Rev Left Radio - Eric Mann on Revolutionary Struggle: The Weather Underground, the Long 1960s, and the Fight for Liberation Today (Part 1)

Episode Date: September 27, 2025

Breht speaks with veteran organizer, revolutionary strategist, and author Eric Mann. In this wide-ranging conversation, Mann reflects on his decades of struggle; from his early work with SNCC and SDS, through his involvement with the Weather Underground and his time as a political prisoner, to his rank-and-file organizing as a UAW autoworker. Along the way, Mann wrestles with the realities of repression and counterinsurgency, the need for disciplined cadre and a Black-led united front against imperialism, and the history of the Marxist Left in the 60's and 70's in the USA as told through his personal experiences. His story is both a living history of the U.S. Left and a revolutionary call for commitment and organization for a new generation of revolutionaries. More Biography of Eric Mann: Eric Mann (born December 4, 1942) is a civil rights, anti-war, labor, and environmental organizer. He has worked with the Congress of Racial Equality, Newark Community Union Project, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Black Panther Party, the United Automobile Workers (including eight years on auto assembly lines) and the New Directions Movement. He was also active as a leader of SDS faction the Weathermen, which later became the militant left-wing organization Weather Underground. He was arrested in September 1969 for participation in a direct action against the Harvard Center for International Affairs and sentenced to two years in prison on charges of conspiracy to commit murder after two bullets were fired through a window of the Cambridge police headquarters on November 8, 1969. He was instrumental in the movement that helped to keep a General Motors assembly plant in Van Nuys, California open for ten years. Mann has been credited for helping to shape the environmental justice movement in the U.S. He founded the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles, California and has been its director for 25 years. In addition, Mann is founder and co-chair of the Bus Riders Union, which sued the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for what it called “transit racism”, resulting in a precedent-setting civil rights lawsuit, Labor Community Strategy Center et al. v. MTA. Mann is the author of books published by Beacon Press, Harper & Row and the University of California, which include Taking on General Motors; The Seven Components of Transformative Organizing Theory; and Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer. He is known for his theory of transformative organizing and leadership of political movements and is acknowledged by many as an veteran organizer on the communist left. ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. Okay, we have a monster episode for you here. We are taking an odyssey through a journey through the life of veteran organizer Eric Mann. He has been active since the 60s. He has been in multiple organizations and adjacent to multiple. multiple organizations, the Congress of Racial Equality, SNCC, Corps, students for Democratic Society, engaged in struggles against the Progressive Labor Party, you know, operating adjacent to the Revolutionary Youth Movement, personal friends with Howard Zinn, talks about

his time with the Weatherman, his arrests as part of a direct action that the Weatherman participated in and you know he talks about we'll get into this in part two and maybe even a part three but his time in prison organizing in prison coming out joining other communist organizations being a communist organizer inside the uaW etc but for this part one we trace his journey through the 60s and into the very end of the 60s from his um being taken under the wing of black organizers in the black community and black movement which shaped his third world, anti-imperialist politics through his struggles in the SDS. There are intrafational fights, which are just fascinating,

sometimes literal fist fights breaking out to the direct actions of the Wetherman attacking the Harvard Building for International Affairs and his subsequent harsh prison sentence for engaging in that. And that's where we wrap up part one. So Eric is a wonderful organizer. He's still organizing in his community with deep roots. He has a very principled and unique anti-imperialist, anti-colonial third world perspective in his politics that are really important. And he was brought up as a Jewish man from Brooklyn, a Jewish radical from Brooklyn.

His earliest organizing efforts were within the civil rights movement and under black community leadership. and that shaped his entire organizing and revolutionary political paradigm. So not only are we going through the story of one man, but we're using his life as a prism through which to understand the 60s and the 70s and beyond understand the intricacies of organizing, what makes a good organizer from a bad organizer. We'll explore intrafational fights, you know, sectarianism, entryism, ultra-leftism, adventurism, you know, nationalism, progressive forms and reactionary forms,

and just use his life and his experience as a prism through which to learn about history, learn about radical revolutionary movements in the U.S., and also to learn about lessons for organizers today. You know, we have to look to the elders and the veterans of revolutionary movements in the U.S. and learn from them. And I think Eric is a really, really principal, long-term veteran of the revolutionary movement in the U.S. and elder of the movement that we all have a lot to learn from. He's just a wonderful human being. I really, really enjoy talking to him both off-air and on-air, and I let him talk. I let him have the full floor and go through long swaths of history and the intricacies of these organizations.

And I find it utterly fascinating, and I think you will too. And speaking of organizing, right before we get to the conversation, or at least part one of the conversation, I did just want to toss out that in my local organizing efforts here in Omaha, we are launching a political education program that's emerging out of a coalition of different organizations here on the ground. And it's called Omaha's Socialist Night School. So we are doing a six-week program with child care, with food catered in, educational program first for organizers and activists. in the Omaha area and then we're going to open it up to the general public covering intro to Marxism, intro to political economy, tenant organizing, eco-socialism, socialist visions for the

future of humanity and so much more. And right now we're in the preparatory phase and the fundraising phase. So you don't have to support if you don't have disposable income, but if you like what we're doing, you can go check out, learn more about it, and even contribute a little bit to it. That's going to help cover food costs, child care costs, location costs. And I'm really excited about it. I'm actually, um, I'm, I'm doing two, two of the six lectures myself, leading two of the six lectures myself. Um, and, you know, on Patreon, you can learn more. I even recorded my first lecture introduction and historical materialism and put it out on Patreon for, um, my, my, you know, uh, supporters, our supporters to give me feedback. Right. So we're

actually having a back and forth with, um, Patreon supporters to try to bolster up that lecture and try to make it as accessible as possible without compromising rigor and depth. And we're having a really great communal back and forth on that front. So if you want to support the show, you can do it at patreon.com. But if you want to support Omaha's socialist night school political education program, I will link to that in the show notes as well. And you can directly assist local organizing and political education efforts here in Omaha. All right.

Without further ado, here is my fascinating part one conversation. with Eric Mann on his organizational and life experiences, at least in part one, all the way through the 60s. Enjoy. So, hey, everybody. This is Eric Mann. I'm really thrilled to be on Revolutionary Left Radio on to work with Brett, you know, after 50 years in the movement, how do you introduce yourself? Well, I've started. I'm a Jew from Brooklyn who's worked in the black Puerto Rican, Chicano movements, mainly the black community. I'm still in South Central today. I'm still doing my work. So the good thing is, if you're asking what the movement should do, I'm not sure I know.

But I do know while we're trying to do it, the labor community strategy center, the strategy center.org with Channing Martinez, Akuna Uka, Barbara Lott-Holland and myself, I'm a veteran, as you'll hear from 10 different organizations that I'm describing in my new book. We made the revolution with our bodies on the line. But it starts with the Congress of Racial Equality and all of the Northeast. and then I went for two years in the black community in Newark. So much more to say, but very happy to be here. Yeah, absolutely.

It's an absolute honor to have you on the show. As you said, you're a veteran of the movement. You have so much experience and wisdom to share with younger organizers and people who in some cases are just getting started coming out of high school or coming out of college and just getting activated and starting to organize. So I think this is going to be a really fascinating. conversation. You and I have had a discussion, just a personal phone call between the two of us,

where I learned a lot about your past. And I'm really excited to share it with our listeners today. So we have a lot of ground to cover. We're going to start with your early activism, your radicalization, your experiences in the 60s and 70s, under, you know, in many different organizations and labor unions, et cetera. And then the second half will be more learning from your experience and taking those lessons and applying it to today. But as you were just saying, your political journey began in the 1960s with the Congress of racial equality and later the Newark Community Union Project in the Black community of Newark. You spent the first three years of your political development as one of the few white people accepted into those organizations

working in overwhelmingly black militant and black community leadership. So how did being trained in the black community and the black movement shape and inform your political outlook to this day? Well, I truly thank God for certain choices you make in life.

You know, roads untaken and the roads taken and shape everything your life. So just a little background. You know, I grew up in 1942.

So right in the middle of World War II, my dad was in the infantry. And, you know, for most socialists and communists and Jews, we thought this was a united front against fascism and the war we wanted to fight the most of anything. When I was born, my mom was taking care of me and my aunt, Marcia. My dad was away. And my father came back. He was a socialist, anti-communist. And so I was also trained in anti-communist thought, which.

I never particularly agreed with you when I was a kid, but he was very smart, and I read his books. And my mom was a ferocious anti-fascist, and, you know, one of the primary ideological shapers of my life. She would say, just remember the goyam of everywhere, the fascists everywhere, and after World War II, she said, well, where did all the fascists go? I don't get it.

Now, half the country is fascist. Now there's no fascist in Germany. There's no fascist in Japan. So where did they go there? And that she also told me that Jews and the Negroes are in the same boat. So I then went to Cornell University where I was lost, or found in many ways. And I did help to initiate as a freshman.

the first demand for black admissions to Cornell with Andrew Fleming's and Sam Caradine and the 10 black students at the time and the late Danny Schechter, an amazing person who went on to be a key to Nelson Mandela. So the formative, the first formant of transformative, there were many. And this will be a theme throughout the book

for you, perhaps book. I'm working on a book, but for the conversation for young people is the transformative experience I had was I don't know how but I got a job in the South Bronx

in my sophomore year at the East Side Settlement House, which was a community center settlement house that originally be done for Europeans but to giving them credit, they opened up something to South Bronx with the same name.

And when I got there, I just fell in love with the community. It was like it really felt like this is where I belong. I was not happy at Cornell. It was very alien-knit and fucked up. Not that I was, you know, there was good things there. But I would eat every, you know, once a week at the Coleman family's house. And I would stay afterwards after the ship was over, stay in the community as long as I could.

And I did it for three years. So that was the prelude to working at Corps. The last thing I'll say before you get back to you, Brad, is that in the summer of 64, I didn't know what I was doing. I'd just come out of Cordell. I'm working in a settlement house again. And then James Cheney and Mickey Schwarz. and Andy Goodman to kill in Meridian, Mississippi.

And as I say, I was already influenced by the murder of Emmettel deeply. Murder of the girls at Birmingham, the murder of Medgar Average. But I had to say, I was shaken up that two Jewish men, young men, from New York, just like me. were murdered. And that did push me about what my role is. And that's what led me to, and they were in the Congress of racial equality, and that led me to knock on the door of court. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's a fascinating time for anybody to be coming up in, and all the movements that were, that were erupting and shifting from that 1940s and 50s conformity to the radical movements and explosion of consciousness in the 60s.

In 70s, you had the decolonial movements occurring throughout the world, lots of unrest here at home. So it really is this intense moment, and you're brought in under the wing of black leaders and the black community, and that has continued to shape your politics, as we'll get into later in the episode. But for the second question, I am interested in... Wait, wait, let me see. I'm so sorry. In my preface to the question, I never answered the question. That's fine. Yeah, go ahead. I'm so sorry. I was...

Because I didn't want to just think, I just showed up one day. Yeah. So I, the National Office of Corps was a 38 Park Row in Manhattan. I walked in Coles and they said, well, I'm looking for a job and I'd like to work with you and I'll do it in any capacity you want. And to my shock, this man named Lou Smith comes out. that he's the regional director, of course. It turns out he was a very famous black militant in Philly, and he had just been, you know, promoted.

Why he talked to me? I mean, it shakes me up to this day, but we had this interview, and basically he asked me about my background, so I already giving you that, and he said, why do you want to work with us? I said, I want to, I believe in you, you're the black militant,

you did the freedom riots, you've done the stall-ins, you are the black militants in the north, and I'd love to be part of you. And he said, well, here's the deal. Do you want to take on the system? Do you want to fuck it up? Do you want to throw yourself in front of it? Do you want to give your heart and soul to this movement?

Do you want to be a soldier in the army, and will you put your body on the line? And I'm yours, for them, that was the revolutionist. And I said, I thought, yeah, coming up thinking, I'm not as noted as you, but I want to be. I'd like you to train you. So I think the first thing, especially for white people, is I have a lot of problems, but at least I was smart enough to know that I was yet to be trained. I think you and I didn't know.

And I had a wonderful supervisor named Joyce Ware. And she said, you know, Eric, there's a black world and a white world. And when you're in a room with white people, you think you're having a conversation, but they can't help it. They see the world for the white lens. And I'm trying to teach you to see the world through a black and third world. which is going to mean really being hard on you to keep sort of rooting out the white world view. And imagine having somebody who would be with you every minute

oh, too, has lived me a lot. That's great. That's not great. See that? Don't do that. See this to the point where you begin to understand a rule system of how to think. And I will tell you know, one thing, Brett is

the answers will be relatively long because I particularly want a lot of the young people coming up to understand that radicalism and revolution is fundamentally about working with people, being rooted in communities of, yeah, the white people, you know, making real commitments for the black and third world communities and for black students to root yourself in the community and community organizations.

So I worked for a year in Newark, I'm sorry, in CORE. And then there was a big debate, Brett, in the 1965 convention at CORE. And CORE was making going to a big self-criticism about not being working cross enough. And I didn't agree with that. I mean, here were black people who, the so-called black middle and professional classes were not doing very well with suffering racial discrimination and racism of

police brutality. But I went to Newark. I organized and to organize poor people. And I worked with Tom Hayden who was white and Dermann Smith and Jesse Allen and I lived

in the black community for two years and it was wonderful. It was really wonderful and I again felt And I'll just tell you a story real quick. In a search for authenticity, a bunch of us went and got teacher's credentials. And I went into the public schools, and I found them so militarized. I was an all-black eighth-grade class teacher.

And they told me to discipline the kids. I wouldn't do it. They told me they're in cafeteria. I had to make them eat. I said, you know, I'm not a cop. My teacher said they want to bring in the Virginia military academy. I said, that's fine. I want to bring in Stokey Carmichael to teach anti-war.

Then I found out one of my students at 14 or 12, 13 was praying. So I did a whole, you know, anatomy and physiology, vaginas, penis, is, fallopian tubes, eggs, sperm. And I had a black team teacher walked in, and she said, this is pornography. I said, kind of love pornography. It's called anatomy and physiology. So because of all those things, they fired me.

So here's the story of the punchline. I was approached by a guy named George Rich, who was a black political figure in Newark. And he came over when he said, I heard you got fired because apparently the press had called when I already talked to. And he said, Eric, we don't know you. You got fired for all the wrong right reasons, the right reasons. I want to make a big test case about your firing.

So I had a public hearing. And at the public hearing, it's hard to believe if you didn't have the newspaper. 500 people came out to support me. A friend of white kids who had an organ, as in the other hand, all these hands off Eric N's buttons and 400 black people. And Sherman Smith said, well, you know, to the school board, you're training my daughter to clean your floor and Eric is treating her to go to Cornell. That's what this is about.

And then they try to stop me from speaking. And everybody said, burn it down, burn it down, burn it up, pop it down. They said, all right, Mr. Man, you make sleep. So I was still fired, but it was a big victory for the black community. And what I learned, Brett, is that where did those people come from? A lot they knew me. I had been just walking the streets, going on meetings for two years, lived in the community. And at the time, they didn't fight for Mr. Man.

They fought for error. And that's because I was the best I could to be far of that and loved that community. Yeah, I mean, that's a fascinating, fascinating story and being a public school teacher and being in that position and then using it to the best of your ability to uplift consciousness and uplift the people and then being punished for that. And then the community coming to your defense, it's a fascinating, fascinating story. Yeah, moving forward, I'm really interested also in your time in students for a democratic society, obviously one of the big organizations in the 60s that people today are still very aware of. you were a regional organizer for the SDS in New England. Can you talk about the organization as a whole, the various struggles and factions within it? I know that Howard Zinn was a contemporary with you in the SDS. So I'm just interested in the different factions within SDS and your

experience within it. Yeah. And I hope we can take time with this because I wanted to be a thubble conversation about a very important story, which is this is the only area where I work along with white people and there's a lot of lessons here. So, let me go flow and move through it. When I got involved with

STS, the first time, I became the regional basically director. You know, we understated the terms, but I was the director of the whole New England region. And I had

first been exposed to SDS, in the spring of 1965 when SDS organized the first national protest against the war in Vietnam. And I was with Corps at the time, but some people

with whom are working told me about it. And I didn't even know what SDS was. I mean, in the black community, you know, anyway. So I get there with my wife, my first wife, Nancy, and I, And there's 30,000 people there, and they had expected 3,000. But Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, had just bombed Hanoi in the fall of 1965 after running as a peace candy. One theme behind this is the Democratic Party and its treacherousness.

So I still remember all the speeches, but Paul Pardig gave a speech and said, what kind of system would commit genocide in Vietnam and commit genocide in Mississippi? We have to name the system. We have to stand up the system and challenge the system.

And Bob Moses from Snick said we have to make the connection between napalm and defoliation in Vietnam and lynchings and clan violence in Mississippi. So the Vietnam, black, black Vietnam was the strategy, but also my opening essay in the book is called

The Fifth of the Revolution and the Movement. We knew it would take a revolution to help the people in Vietnam and help black people. But it's an important thought I want you to say, understand. I never thought the revolution was overthrowing the government of the United States. I thought the revolution was standing up to the United States, fighting for black liberation, fighting for the third world, and weakening the United States, trying to prevent the United

States from doing all its atrocities. And obviously the storm of the black movement, but black people would tell me, without Cuba, without Russia, without China. without the revolutionary movements in Africa we have no chance we're stuck inside this white settler state and there's no capacity for the United States to free us

without the third world so those were sort of the frames you know some of the frames so I got to SDS in the fall of 65, 67 and it was great it was I was in Boston, Cambridge

I lived on Massachusetts Avenue from Cambridge right near Harvard Square, got a great apartment. But even then, I want to see Howard's in. Now, a lot of you know him from the people's history in United States, but Howard began by teaching of Spellman College in Atlanta, women, and he trained Alice Walker, one of his students. He trained Marion Wright, one of the leaders of SNCC. He was on in SNCC, very modest guy and powerful. And of course, he was one of the first people to speak out against one of the Vietnam and he visited Vietnam. So when I went to see him at Boston University at ESS, which

become a stronghold, he and I had an immediate connection. I was with Core. He was with Nick, and we both thought, with no debate, SDS should be white students, radical white students supporting the Black and Third World Revolutions. We explicitly did not think SDS was or should be a revolutionary organization, because we don't think white people are any right to think they're going to lead any revolution, and certainly an all-white group was going to read itself into a terrible place if it fell to what I call white self-importance. So Howard and I come from an uncertainly modest view because we're trained in the black community. And a lot of the chapters were great, just great. So I'd go

in the chapters, Brett, you know, and they'd be doing campaigns against Dow Chemical. They'd be doing campaigns to support black studies they'd been you know part of all the long marches they do some of them were uniting with the black community fighting against Harvard's gentrification

and they all had a two things in common rage you know I run on my engine runs on rage and love and a sort of I'm trying to remember this word I use

earnestment that we were earnest people. We are talking about getting on, talking about health. How can we end this war? How can we help black people? That was a question. So then, I meet this group of progressive labor.

And people warned me and say, look, let me tell you, you didn't walk into what you thought. We're already a factionalized organization. And I thought it was not too bad. Oh, you know, my, you know, confident treating it's arrogance. So I meet progressive labor, and they're a communist group. And unlike the U.S. Communist Party, I think it's done an amazing job in U.S. history. Right away, I didn't like him.

The first thing is they kept on my worker-student alliance, saying to the students, you're nothing, except you have to help the workers. Now, they were already helping black people and the people in Vietnam. So what about this abstract working class? I didn't want to help the workers in the United States. I wanted to help the working class fighting for black people

and fighting for Vietnam. But they started getting students to say, you've got to go work in a factory, to love the working class and see how great they are. So they would then come back and say, SDS is anti-working class. What? And anyway meant a lot of white workers.

And so that was their first term. But the second thing, and this is very important, is what do you do when you have a mass organization and it's infiltrated? And that's the word, infiltrate it, not just by communists, other country, usually cadre organizations that have come in to advance their own objectives. inside your organization you can spot them they're making moves they're winking at each other everything they say is a move

they're like they're not going in the conversation and I could spot them right away and they would start picking fights over everything and if you said let's march down the west side of street

no the east that's the west side is bourgeois the east side is Voluntarian and I was sick in fire And I had never seen that because at KORNN Cup, we had not had vaccine. It's a long story. But so I had lived in a group where you'd go to the meeting and the people in the meeting are in the meeting. Right.

And if you go to an SDS meeting, it's an SDS meeting. But no, this is a PL meeting. They had their own caucus called the Worker Student Alliance. And to my shock, they were attracting a lot of white students. what I think is there are a white race as they're on white shows and also a love of factualism that the students

are feeling this is great you got to mean to fuck it up you got to mean to expose we've got to unite to expose the bourgeois leadership of SDS which included me so luckily I've been in a black community

for three years so they have no legitimacy with me I saw them right away for who they were. So I tried to organize the non-PL people into some kind of an anti-progressive labor faction tendency.

But the main thing I was talking about was an ethical behavior. So I was saying it's not right for a group to have a faction. It's not right for a group to have a caucus. Because if they have a cause, caucus, that caucus is their organization. They're coming out of their organization, they're coming to our organization,

to overthrow it. And people would be very sympathetic to that. But it's very hard to build a movement around ethical standards if you are not clear on what you're lying differences. A good organization should be able to expel people for factualism regardless. You should be able to expel people.

people, the destructive behavior, you should have a cause, including that, unless the organization has a history of fact of caucuses, no caucuses can be allowed, no pre-organizing can be allowed, the meaning must be the meaning. So I was having a hard time, because GL was very smart, and they go up and say, Eric Mann is so anti-communist. Am I to be punished? because I just am a communist and I believe in the dictatorship the poetry are I be honest the workers through the alliance

is wonderful what's the issue here I come in the meeting you know like that kind of stuff and I saw my base eroding now still we had two thirds of the organizations

who agreed but again I was shocked at the appeal so I was very stumped and a little demoralized and then And fortunately, PL put its cards on the table. They started coming in and saying what we have a long discussion, and we think that all nationalism

is reaction now. Why? We think that black students who are fighting for black studies are bourgeois. What are they going to study? Swahili? They're going to go into the capitalist class. We need black people to be poor, because if they're poor, they're a revolutionary. But as soon as they get to college, they're going to become bourgeois.

And we also think nationalism hurts the working class because we believe in a multi-racial working class and they think black people are a nation. So now you're going into my strong suit. So I said, well, listen, first of all, black people are a nation. This is a white settler state. And you sound like the white settlers. Black people were not born to be revolutionaries.

Black people were born to live their lives, which in this country will lead them in a revolutionary direction. But if they want to go to college and become the head of the Pentagon or a corporate executive or a civil rights organizer, that's their democratic right. And the fight with democratic rights means you don't tell people you don't have the right to vote unless you vote a certain way and I said

you know once you deny black people the right of self-determination then you're saying they're the subject people under your so-called a working class and all the black students

were very happy and thank me you know because imagine them being told by certain white students and then all of a sudden the chapter was clear okay now we understand what the fight what P.L's about Sorry, Brett.

Okay. So, there it is. So then they came in and said, we have another thing. The people of Vietnam are selling out. North Vietnamese are selling out because they're in the Soviet influence and they are trying to have a negotiation with the United States

where they should have no negotiations. I said, what? Well, they said, isn't our slogan no negotiations? I said, our slogan is no negotiations for the United States, which is no right to call for negotiations, Vietnam, since it's not their goddamn country. But in a revolution, you eventually have to have negotiations with the oppressor. They're all a negotiated settlement.

and you decide when you want to do that and what the benefits are when you want to negotiate you do it if it doesn't work you go back but how dare you tell the people of Vietnam that they can't negotiate the answer to their revolution so that became finally we're back to white students

in support of the people of Vietnam and black people and I was able in New England there's strong suit to isolate them and so that's part one you want to comment

and I don't get to the revolution youth movement but why don't we spend some time on that threat? Yeah yeah so I have some clarifying questions just kind of understanding the situation here

please so as far as I understand based on what you're saying the progressive labor party was practicing entreeism where they come into a larger org and they try to kind of take it over, use it not in good faith to advance any cause other than their own,

even if that comes at the, you know, the destruction of the broader organization, et cetera. They're obviously pretty sectarian, so they're advancing a very sectarian outlook that only they have the right analysis. They're not really willing to work with others as equals. There's a bit of an ultra-leftism to them, but also a class reductionism because they're trying to militate against black nationalism as a useful force while at the same time, you know, criticizing Vietnam for its ties to the Soviet Union and trying to, yeah, so it has like ultra-left and class reductionist and almost chauvinist tendencies. And then there's this obscurantism around nationalism where there's a conflation of national liberation,

progressive nationalism, black nationalism, Vietnamese nationalism, with reactionary nationalism, chauvinist nationalism. They're sort of conflating the two and saying all forms of nationalism are bad while accusing you of not being a communist. So were you a communist? And is that general analysis of what the PLP was doing and their errors more or less on point? Yeah, almost every category you use is right. And I just want to say a couple of things. That was great entryism. I'll tell up later when I did because I was not a communist the science. But when it was a communist, I modeled, as did the CP, as did a lot of people in a legal revolutionary struggle, the right way to be a communist, which we'll talk about.

So it's not like being a communist makes you automatically, in terms of any anti-communism in our audience, there are great communists who've done amazing jobs and who know how to work in mass organizations as what you speak. Spirit has to be that your first allegiance is to the organization you're in, not the allegiance to your party. That's a long conversation. But you can't be in an organization. People can feel it. Are you, look, are you a communist in the labor movement?

Are you, but are you also a good person? Do you work on the assembly line? When I talk to you, are you giving me a line? Do you listen to me? Are you open to criticism? Are you always pushing your line? Don't, you know, and so I'm saying we'll get later on the how Kanias can play a very positive role. But we'll come back to that.

And the other thing I want to just clarify, as I'm agreeing with you, is, you know, in the black movement, they do talk about the concept of reactionary nationalism, right? they'd say this progressive is revolutionary nationalism and reactionary nationalists. But even that struggle has been distorted during the height of sectarianism where black people start accusing other black people of being bourgeois

and then the other accused the other people or being ultra-nationalists. So I would argue that virtually all black people are part of the Black United Front. And inside that Black United Front, The central question is self-determination. And black nationalism, black national identity, comes out of the fight for self-determination. I urge people to read the Cominterns, 1928 and 1930 resolutions on the Afro-American National Question.

I think it's brilliant and so carefully thought through, so methodical. you could disagree on this and that, but that's the first basis of my theoretical understanding. The second is that I was working with black people all the time. They don't ask the white people what to think. They had a million thoughts on our

own liberation. So I just want to be clear that the reactionary nationalism was white nationalism. And I think we'll get to this later, but it's like if you want to socialize the United States, which is imperialist,

the only thing you'll end up with is national socialism which we'll come back to. So yes, your questions were absolutely right. And I was doing fine because once, yeah, I'm not worried. Once you have the open struggle with me, I'm fine.

I was thrilled they did that. And I know some of their own cadre was stick over that way. That's a whole not a story. Okay, so that was P.R. Well, really quick, Eric, before you move on just no please yeah just to clarify kind of or just add to what you already said because i am an agreement of course i mean i'm a communist most of our audiences are communists

we're going to talk about your communism later on but we all are aware if if you've organized that all in communist or radical left circles there are two types there are the ones who are good faith rooted in the community genuinely open to criticism practicing the you know the the sort of personal skill sets needed to become a personable actor that people trust and is honest and is vulnerable about their own flaws, open-minded. And we all know the hypersectarian, smug, arrogant, always pushing the line, always convinced that they're right, unable to meet people where they are type of person. And so that's the, that's the split, not only amongst amongst amongst all forms of organizers. I'm sure you find

a similar thing in anarchist circles or even social democratic circles or whatever left politics you're organizing. And so that's, that's very, very common. And obviously we're advocating to being the sort of open, honest, vulnerable, good faith organizer that actually makes organizing work and not the freakish insular hypersectarian weirdos that we sometimes come across. And to the other point about black nationalism, I mean, we've done many episodes on black nationalism, on the Black Panther Party and their internal struggle between, you know,

aspects of the Black Panther Party that we're trying to. de-emphasize Marxism and over-emphasize nationalism and other aspects who are trying to synthesize self-determination under the black nationalist understanding with a Marxist framework of revolutionary strategy and the vanguard party, etc. So this is obviously a longstanding and ongoing sort of, not always a split, but sometimes it can become one within, you know, black liberation organizations and circles. And so it's just an ongoing, you know, tension that has to be struggled with and struggled through and resolved organizationally. But yeah, it's not it's not anything that is particularly new or anything like that, as you were

saying. Well, just if, you know, Brett, when we talked, I said there's 11 questions and let's take our time we're doing that, okay? Because it's no sense of moving on when there's a richness, otherwise people won't understand the point, right? Sure. So what you just said is great. I'll say something else.

And you're doings with me. You're just a kind ethical person in your conversation with Louis Masi. You model what your theory is, and I do too. You can tell people, believe me, in the working class, the black people can tell it a second. So those groups that do whatever they do,

okay, I know it's funny, but I'm Jewish too, you know, be a good person. you're a good person and your ideology comes out of that comes out of an ethical point of view it comes out of a love for the people who you work with

so yes that's progressive way can I get to the revolution and youth movement absolutely yeah let's go okay cool so this is a sad story as this is very important the second part

to start with all the people in the revolution and youth move in are my friend. But I didn't agree with them. So I just want to tell people listening, I've spent eight to half years and I'm going to send you the essay

on a book called We Made the Revolution We're of Our Bodies on the Line, the journey of a core SDS, UAW, and Strategy Senate organizer. And my wife, Lee and Earth man,

my best friend and comrade who's been helping me on this book and another guy named Jeffrey Coleman who was a wonderful editor I kept saying you know what the hell's taken so long I'm currently but you realize

you're writing history it's not I am it is a history of 10 organizations and the SDS chapter took me a year and I was there

because trying to get it right trying to understand the history. So my chapter on SDS is, in fact, a whole 30,000 word mini book, you know, of the whole history of SDS as concludes. And the core, Newark, there are all efforts to discuss an organization first, the leaders of it first, and then my role in it and my assessment of it. So I just want to say that. So that's why I spend so much time trying to say, am I? right and my fair okay so I had been at the Columbia strike and the Columbia strike which is I've written I urge listeners if you go on the

counterpoints where almost all my articles are and thanks to Jeffrey St. Clair my editor I wrote an article some like the Columbia strike how the black people of Harlem, the black students of Columbia and STS, took on the Columbia University, the liberal establishment, Mayor Lindsay, the OIPD, the NYPD, and the NYPD, and the New York Times, and won. So a lot of my story is the reason why you got to do it right is because you try to win something. And I tell people in my life, you got to play as close

to airless ball as you can. Because the other side doesn't need to. They got the police, they got the army, they got everything. And we got a small little thing. And if we're trying to get bigger, which I do,

and our movements have involves a very careful set of decisions and ideologies. So I had been in Columbia I was brought down there I was about a national organization I was called down along with you know a lot of the other regional organizers

and it wasn't entryism it was SDS was the group down there and we were part of SDS and they wanted me down there to help so ironically or you know they often sent me to speak to the more moderate students

because they said you're good at talking to them. And we get mad at them too much. So I do a lot of work to win students to the more revolutionary demands and to win students to the black demands. We'll come back to that later. But the point is, I left Columbia with such fight, I thought Mark Rudd did a great job. I thought Juan Gonzalez with who I work, the late Lewis Cole, others are already, remember the second, David Gilbert, David, Teddy Gold. They were great, and they were very sophisticated. I mean, they were trying to lead that movement, you can't imagine a movement of that

tower. We're talking about thousands of people, the NYPD coming in and beating the hell out of people, contradictions with the black community. And I was in the leadership. I was born into the leadership group, let's say, people. I was so impressed. I had no criticism of what they were doing. I thought they had figured out the United Front beautifully. I thought they were working great with Harlem because it was also about Jim in Harlem. And I went back saying, I'm going to try to take the Colombian model

more to Boston University next year, which would be, this was spring of 68. I'm going to go back in the fall of 69, starting the summer, and say we've got to maybe do more work with the black community in Boston. We've got to really think through all the lessons of the Columbia Strike

which I've written about. I'm in great mood, and then I go to the summer convention of SDS, 1968. Somehow Now, between May and June of 68 and I don't know if this meeting is in July, a group of the leaders of the Columbia strike, along with John Jacobs, Barr, others, decided that SDS must move in a more revolutionary direction. And I think misinterpreted all the elements of their victory.

and I had with talks so I go to the convention and the SPO yelling we need communism we need communism and I'm saying I am a civil rights anti-war

anti-imperialism I do not identify with communism especially you guys so and I don't like the communist saying that so far so all of a sudden my friends are going

but we're communists too it. And we're better communist than you, and we're going to move SDS in a communist direction. And I'm literally saying, what the fuck clear? I just saw you guys, you just come up

the biggest victory, which was a United Front, and I've been working with a moderate student. And I talked about anti-imperialism. I talked about genocide. It's not like anti-imperialism is very controversial to tell people, like I told the students of Columbia, you have no right to vote. You don't have the democratic right to vote on genocide. You just

oppose genocide. So I went there and I got elected to the National Interim Committee. And most of us who were elected were more what I call, maybe I'll call it the community organizer, the back to the civil rights, and so I were people. And we didn't want to have a fight between two communist factions. So I went to Bernardine, and I went to Billiers, and Mike Klonski and Mark, and especially those I know I had conversations, and JJ, I'll talk about, and I said, I don't get this. This is, oh, this is important. At the election, where I was elected to the National Interim Council, I think there were

eight of us elected, who had 23 people read, we had national elections and Bernaddeen won and Mike Klonski won, but a guy named Fred Gordon won from progressive labor. One third, in other words, progressive labor got one of the three national offices. That's a devastating blow. That means that, and that was partly an anti-rime viewing. People felt that they needed checks and balances of all things, or an excess that they saw. Think about that.

I mean, here, the leaders of Columbia's right. The best people, the best and the brightest, already getting a political defeat at the convention. So I went to them. These are my friends. He's my best friend. I said, do you not understand what just have? This is not a victory.

This is a tremendous recudiation. I don't know how the hell they're on the rise. So let's spend the entire next year building out the base of SDS, making it broader, making alliances with the black students, certainly, making alliances with, you know, or broad membership that involves liberals in SDS, radicals, people call themselves anti-imperialists,

people call them pacifist, but I've always believed in the United Front, and I liked them all. And yes, I provided a lot of leadership. And they said, this is a collective conversation. I think you're starting to be behind history. And I think you don't move into Cuba. I think the revolution is closer than you think. And we need to move white people in a more revolutionary direction. and I said

this is the revolutionary direction this is what the Vietnamese have asked us to do that's what the black movement has asked us to do I never anybody told the black movement why don't you guys run around call yourself communists so I was rooted because I had a movement

so we went back to Boston and I won't tell you that when I built with Howard Zinn with a guy named Craig Kaplan an amazing BU chapter We had 2,000 members. Now, when I think members, SDS, you know, I don't know,

we had 100 actual written members, but, you know, two or 300 people came out to anything we did. And the big thing, a thousand people would come and tell you that, so I was thrilled and P.O. was on the decline in Boston. And I was out-organizing. We were out-organized. and the theory that I had was absolutely right. And I had just ended, and I appreciate you to gladly have this time.

At the same time, I'm invited to MIT by John Cabot, the way it became John Cabot Zinn and me and Howard Zinn and Nojomsky and John Cabot. and there's a meaning of a thousand people they had a one day strike at MIT and there's a wonderful book called March 4 put out by MIT Press and the speeches totally

all speeches are in there and the discourse was very complicated because we're discussing people trying to justify war banning but the people got it in between but you had to be persuasive And Howard, if you go see norms and mine and Howard Zimms, we were talking to people and telling them

you have to make the moral choice to leave or make the moral choice to fight, stay in and fight. And people were moving to us. So at the same time that RIM is going to every chapter, picking a fight with everybody. I mean it. Picking a fight with T.L. It's fine, but picking a fight with them.

People didn't agree with them. So we did not have that problem in Boston because RIM was not in Boston. They did the, they're my friends, but I said, well, thanks a lot. Don't come. So I go to the convention. And I had not been involved in the national maneuvering. I mean, one thing is, you know, I'm very rude. I'm sorry to be an organizer

I mean it's not like I don't mean I don't have national aspirations, national thought but I'm building a SGS chapter that has 2,000 people supporting us and I struggle to get rid of ROTC and I struggle to get rid of military spending so I go to the convention and it's a shit show

and as soon as I walk in look at what the fun the room looks like it's 50-50 and I'm not one of the 50 there's not a lot of us who went to the National Convention how's that so maybe you know one-third one-third one-third one-third the organizers I'll call one-third of the Revolution Youth Movement and one-third GEO.

So Rimm, Bernadine who was the leader of that movement as I write in my book she's a brilliant oh, my God, Bernadney is a force of nature, but I say she was a great general with the wrong army going in the wrong direction. So she gets up and right away starts attacking PL

and brings in the Black Panthers to try to attack PL. Then PL attacks them. Then the Black Panther leaders say some very reactionary things about women. Then PL jumps up as if they're supporters of Women Liberation. and nobody gives a damn about the organization.

It was chaos. And I'm looking around and realizing this convention is in Chicago, which is the National Office of SDS. And to Bill and Bernardine and Mark and all my friends listening, you know, I told them at the time, and I say my book, how could you not out-organize PL when you could have brought a thousand people from Chicago alone? I mean, you should have had 2,000, if you went to chapter and said, let's, we will get SPS back in the right direction, bring it to be more anti-war, support black students. We could have isolated P.R. And every time they made a motion, we could have said, okay, let's vote.

And next time if the vote was three to one, four-to-one, he signed it out lose a little confidence. And they didn't have to be expelled. There was the essentially totally isolated. Instead, the first vote comes up and something about some guy in the red guards and I don't know what it was about and the vote comes out 50-50 50-50

and I'm realizing they've lost the organization that PL who doesn't represent 50% of the organization understood the significance of this contraction and I don't know what the hell the rim people were doing. So the boats keep going bad.

And then finally, Bernardine says, we don't want to work with PL and you are reactionary and I got to be exact words, but the revolutionary forces need to have our own meeting, which was okay. I mean, that was legit, you know, if you're in a middle of a faction fight and it's not going exactly away, bring your all forces, you know, into a room. there was nothing wrong with that at all i mean what the hell they had a faction we need or you know and in the meeting everybody was saying p.l must be expelled p.l must be expelled and other people were saying but we don't have the votes you can't expel on 52 48 plus there's a lot of support for communists in general having the right you know you don't control even 50% of it was wrong. And if you make a motion to spell PL, you're going to lose.

And then there's going to be a national election. This is scary, Brett. You guys are going to be voted out of office by progressive labor. And there's a book about PO. You say you want a mayor of revolution. And one guy about from PO says, the rim people rescued defeat out of the

jaws of victory. We didn't expect to win. We didn't expect to win. We thought, you know, we would push for our stuff. And then Bernardine and Jim Mellon and Dilley and others say, all right,

we're going to expel Pied out and walk out. And I'm saying, well, you can't expel them if you're walking out. because you're leaving the whole Chicago Convention Center to them. And they made, Bernstein made a great speech, great analysis and situations. Beyond me, even now, what the tactical choice could have been. But maybe it was coexist, fight two in the election, and then come back again with a plan. But I think it had reached the point where SDS almost didn't exist.

you don't mean it was a war of people young or with red books you don't each other all waving red books so they let a walk out and we went to this church that's an irony and I'm looking there's maybe 300 people there are 400 people meaning we lost some of the people in the middle and they're my friends

and they're saying and so this is great because now we can form a revolution revolutionary youth movement and were free of PO. And I'm thinking you, you destroyed a math organization that had over a million people who believed they were part of SDS. You did a terrible assessment of situation. You violated all you, you guys got a great history.

You guys are amazing people. Again, you're my friends. And I'm, but I was not a leader any. I was looking at it and going, whatever, this is terrible. And then they went off. And I went home to Boston, knowing SDS was over. And that will stop care, you know, you've been very generous. But the thing where I appreciate letting me tell you this is because the protection of mass organizations.

I mean, look, we're at a time now where we're a week. We don't have mass organizations, right? You know, protest here. But if you have everything to get 500 people in a room, keep those 500 people in a room. And if PL comes in, you got away expel them, but you get it. I don't want to summon up too fast.

The point I'm saying is that that meeting at MIT is the alternate reality to these two groups. it existed contemporaneously. And I was at that time thinking SDS is on the rise. Okay, you've been very nice. Tell me things. No, yeah, no. I love letting you talk because going into the details,

there's so much there. It's so rich. You were involved in these struggles and these organizations that people of my age and younger only look back and see in black and white clips on YouTube and on documentary. So to hear the intrafational realities of, the SDS and you know you trying to maintain a united front and keep it as a mass organization and

these sectarian battles um i think it's absolutely fascinating and obviously i wasn't there so it's not it's i love giving you the floor to speak as long as you want about these things because i think there's a lot to learn and then just for organizers today but there's also just a lot of rich history here um you know like during the the vietnam war and the protest and the radicalization movements and Marxists and, you know, black liberation struggle and trying to bring these forces together, but there's also a centrifugal force ripping them apart of sectarianism and certain people holding certain lines that they're uncompromising on. These are leaders of the nationwide youth organization that calls itself SDS, students for a

democratic society. It has more than 300 chapters on the college campuses of America. It's national and local leaders in convention here at the Chicago Coliseum, June 1969, take the major credit for the rioting, mob actions, takeovers, and burnings on college and university campuses throughout the nation. This is in finding out about the organization of SDS. We've always been quite willing to talk about. I will talk about socialism anywhere in the streets or in the Senate anywhere. I'm Mike Klonsky, National Secretary of SDS, and this is Bernstein-Dorne-Dorn, Interorganizational Center. Secretary.

Are there a communist faction making a big power play for SDS at this? Is there any communist back here? I guess there is. Are there communists in this organization? Sure, man. There's a lot of communists. You'll see. When you come in and listen, you hear people talking, you can judge for yourself where they're

communists enough. There are communists in the organization. There's no doubt about that. There are also liberals in the organization. the organization. FDS is not, in the movement in this country, is not something that exists during the school year and it's going to start up again in the fall. And if they have to worry about whether we're going to be in the streets in the fall,

we're going to be on the streets and in every institution of this country from now on. We're going to replace capitalism with socialism. We're going to shift in a second into your fascinating experience with the weather underground. But before we do, let's just pause and kind of think about your personal life at this time. You know, all this organizing, all the tumult, of the 60s, how is your personal life going and how are you balancing all of this activism and organizing with your personal life? Well, I'm glad you asked Brett because I know you're a father and one thing I didn't say yet is I'm a father by this time. I have a two-year-old daughter.

So named Lisa and I'm, my wife, Nancy, and I have divorced. She's the reason I came to Cambridge. So I could, because she moved. And if I didn't move, I wouldn't have, you know, the relationship with my daughter I wanted. And she and I had a wonderful 50-50 year. She was very strict. As was I. So, you know, we were very flexible, good friends. And, but sometimes she said, well, I don't care. You know, we're going to take Lisa. And then I would take Lisa on a bus to stores Connecticut from, because I didn't drive, I took a two and a half hour bus to Connecticut, stayed at people's on the crash on people's floors. I had a great apartment on Mass Ave. I would, I loved Cambridge. I admit, I didn't like

Harvard, which is the whole other story. I love Bartley's Burgers. I loved It was a kiosk in Harvard Square. That was amazing. I was very happy there. And the other thing is kind of like the people in SDS. I mean, a very good friend of mine. I won't mention her name, but, you know, 20 years later, she said, she was at Holyoke and whatever, the five schools up there in Western Mass.

And she said, I want to tell you how much I appreciate you. And I said, why? And she said, well, because I was the kind of organizer of the chapter. But we had this very charismatic president. And I would set up everything. And then when you came up, you would talk to me and acted like I was the main person. And you sort of blew off the president a little bit. But I was shocked that a man would come up and see me.

And I said, well, but you're the, you're the person doing all the work. You're my friend. We talk. We work out on your range. Of course I'm coming to see you. So the point is I had a lot of relationships with women. And I was really happy, I had to say. And at Boston University, you know, being an organizer, I mean, Howard Zinn and I must have talked.

you know, at least once a month. There was another very important Marxist. You should look up, Murray Webb, political scientists. And I would be up to speak in the classes and Howard already covering it, but this is an important story about, just quick. He said, well, I want to introduce, Kotoward is a historian. I want to introduce the very well-known historian, Eric Mayneth, and he's going to tell you the history of FDS,

and perhaps this campaign he wants to get you involved. because he had to be careful. So then I go to P. Murray's, and he said, I want to introduce the political scientist, Eric Mann. But the point is,

today's academics, they think they're the goddamn leaders of the movement. They write books. They don't care about us. They don't bring us up. And if they bring us up, they think we're the model of their theory. So we'll get to a whole other thing

about my war with academia. But the point is, I was thinking to myself, why didn't you form a third force? You know, and I realized, I don't want to be running around the country forming a third faction. Kings are going great in Boston. My life is always about relationships. I have so many personal weaknesses, contradiction. But in a collective context, they do really well, because I'm losing with other people, they love me.

I loved them with friends. We spend a lot of time together. And that Boston University was my home and had a home base. So having a two-year-old daughter, I started withdrawing to what I called the madness because I wanted to build up Cambridge as the heart of my life. And daughter base, and from there have national influence, which I did.

so I just wanted to talk about that so now we get the weatherman and he thought but you know what I mean Craig Kaplan I said well how did I get to instantly approved as the regional director

of S the essence I just sort of walked into town he said everybody knew you you were 25 years old there you work with you have to you were 18, 19, 20, 21 everybody's in Nancy everybody knew you got a kid

everybody knew you work core they wanted you here it was very simple so the point is my life was my life but you have to have people out there you got to have a life absolutely you got to have friends you got to have you know anyway yeah thanks for letting me no i think i think that's a really important thing to remind people of and just kind of situate your personal life in the midst of this organizing because it is all at the end of the day rooted in your relationships your family your friends, your reputation amongst, you know, people from Howard Zinn to your daughter and everybody in between. And to have a home base that you're operating out of and to have a community that you're embedded in is so important. You know, I've, I've born, raised and continue to live

and organize in Omaha, Nebraska, you know, not a major city or anything like that, but I have deep, deep, deep connections with comrades that go back years and years and years, as well as deep connections with family and friends and I could never imagine leaving this place because that's where all of my relationships are and they've been forged and you know I have spent years marching and organizing and you know pushing back against fascist movements and the police state here in Omaha with with solid comrades that I know will have my back no matter what and in those moments where in previous instances where I was arrested a pepper sprayed beat up at a protest and arrested it was my my close organizers and my comrades who knew me personally that that collected the

funds that swarmed the jail that got me and a few other of our close comrades out of out of jail that had food waiting for us that you know had hugs waiting for us i mean that was eight years ago and it still makes me brings tears to my eyes because those relationships are so deep and i still have those relationships to this very day so i think there's something deeply important for those of us interested in organizing that we do have those relationships and that home base of operation and that community to catch us when we fall and to have our backs no matter what and to build up the trust that that comes with years and years of fighting alongside close friends and comrades. So I think that's a beautiful little point to make in your life. And actually,

it's really important for this next step because we're going to talk about the weathermen and we're going to talk about your time in prison. And, you know, it's worth saying that you did have this really nice life that you were building for yourself and these deep connections because prison throws a huge wrench in that. And so we'll get to that for sure. But, yeah, thank you for that. And I guess let's just move forward and get into the Weatherman. So the SDS is-

Wait, not yet. Okay. If they do a transcript of this or they just people listen, listen to the conversation between me and Brett, how we're talking. I mean, it's beautiful as you said. Word for, we understand each other. I mean, living, you know, you've got to have a base. You've got to be rooted somewhere.

It's all about relationships. It's all about it. So I don't want to even say more about what the beautiful thing we said, except to say their book ads of a theory. This is a theory, folks, and not random ideas about how to be a successful organizer. Because I wrote a book called Play. or progressives, the 16 qualities of a successful organizer.

And the first, I don't know, or we go list later, but is build the base and never walks alone. And so thanks, Brett, that we're on the same page, sentence, and maybe work. Absolutely. Definitely. And I will link to all your work in the show notes as well so people can go and get those and learn from them because I really believe that people can learn so much. from it. And it's just important to think in those terms. So, yeah, but are you ready to move

into the weatherman chapter? Oh, yeah, I'm at the time. All right. So yeah, just kind of set up how the transition out of SDS and into the weathermen occurred and then just talk about your time in the weatherman, your actions, your eventual arrest. But any critiques you have of the experiment, what you were thinking at the time, I'm just, I'm all ears and I'm very interested in this part of the story. Well, this is really interesting to me. This is the thing I have worked on this book where I'm working on my life wherever how I made this transition is still a little baffling to me

but I have a positive understanding of it. So when I went back to Boston, Cambridge in June, there was no SDS. And of all ironies, which really pissed me off,

progressive labor, because you have to understand that the Revolutionary Youth Movement abandoned SDS and thought it was like a threw away like an old something, and they thought they were moving on to this great revolutionic future. So they left the franchise

to PL. And progressive labor, if you can imagine it, created a Rump SDS or you could just say a PEO SDS. So imagine I go back to Boston where I'll organize these people, and now they are SDS.

It's heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. So I'm trying to remember because I have such a, I call it, cinematic memory. You know, it's like one long movie. You know what I mean? It's like, I remember thinking because you want to start at 1492. You want to start, you know, you want to start when the

Christians invaded of Jerusalem? You want to start, you know, where do you want to start? But it's got to be, in order for me to remember it, it's like one long story. So I don't remember. And I remember, you know, people say, how do you remember this? I don't remember the two months before I joined was at all. And I think it's because I don't exist outside of an organization. And so I don't know what the hell I did.

I'm sure I did something. Oh, but this is another thing I realized that we did form, I forgot about this after years, we did form some kind of a caucus in Cambridge, some wrong, that was some effort to build something, not the SDS anymore, but something. And we had actually, it's funny, we had a meeting we called, I forgot that, and P.L. charged the meeting,

like we don't even the right to exist. And I'm not a particularly good writer, but fortunately, they made a tactile error, which is our rule only had one door, the size of a normal door. They were trying to get tricky people with. So as they came in, we punched them, and we kept punched them and punched them and they couldn't get one and two people. And they'd get them in a moment. So I was getting good at it, you know. And we eventually, it's a good thing on military strategy, they retreated.

So that was a high point. in my life. So I'm with, I mean, it's probably August now. And I'm approached a woman by a woman in Harvard SDS, a Harvard Ratcliffe SDS, she was in Radcliffe, SDS. And she and I were good friends and she said, listen, you know, the weather

people, they're having a meeting in Ohio and over a Labor Day weekend. and what do you think we just go check them out? We're not going to join, but maybe we check them out. And I'm going, yeah, let's check him out. And, of course, you're not driving five hours to check him out. I mean, whether you know it or not, you're going to accept that you want to.

So I got there, it was magnificent. I mean, there was 300 people there. And I want to say two hours. These are all my friends. I never had any personal phone's out with any of them. Even our long fight inside SDF, I had great

unity for them. These are the leaders of Columbia's Drake. These were great people. Bill and Bill Ayers and Diana Alton were very closest friends. Bernardina again, great respect for her. So me and this other woman come and they

put on a damn show. I mean, they had like, they had a new newspaper called Fire, and they had, like, people coming and screaming, you know, death imperialism, support the Viet Cong, and then they had these bundles of this newspaper, and they, like, created, like, a line, each person, like a relay race, each person gave it to the next person. They put on a hell of a good show, and they gave great speeches. and

again since you talk about everything being personal I looked around and I said you know Linda Evans and I know who I want to be careful but you know Dave Gilbert and I remember speech Teddy Gold gave and I liked all these people

so Bill and Vernon he sat down with me and the Southern Woman and they did a recruiting conversation And they said, listen, we really glad you're here. We want you to set up, would you set up a weatherman collective in Boston and Cambridge, obviously in the heart of T.L. territory now to rebuild the base. And then they said, Eric, I know you're very concerned.

No, Eric is the other one, I'm sorry. We know you're very concerned. is just going to be ultra-left he's just going to be small I'm telling you that this new line the key is military that the white working class

youth we want to win them to the side of the black and Vietnamese revolution but they feed the white students is weak and the working class does not identify

with the white middle class like us so we have to be very militant and very fiercely N.OF and take the NRA flag and we're going to have this action this national action in October

this is September already it's only six weeks away but we got already 2,000 people come from Detroit 1,000 people from Cleveland we're going to have at least 10 to 15,000 people there so this line is working

We have collectives who are already doing great work. But that was very persuasive to me because that was, they knew, you know, in a persuasion, you have to know what is the person's main concern that you have to address. And they addressed it. And again, they were very good recruiters, and there was a lot of personal affection. So I looked at this other woman. I'm just saying she does not want to be identified at this point. So obviously she's a name with a real person.

And we said, what do you think? And we both of us do it. So we went back to Boston, Cambridge, and I had this very nice apartment. I've always had a nice apartment. So I think it was two dead, which is amazing on Prince Street in Cambridge. That became the home of the Weatherman Collective. and the next thing, you know, we're eventually 20 people sleeping in it. So the story of how we built the collective,

I'm understanding now that there was a collective, in other words, the thing about saying I don't remember the two months, I now have to remember, I do remember. We had already formed some kind of collective that was fighting with P.O. And a lot of those people came in to be part of the Weatherman Collective. So it's very important to understand for our listeners

the weatherman was not the weather underground and there was a separate group called Weatherman Venetally they were called Weathermen but the name of the group was Weatherman it was not underground

it was sort of a mix between then you would be in a math organization and also thinking a cadre organization which was fine and then a taking action organization and somehow this was generating a math response by white working people. So at the time, I want to be very clear. I'm very enthusiastic.

I think this is a great idea. So I had no reservations. I was pretty much the leader of the collective. You know, it was collective leadership, it was understood that I was primary. and we recruited these amazing people good people and we got along good by the way

it's interesting we didn't have a lot of the weirdness but we didn't have weirdness we did not weirdness we had I don't know how 20 people slept in one room that was starting to smell

like a barn but so we we right away I mean it's it's funny like right away the women besides have a women's action

so he went into a high school and it was called a jail I'm sorry it's called a jail break so this is ironic laughing books so we went in and the concept was they were to go in into a class and tell the students that

imperialism and the war in Vietnam and black people and that's all marked out there was no context to this So prior organizing, I have no idea what the time, placing conditions, which are used, time, place, and conditions determine everything. The fine placing the issues were aptly wrong. So they went into the class. They helped us stay where she was. So they did an effort to hold the class accountable.

And yes, blocked the teacher from leaving the room. It didn't work very well, to say to the least. And they escaped. I say, you know, as a communist, I say thank God a lot. But thank God they didn't get busted, because that could have been very serious stuff. And they came back and they were sort of proud of what they did. And, you know, we felt, again, I want to explain the theory. We felt that our job was to create very controversial actions that would shape people's consciousness

and they didn't have to like it the minute they saw it. And a lot of this was influenced by Regis Debray's Revolution in the Revolution and the Focco theory in which he argued that the Cuban Revolution

was based on a small band of Foco who basically went into the countryside, organized people, and then marched on Havana and all the through the government.

And therefore the answer is small groups of very dedicated people can cause revolutions and groups like communist parties cannot. So that was part of the ideology. But it was also just, there was a lot of militancy in FBS. It's not like we were in breaking windows.

It's not like, you know, we were marching. The street movements of the last year were all of our trashing stores, trashing movements. So it wasn't a complete, this important. It was still a qualitative leap, but it was not coming out of nowhere

in terms of those time places in the distance. Because by now, we're in 1968, 69. The war in Vietnam is endless. The murders are endless. The beings of the Panthers are endless. Oh, this is important. King has been killed. Malcolm has been killed

and we don't yet know Fred Hampton and so we're ruddled us in summary. You know what I mean? There's no clear black movement but we could have found it. So we think the theory is you don't have to know the consequences of your action.

That's interesting right there as we'll get to. I'm at the political, meaning you don't know the outcome but if you don't do it, there's no chance for a revolutionary possibility. Do that make that? Yeah, so it was basically an experiment with, I mean, as an organization that maybe is pretty

middle class in general, we're trying to win over, especially the lower working class of white people, but people in general were sort of rudderless with regards to the SDS just kind of fell apart. You know, there's been assassinations of some of the black liberation leaders. So we're basically, and we're influenced by things like Foco theory. So we are now experimenting with cranking up the militancy and direct action, you know, and we're going to see if that raises consciousness. Even in the moment, if it makes people uncomfortable, it would still be something like

propaganda of the deed. It would increase people's consciousness. It would win over elements of the lower class. And so it was basically a theoretical experiment, more or less, right? You do great summaries, bro. Word for word. And the thing to understand is I do see whether the man is an experiment. I see everything as an experiment.

If we should look back, this should have been done, that should have been done. But you don't know. And at the time, this is the best idea I have. And I believe in it. And the other thing we know, Brett, is that, you know, when you think about when you've been radicalized or when I've been radicalized as a new concept,

you don't necessarily welcome it because it's shaking up what you think at the moment. You want to push it away because it threatens. No, I believe this. But you know, goddamn well,

there's something about an idea you like because you keep fighting it and fighting it until you get persuaded. Absolutely. It's not easy if you just say the person go, all right, that's great.

now it works so we thought if we create a set of actions the goal is to create controversy the goal is to do something that people say don't do that is important I agree with you but you shouldn't have done this

and it's the very action that says to them well you're going to have to do this if you want to have a revolution so you come over to us you move to us because we're going to do the damn thing we want to do So then we came back And

I came up with this idea No, I did not come up We came up with the idea of our idea What would be, you know, what's going to be as a signature action And we decided to have an attack on the Harvard Center for International Affairs Now the Harvard Center for International Affairs

We remember We had just defeated the Institute for Defense Analysis at Columbia we had just had the SDS strike in Boston University against ROTC but also military research

and the BEOC's Overseas program so the idea of attacking counterinsurgency centers on campuses was already agreed upon and that was a critical by the way consciousness raising for the students that go, no, this is Columbia University.

It wouldn't do that. You know, like Melvin Van Teeble said, no, this is America. They can't do that. So, you know, so when people should know they do that, they do have a racist gym in Harlem. It's the actions of the university that often get university students radicalized.

So it turns out that Henry Kissinger was affiliated with this. This was high. tech horrible counterinsurgency. So we decided we're doing something very radical, which is basically it is a raid, and we're going to do something, as you said, propaganda of the deed, but not focusing on physical attacks, but sort of attacking the building, attacking the inside of the office, creating mass chaos, and disrupting business as usual. and getting attention for it.

So a group of us, not me, went in case the place, and there were a group of, and downstairs is like a secretarial pool, and upstairs were the conference rooms where the officers were and all the murder was taking place. So we understood that the goal was to come in quickly and spray paint the whole. place, death to U.S. imperialism, imperialism kills women. The NOF is going to win. All power to the Black Panthers. And we did that, therefore, defaced in property. And then we marched in, therefore trespass. You know, the great thing about imperialism, I've got to give a credit, is they got a crime for whatever. Whatever, oh you do it's a crime if they want it you know there's not one goddamn thing they even had black

people accused of loitering Jesus so imagine that you're you're inflamed african who's just been allegedly free and you're sitting there because you don't know what they help to do you have their job and you're just standing on a corner and they make the charge of loitering the clan and they arrest you for loitering. So for all you law student, seriously, and, you know, it's good to be a law student, really. As long as you understand,

you should have no loyalty to the law. Absolutely. Don't talk. I mean, you could argue to press to that. I understand what you've got to do inside that courtroom, but you've got to tell people this whole legal citizen is erased with a piece

of shit. And don't you get seduced by it? Don't you think you're so smart? and I know some revolution you would thank God for William Cuncelor and Arthur Cunoy and Hank de Souverill,

one of my very best friends who said the law is revolutionary I mean that is to say I lie, cheat and steal just like they do I bring in witnesses, I coach my witnesses I'm going to not get you out by any

means necessary and I'm a lawyer but I'm going to war with the system so we come out of that like, oh, gee, okay, so we're marching in oh yeah, I trespass

facing a building so we march in and you know, we're scared in somewhere, you know, we're nervous or nervous, a better word. So some of the people, instead of going upstairs,

start going to go and the secretary and knocking over their desk and you know and it wasn't like a conscious line you know but it was sort of like hey we're here to wreck the whole building you know and

you're all part of the war crimes and so forth it's strange I start saying no no don't do this go upstairs he's the secretaries

And I say to the secretary, so, you know, it's so strange, I'm really sorry. This was not our intention. You're good people. We're trying to, you know, I don't know if you know you're working for war criminals. The big story is what this place does. You have to ask your own role here, because maybe you're in on the war criminal. But the goal is to hit the big people. upstairs. And then we all go upstairs.

Breaking windows, knocking down doors, and there was a guy named Ben Brown, and Ben Brown, we think attacked one of our friends, or who knows, and then one of our people punched him and gave him a bloody ear, and he had like, you know, 10 stitches. So, then we escaped. and this is important you know I said what about the consequences now at that moment I still have a two-year-old daughter

and I won't go through all the things that Nancy and I talked about but we understood this was the lead to arrest something bad was going to happen and I won't go into all those details but I was aware of that so we march out And we're related We think we did great

And sure enough There's an article I mean Harvard Crimson LA time I mean Boston Globe Radicals

attacked the Harvard Center for International Affair accused it of being war criminals They couldn't not show what we

wrote on the wall By the way in terms of The good thing about poster art and outdoor art and muralism And you know

That's a really good thing It's great painting And you know because they couldn't come in without taking a picture of death to U.S. inferiorism and the N.R.F. is going to win. So we go back to the apartment, and I don't remember exactly, but the next thing we know about a day later, the police tell.

Because I'm very well, though. I mean, I'm like a public figure in Boston, but it didn't take a miracle to identify a lot of us, and they arrest us. we're very lucky the police do not brutalize us you know

they're not friendly but they come in and have guns and say you're all under arrest and handcuff everybody and we go off to jail

with jail is not the same as prisoners where they hold you before trial luckily we have things in place and we have bail bonds but the bail bonds is going to take 10% of your bail

so you have to have cash but in return they get you out so there's also an illusion because that wasn't too bad I went to jail I'm out in two days

then our next thing is we go we describe we're going to go to Boston, there's a famous working class school, high school in Boston, and we went there again with the same tactic of NLF flags and trying to talk to white students in a, like a yard, like, you know, the yard outside the school.

So we start going We march with the Vietnam flag And we're talking to the students And again, we misassessed These students come after us With knives and sticks To kill the communists So

One guy comes at me with a knife And luckily I punch him in the face And he goes down a little bit and pretty much we run away because we were under physical attack. Then it turns out we are charged with assault on the students.

So here we are, it was Labor Day when I joined all this happened in September I mean how to how this happened in September? And then, I think it, no.

So then came, so we're still feeling good. You know, we don't understand the full consequences of what's going to happen, but we're on the role. We feel good about it. So, I think we're arrested again. for the Boston high school organizing

campaign and that's in Boston the other one's in Chambers so now we go on two trials two charges and then we're bailed out again so at this moment because I look back

this is doing I'll figure it out over 50 years ago and what did I think was going to happen? I mean, I'm doing all this stuff. This is not my style. This is, you know what I mean? This is not, it's contrary in many ways

to what I've done my whole life, which is be essentially an organized. But I want to be clear again, for, again, listeners you're out there, I'm happy there. I'm not, I'm not, anything but doing what I believe in. But I'm starting to get shaken up a little bit about how the hell that we get arrested

twice, and it's only in the October. So I'm already on, I have two charges on me, and then SDS organizes the

days of rage in October in Chicago. And this is where, you know, 15, 20,000, 10,000 people are going to go. So about eight of our members, their collectives who are not facing charges mostly, decide to go. And those of us facing charges, we're afraid if we get also arrested and also we're out on bail. So we go to Chicago and we're arrested. That means we've jumped bail.

then we could be on charges in Chicago Boston and Cambridge so I didn't go but half of us didn't go and I've read everything about it but I also heard the stories when people came back and you know the story is that there were no more than 500 people there

and the story of what happened in Chicago and the days of rage. I don't, you know, I know that there, I mean, I read it carefully. There were fights with the police. There was going through the Gold Coast. There were women's actions and a lot of arrests. And our people came back, I think, miraculously,

most of them were not arrested. I said, how did they go. And they said, it was great. Oh, my, you should have seen this one. They had a helmet on. and we fought the police and we did this, it was great. I said, well, how many people were there?

I said, well, by the time it ended, 300. I said, wait, wait, the Eurthic goes great? And I said, yeah, it wasn't exactly what we thought. And then somebody from the Weather Bureau, you know, Weatherman is very clever. So they call this natural committee the Weather Bureau.

Weatherman had a great sense of panache and slayer and crazy shit. So somebody from the Weather Bureau comes in who had been very active at Columbia and telling her how great it is. This is great. Wasn't it great? Wasn't it great? And I was starting to think,

wait a minute, it doesn't sound great. And I'm already facing two charges. And I'm already losing some confidence in the statute. Because we didn't bring a hundred people from Boston. You know, if they were going to bring a thousand, our collective brought nobody but ourselves. And pretty much it turns out that's what everybody did. Because I said they were three to four hundred people at the opening

of the best weatherman. And we could argue there are 500, 600. But it didn't look like anybody bought a whole lot of people. So then I read that Fred Hampton had called this whole demonstration costoristic opportunist. I got to get out. He had seven very clever and clear that said this is left opportunism. I don't want this. Don't come into Chicago. You're going to bring the black community. You're going to bring a copy. You're going to cops down on us. We oppose the weather people

and we think you really wipe chauviners and get out of here. Fred, where does the Black Panther Party stand concerning the weathermen, the SDS? We stand way back from the SDS and the weathermen. Because we believe

that the weatherman action is two actions. It's REM 2, the weatherman. We think they call them both national action. We think that REM 2 is national action. Weatherman is national action. Weatherman is national reaction, you know. We think it is anarchistic, opportunistic, individualistic, it's chauvinistic, it's custeristic, and that's the bad part about it. It's custeristic in that it's leaders take people into situations where the people can be massacred, and they call that revolution. There's nothing but child's play is folly, and it's criminal because people

can be hurt. We say that they're doing exactly what the pigs want them to do. When they take people down and just do nothing, play around, and the pigs are prepared for this, and they'll wipe all of those young people out. We think these people, may be sincere, but they're misguided, their muddle heads, and their scatterbrains. The only way we can show them is to criticize them like we're doing right now, and then leave from here, go to the federal bill and have a demonstration that's to educate, a demonstration that is disciplined and organized, you know, and that's what we're going to have to do, and let them see the examples.

And that is my assessment, what the Fred Hampton assessment, which is in my book, word for word, I'll get it next time, became my assessment. But not then yet, not then. So, but after the October action, I would start to lose a lot of confidence in the Weather Bureau, confidence in the broader strategy, but mainly, Fred, I'm going from jail to jail and court to court, and I'll be honest with you. I'm fighting for my life right now. You know, I'm not questioning anybody else's strategy. I'm trying to figure what happens. So I have the trial on the on the Center for International Affairs

and there was six of us I think in that trial and I decided to represent ourselves and myself the reason being is that in a trial the judge of he wants to be very strict

says that's not relevant I don't care about your political motivation No, you can't talk about the word, you know. Did you or did you not spray paint? No, you can't talk about what you spray paint. Did you enter the error? Did you do this? So I realized having defended myself in the Newark trial, and I did so good,

you got to be your own lawyer, which gives you a lot more flexibility to make the political point. And to give the judge credit, he gave me a lot of leeway at each point. And I thought I was doing great because the judge was being very sympathetic and, you know, indicating, you know, that's a good point. At the end, he says, I sent you to one year in prison. Now, at that moment, I'm asking myself, what did you expect? And I had to say, I'd probably expect the two to three months. But they didn't make any sense because about 300 people in my trial supporting us. so it was a what do you call cognitive dissident or denial you know I'm both taking on the system

telling you great revolutionary criticisms being very aggressive of myself and then shocked that he gave me a year in prison so I'm approached by a guy named William Holman's who is a wonderful civil rights lawyer who had been our friend who had been already a lawyer getting us in and out of these bailing us when we must have been in jail four or five times and each time getting bailed out and he said Eric this is insane

I mean I was expecting three months a year for oh and they tried me with assault and battery so I'm in a difficult position because I did not hit the guy no it was in our intention to but I don't want to you know

if you're a weatherman you don't say I didn't hit somebody so I have a legal contradiction there. But I do say I wasn't mainly up on the second floor. So then I bail out. So Bill says you got to appeal.

You so listen there's in Massachusetts is the basis for you can appeal a sentence. It's a new trial actually. But in the Massachusetts law you cannot get more time than the original

sense. I said, okay, that's good. So he says, and I think with me being a lawyer, and I'm very respected, the judges will understand now, you're not on trial on somebody, you know, I mean, you are, but

I'm the person talking to the judge. And I think the judge will give you a significantly smaller sense. So I say, okay, it's a deal. That sounds great. So we appeal. Why don't we maybe stop here? lot to take in before you go forward okay yeah do you want to just say that the ultimate

sentence what it was and then we can yeah yeah sure sure so there's other things to talk about the uh the flint meeting in December but I'm just right so the so I go to Chicago I go to Chicago to work with the National Office the beat the Boston Collection was pretty much finished and this is worth a minute or two so I go to this December War Council and Flint and I organized I found a place the guy said you can have this place but somebody was just killed so take me a day to mop the floor but I got this place for the war council And there It's going further

People are now saying weatherman was not right So first they're saying RIM was not right I mean SDS was not right And now there's sort of a repudiation Of weatherman Well it turns out too many of us are getting arrested It's dangerous

And we've got to up the ante again We have to do bombing We have to go underneath and bombs targets. But the mood was not very strategic. It was pretty weird. Pretty weird. And I'm going to tell a story there. It's important.

I was terrified. You know, there I am about to go back on trial in January. And I'm already really starting to realize that, you know, I'm going to leave my family. And I met a woman there, and I liked her a lot, and she liked me a lot, and we spent the night in her sleeping bag. And then we liked each other a lot, so she said, meet me back at the sleeping bag or whatever the hell it is.

And she was nothing but sweet, and the main thing I remember is the affection. And her saying, you know, I know you're going to scared during a prison, but you should be proud of yourself and this and that. and it was very kind and then they were about to go into the underground and Bill Ayers came up

to me and said and I did not want to go believe me I did not agree with that he didn't want to go but Bill Ayers came up to me and said hey Eric this isn't going to work for you. You're too big physically you're very

prominent person we're not going to be able to protect you on the ground And it was very sweet because what he was saying is I grant you a dispensation. I know if there's any group pressure against you, don't do it. Don't go on the ground. You go back and serve your sentence

and build for this day. It's very important. I wouldn't have done it, but what if I did? Yeah. What if I did? So instead of me having to fight it, I was encouraged to say, you've already paid your dues,

go back and serve your time. So as you can see throughout, there continues to be a great affection among us, whatever we're staying right and wrong. The human relationship just put me very good. Absolutely. A federal grand jury in Detroit today charged the 13 top leaders of the weathermen

with plotting to bomb public buildings in Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Berkeley, California. A weatherman are the militant faction of the students for a democratic society. Only one of the 13 is now in custody. At 7.30 this morning, KPFK received a call from a woman identifying herself as a member of the weather underground. Hello, I'm going to read a declaration of a state of war. This is the first communication from the weatherman underground. Kids know the lines are drawn.

Revolution is touching all of our lives. Freaks are revolutionaries and revolutionaries are freaks. If you want to find us, this is where we are. this is where we are. In every tribe, commune, dormitory, farmhouse, barracks and townhouse, where kids are making love, smoking dope, and loading guns, fugitives from American justice are free to go. Within the next 14 days, we will attack a symbol or institution of American injustice.

Power belongs to the young people and the black people in this country. Come on, we got to fight it out. We got to build a strong base in someday. We got to knock those motherfuckers who control this thing right on their ass. So I'd go back for my trial. And this is the irony of many ironies of life. I go somehow, I walk into the Harvard Center. and finish the actual affairs.

And they're the secretary down there. And they're all saying, hi, you did great. And there's this particular secretary, and we had a particular connection. And I said, is it any way you would be able to testify at my trial

that I never went up to the second floor? I stayed with you guys. Both, because I was on the lookout, not just that, but because I wanted to connect with you, everybody and she said, I will testify. So here's, I mean, if I

hadn't done that, it's just my, you know, it's the contradictions of life is the point. So, and she did. But it didn't matter. So when we walk into the trial,

I look at this group and as I said, it was like a group of retired Klansmen, you know, Boston's got their own. and I walk in and I realize they're almost saying to the judge

your honor do we have to go through the trial who you just convict this Congress and the judge so we go through the trial

and Bill has lost his confidence the time he told me to do it and then they come back and I can see he's not fighting I said

Bill I got a great witness she's going to say I never I mean she's from the Harvard Center for international affairs. He's going, yeah, yeah, that'll be good. I'll go, what the fuck?

You're the one who told me to appeal. I got a witness who in any theoretically courtroom movie went into the case. And I thought too out because I was able to defend myself with enthusiasm. Bill was ashamed almost.

what happened? And he went through the motions, and then they went out, and they said, all right, the judge said, I'm going to go in my chambers and deliberate. So he comes out, and the Dominic Spina, one of the police from the Cambridge, has like a V for victory. I see two fingers, I say, oh, fuck him, you know, D for victory. And then the judge says, I sentenced to two years in prison and it wasn't a

V it was a two and he says and I sentenced you

to a three year suspended sentence of probation I suspend

a second or I'm going to take you to two years in prison and two

years suspended but not gone inside that are three years of probation if at any time during that probation you violate probation you're automatically going back to serve another two years so I was really sentenced to four years of prison

and five years under state custody and I went from being this kind of big you know, the word celebrity is important in some way, I'm sure it shaped my consciousness, but mainly a very well-respected mass leader in Boston, speaking to thousands and thousands of people. I spoke to every single chapter, and, you know, Boston got 35 schools. And then they come out and they put you in handcuffs and they take you in, and that's it.

Wow. and they put me in a van where about 10 other guys convicted at the end of the day and they take me to the Billerica House of Corrections to be corrected and the last thing I'll say

because when I got in prison I learned this story I amended it so when he sent me to two years I say you're I can't do two years he says son just do the best you can. That's a prisoner's joke.

So I end there. Damn. All right. Well, that's the end of part one in part two. No, I have more time for you to respond. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm just...

Leanne gave me to 1130, but let's at least have you... Your response is a wonderful. So please dig into this, because that means everything to me, you respond. Okay. Yeah. So that's, I mean, that's just a fascinating journey. I understand the theoretical experiment of raising militancy. I think the relationship with you and Bill Ayers, as the weathermen were forming that underground faction, which as many people listening will know, you know, went on to do those bombings. And, you know, one person, I believe, died and people

were arrested. It got very messy after that. But Bill Ayers is kind of telling you, like, don't even wrestle with this please just go back serve your time you've paid your dues um but still you not expecting to go for that long like you're expecting you know several months maybe um it's still gonna suck but but you were kind of blown away when you went there and got two years of prison time plus three years of probation after that um just a whirlwind of emotion you have a young child you have all these connections in your community and yeah when you get that conviction you just immediately just go to prison there's no hey come back here in 24 hours and you know say goodbye to your loved ones you're just arrested um but i think the

main takeaway for me and you even said this as well fred hampton's analysis was ultimately correct i'll play a video of fred hampton making that point oh great great yeah but it was ultimately and i think you agree with this it's something that we would call adventurism or getting ahead of the people but it was also righteous in its own right so it can be seen as both a tactical error but also as a righteous act of direct action that you did because that the Harvard International Institute of whatever with his connections to Kissinger and the military industrial complex was directly culpable in the mass murder and genocidal campaign in Vietnam and I think I think you have every moral right to launch an attack on it

but of course under this under this system the law is stacked against you the police hate communists. They hate the anti-war movement. The judge is going to make an example of you. And so ultimately, the reason why it's an error is not because it's morally wrong, but because it destroys organizations. It takes organizers, puts them in the prison system. It gives the state a pretext to come in and attack that organization more broadly as they did even more viciously with the Black Panther Party. And so that's why it's an error. It's not morally wrong, but strategically and tactically, it creates huge amounts of blowback, and it can completely destroy organizations and great organizers, right?

And so I think that's the ultimate conclusion to take away from that part of it. Well, I would go back and say one more thing to be clear. Sure. That experiment had to happen. What is the right thing to do, you know, I was told to put my body on the line. Those 300, unlike my disagreement, with REM, where I disagreed at the time, there's a difference when he's looking back at something

and saying, okay, in retrospect. But I'm glad I did it. It's a funny, I just say, I want to be clear. People all over the world were doing this. I mean, there was the Red Army faction, there was the IRA and the, you know, people had reached the belief that, bourgeois democracy had no hope that the murder of king and malcolm said well wait a minute if you know allegedly non-bound which he wasn't but you know chi and malcolm is that and of course frank oh this is important i'll get to oh no i agree with what i did i am careful because at the moment i agree with is what i'm trying to say and it's only in retrospect that i look back strategically

and tactically, but I do not recant the experience. I do not disassociate. I was a weatherman. I write it down. I'm in some way proud of it because it was an experiment. And a lot of experiments don't work, and I paid a pretty high price for it, but I figure you can tell on my voice, I don't have any bitterness. It was, I did it.

I initiated the campaign. it had to be done. And today is, you know, they're the side of what's adventurism and what's not. But you've got to be careful because there's also people that are very militant who move the situation forward. So the question is, think about the consequences.

Think about how much militancy. Think about try to do it as part. of a math movement. So if there's, you know, if there's a thousand people marching down the street and a set of agreed upon not, 15 people said we'll be in the front to fight the police more and we know we'll get more hit and we know we'll take this. That's different because you're part of a mass movement. And the mass movement consciously is agreeing that some people are going to take more militant action. so I think there were so many radical

collectives at the time thrashing things it's not like we were sitting in the middle of nowhere and there was a lot of respect for us and I think when we replay this I want to be clear as we made me make sure I mean being in the weatherman was cool you know I mean everybody

a lot of people thought you are the most courageous people fight in the system and at the time I said they were happy That's not exactly But I was at peace I was not self critical

I wasn't even self-critical When I got into prison This was what I I mean People getting killed This is very important We'll end with this But it's an end with yours

So I'm in Chicago Thank God I'm telling you this So I'm in Chicago helping to weather people and of whom I am one to get ready for this meeting in Flint

on December 4th 1969 my birthday, not just to say that Fred Hampton is murdered and miraculously I was both at Malcolm X's funeral and I'm at

Now, it wasn't a memorial, it was like a mass rally to talk about Fred. And there were several other people who were still out, who were not, who they were looking for, you know, or the Panthers. So this one guy stands up and says the problem with black folks is black men. It's not that you don't have guns, it's you don't know how to damn shoot the gun. And we've got to get more guns and learn how to shoot. So I think it's important, Brett, as we even restructure a possible editing of this, I just want to be clear that you don't know at the time we are pretty intelligent people. We had reason to believe this is going to work.

We were getting support. even we were shaking up the mass movement you know not the working class but people in SDS and later on it was a bombing at the Harvard Center for International Bears which I didn't do and there was math demonstrations against it so it did do some of its objectives

and I think this is really important I even may want to retake this because of the significance of that this is okay because it's taken me The consequences are too great to not be clear. So if it's okay, I'd like to end before Weatherman and redo that if that's okay because a lot of people's lives are at stake.

And these are my friends. I want them to feel Eric was very fair and he's not repudiating being a Weatherman. You make choices like. Then he look back and say, all right, in the movement, in retrospect, no, we shouldn't have done that, but we didn't know that until we did it. Absolutely.

Yeah, and I mean, I think that was clear throughout your telling of it. I don't think that you are, you know, disowning or saying that these people are bad or anything at all. And in fact, I completely agree with the action. There just are steep consequences for it that you paid willingly, but it was a correct action. And in fact, there's an analogy to today's struggle with pro-Palestinian. saboteurs that went into elbit systems, which is an Israeli headquartered defense contractor for the U.S. military that builds weapons that Israel uses against Palestinians. And they've had several direct actions just destroying as much as they can, the building, the factory within that

creates these weapons and doing direct action against Elbit systems, which is 110% justified. Legally, I can't encourage anybody to break the law, and I don't encourage anybody to break the law. But from a moral perspective, putting your body on the line, putting your freedom on the line to attack these absolutely evil epicenters of military, industrial complex mass slaughter, is 100% the right thing to do. You just got to go in with clear eyes, and you have to be ready to accept the inevitable backlash from the state that's going to occur. And the other thing I wanted to mention, Eric, is you talked, you mentioned the Red Army faction, right, of a similar sort of revolutionary militant movement in Germany. And I actually have an interview with Margaret Schiller, who was a part of the Red Army faction that I'll link to in the show notes. She was imprisoned. She was tortured by the West German state.

She was exiled to Cuba and to Uruguay for her, for her direct actions in a very similar vein. And so these are movements that I think are necessary. These are people who engage in these movements who I think are heroic and courageous and are going further than most people would go. So I also want to make that clear myself while legally protecting myself by saying that I do not advocate that anybody out there listening breaks the law. So I'll get one last word. Again, I'm aware a lot of you are listening. I hope a lot of you are listening, but whoever's listening. The thing that's very painful to me is that we're living in a state of such counter-revolution

that, if I can make a generalization, you don't have a clue. You've grown up in the counter-revolution. You don't know the miracles we work. I mean, it's not your fault. That's what counter-revolutions do. And the biggest thing my book is about is restoring historical memory. But also, this is important, there is no such thing as history. There's only the struggle over historical interpretation.

So that's why I worked eight and a half years, because it's not, people go, yeah, well, the Panthers were this, and whether the man was that, and Dr. King was this. And the general conversation is so disrespectful, by people are mainly not doing shit, not with a few exceptions talking about it and studying about it and debating about it without any sense of humility and stuff

so I'm very careful that's what I'm working on but it's so important to get people to understand more than it's right or wrong to think wow a whole bunch of people white people decided to do this

just like the white kids who are down in Mississippi because at the time they thought this was the risk and they weren't to do it they weren't to go to jail we were not naive when I said did I expect three months

and this could be part of the thing who knows what I thought the rain during you don't do that stuff from think you know the sentence so I think in life you make the best choices you can

and what I'm saying is I'm proud of I did. It was an experiment. I'm glad I helped move that history forward. And then I drew different conclusions later. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's incredibly principled. And I agree wholeheartedly. All right. Well, this will wrap up part one. And what we're going to go into next is your time in prison, organizing in prison, coming out, joining communist organizations, operating as a union organizer within the UAW and so much more. So people can stay tuned for that. sort of end by saying you're a very cool guy and I think we're already becoming friends so at least I'll speak to you that this is shocking to me and a very positive

virtually every sum up you did was pretty word for word what I said and what you think and the thing about your life in Omaha I really very moved by that because all the things you said about they didn't get some demonstrated out of jail, they'd get you out of jail. So thanks for everything. I'm excited about part two. What a pleasure. Thanks, brother.

Absolutely. Talk to you soon, my friend. You know, I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.