
Also you have to wonder if Ayers was a an agent provocateur. How the fuck did he get away with masterminding the bombings?
true smilin jim — However, I believe we could have elected Bobby Kennedy and this world might have been a different place.
Only 51 Uppity- but I distinctly remember- lots of politics talked around the dinner table in our house.
Flineo does an excellent job. I read and rec’d this over at MyDD.
Hope lots of parents of college and high school aged kids see this and take steps to get their kids out of that cult.
It was the same with my generation, and Reagan kids.
They fucked up, big time.
We knew they were stupid then, and here, given control, they trashed the country, like we knew they would.
We knew they would, we knew exactly what they were going to do, exactly.
Its a shame youth is wasted on the young. God I would love to be marching now — damn arthritic knees.
Wish that were true….Me…My kid has been taught to use her head…She is voting for Hillary…
Well, your kid is voting for Hillary, so it must be true, she’s smart.
LOL.
Well….sad to say she is the only one at her highschool who is for Hillary….She just keeps printing up Hillary’s stuff and handing it out…She has become quite a little wonk and has been driving her republican daddy crazy since Gore 2000….It is because of her I have great faith in the younger generation…But we may be movin to Canada….Depending on which way the wind blows…
I was curious enough to send this to my son (27 yrs). He isn’t a follower, but he has also taken a “stay-back-away-from-it-all” approach (all sides) from the beginning. I just sent him the link to this blog post/video and told him I want to hear his take after he watches and reads.
Ah the irony of the young, passionate followers of the New Guy heading down the same path as the forebears they despise. The more things change, the more they stay the same. How many of the flying-spittle Obamabots would have ended up in the Weather Underground forty years ago? I see a lot of Stalinist rhetoric and behavior from Obama and his followers.
What is frightening, is that the Weather Underground did not have the internet. If you factor in the internet’s ability to unite people all over th world in an instant, and recruit, and be faceless and anonymous, it’ a recipe for disaster. So, there is definitely a danger of repeating the WU experience, only exponentially becase of instant communications. Somehow the most deranged ideas and movements seem less so when wrapped in an internet community.
The Children are bored. Obama offers them rallies and excitement. How clever of him.
Unfortunately, the history of the world tells us of many charismatics who took their swooning chanting followers straight to hell. And this guy would not be an exception. You can see the similarities to the Ayers era. The hatred. The spitting. The insults. The filth. The disrespect for adults of all kinds. The threat of violence. It’s all there, compliments of Barack Obama.
That is why he will never be president. Adults don’t let children pick presidents. Especially not adults who Remember.
I’m 54, remember wearing black armbands in a Catholic high school in 1969 to protest the war… half of the nuns wore them as well. The Weathermen inspired nothing but anger, hatred and fear. If they stood for anything deeper than just anarchy and fear, I never heard about it.
I hear all the time from Obama followers about a “movement”. No one has ever explained that one in terms of say human rights, or help for the poverty stricken, no. Obama has nothing in his platform that would be called a “movement”. Kind of makes me wonder, when I hear that kind of talk, what in hell are they referring to? If Larry is right, then all the more reason we should fight to flush Barry and his movement now, for good.
help for the poverty stricken,
I can’t understand why BO’s Rev wright’s house cost 1.6 million and contrasting that with truly poor people. It does not jive…
as i recall hillary worked as an attorney for congress during watergate. it seems to be that she has some real creds from that period also.
The good news out of PA is that he didn’t get Youth Vote he thought he would get. Perhaps they are getting bored with him–fingers crossed.
But given what a klutz Obama, and even Ayers are, is that really, in retrospect, a threat?
No, it’s not.
As the District Attorney put it, while on Lou Dobbs, “Of all the people who have bombed the Pentagon, I’m sure Ayers is the nicest” he’s just one in a long line of terrorist morons, isn’t he?
So why would the psychology of a hacker, or a cyberterrorist, be any more threatening, given, even, how they tried to hack NQ, and their inability to understand how they’re being gamed, maybe baited into an attack? Someone brought up Obama and Alinsky, purposely making people angry to keep them confused, but who is angry and confused here? Obama, and the gangstas, right, shot with their own guns?
That’s what I call DUMB.
Even Cheney, with all his attempts to squash the Constitution, failed, that whole neocon group, nothing more than a flat tire.
And I understand people have died unnecessarily under Cheney’s watch, but that’s between Cheney and God, and maybe the Hague.
With one exception…he was able to rally the children to do things unthinkable.
here’s the kicker.
where did the WU go?
Did it go away? Or did it retransform itself up there iwth Ayers and Dohrn in some way.
the real question is how did they get their jobs? answer ayer’s daddy had some pull and got the jobs for them. dohrn has a criminal background, so who would hire her? pull!
http://www.eyeblast.tv/Public/Video.aspx?rsrcID=2036
interesting video about Black Liberation Theology and Marxism.
Want more…..Go to the Vatican Website or the Catholic Encyclopedia and you can learn all you want about LIBERATION THEOLOGY….Wright’s version is Afrocentric but basically the same ol’ shit….
His father was a Marxist, Barak (sic) wrote some very interesting marxist white papers for Africa.
Yeah….you are correct…This shit has been a pain in the ass for the RCC for like 30 yrs…it’s very popular for the elite college crowd….Marx always is especially when you gloss over Stalin and Mao….What’s a few million people anway….
AHHH i remember like yesterday the fires in Newark NJ and Asbury Park and Philly and the bombs and the Watts riots..threats on NYC..it was a very frightening time..
Kent State..
and then we moved onto the SLA and Patty Hearst!!
Geez they were working big time on the New World Order then..they just didn’t have it perfected well enough then or the right people..Nixon let them down..
and people think things are bad now?????????
Well they are just smarter now..and they have had more time to do it in a more orderly manner i believe..
they fool us into thinking we have real elections..after years of taking over our entire system of voting and walla..we get an Obama..then they get the kids all riled up..( they need some group now don’t they..and they have worn out their welcome with the fundies..so its on to college kids again..everything is cyclical don’tcha know!!)
and is it any wonder the grown ups are voting for Hillary..we have seen this shit before!!..and we are very familiar with it..that is why they are trying so hard to shut us up in the media and to marginalize us!
don’t ever forget..with age comes wisdom..most of it.. learned wisdom from living ..
fly
oh and i was one of those who was stuck on the NY Throughway ..and didn’t make it to Woodstock..but we had a ball in the farm fields along the NY Throughway..but i am not telling any of my secrets…lol!!
Thanks for the brilliant Video Flineo…just great!!
oh and i was one of those who was stuck on the NY Throughway ..and didn’t make it to Woodstock..but we had a ball in the farm fields along the NY Throughway..in a VW Bug…but i am not telling any of my secrets…lol!!
fly
there were only two things I ever envied my ex for:
his musical talent and going to wood stock … admittedly, I hate the mud, but hey … I can dream
Larry, I am not sure 53 is the cut off year. May be because of the draft…
Certianly I agree with your point of Yin and Yang and how they connect with our current times.
Da man’s in charge and its same old same old. 250 Million to sell a guy who has accomplished nothing. Jesus wept.
The more and more you start knowing Obama, more and more scary it gets.
And the more your BS-o-meter goes into the Red Zone!
Yeah, the only movement he inspires in me is a bowel movement …
Those of us that do remember those days know how the things that we believed in were distorted until we could no longer believe. And then like now we were told “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” The problem with that attitude is that the only solution considered by those that utter those words, is the solution they believe is best.
For many of us those that hi-jacked a peace movement and made it violent are an enemy we will never forget or forgive.
Ayers and Dohrn are two of the most egregious. They both should have been put behind bars and kept there for a very long time.
The first time I heard Barack Obama say “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for I knew I could never support him.
I cannot, I will not ever vote for a Republican, but I cannot and will not vote for some Media Darling that I think of as a cult leader. I’m a Democrat, a lifelong Democrat who has been voting for Democrats, good, bad and ugly for 40 years. But I draw the line here.
Barack Obama has made it clear that he is not a Democrat in the Jacksonian/Wilsonian/Roosevelt/Truman tradition. He is not a Democrat. I don’t know what he is, and nobody outside of his VERY inner circle knows either.
If I lived in a competitive state, I would vote for McCain over Obama. As an American, I’d have to.
Living in a state Hillary might have made competitive, I will write in her name if I can’t vote for her.
True that ….FDR could beat him in a stare down….BABY-O is already a political has been….Now is just the vigil….
I live in a Hillary state…but I’m afraid it’s a McCain over Obama state…and I’m not voting for Obama.
kenosha — yes — I wonder if Ayers and Weather Underground weren’t sent to destroy the Peace Movement because it was soooooo threatening.
None of the Obamabrats could spend a day without their Ipods or their cell phones. “Revolution?” Not if they have to do without something. That’s not what they signed on for. They think that sacrifice is for someone else.
good grief… and people wonder why the “trust no one over 25″ slogan is making a comeback.
that little line of yours was cl