A recent meeting titled The Weather Underground Meets Occupy Wall Street, held in a small city in upstate New York, was billed as a mundane book event to celebrate U.S. “political prisoner” David Gilbert’s new memoir, Love and Struggle.
But, as revealed in a newly released video, the forum featured characters that were anything but mundane–the list reading like a veritable who’s-who of former Weather Underground activists. These were not simply low-level members but some of the more notorious radicals in the movement–men and women with ties to the infamous Bill Ayers, individuals with ties to bombing schemes on military servicemen, and convicted cop-killers.
The video features only the introductory 16-minute segment and not the entire length of the Underground/Occupy meeting. Regardless, it remains quite revealing. One of the hosts of the event, Naomi Jaffe, praises Kathy Boudin, a close Ayers associate who was involved in a bomb plot gone wrong, in which three Weather Underground members were killed when an explosive device they had designed to kill military personnel prematurely detonated. Boudin was also convicted of felony robbery and murder for her role in the Brinks Robbery of 1981, a plot which resulted in the murder of a security guard and two police officers.
Additionally, Jaffe speaks fondly of the Weather Underground’s past, sharing knowledge of the group’s “resistance to an unjust system,” which she likens to the “same injustices that we are seeing the Occupy movement” experience today. She jokes about the murderous Brinks event as being one of several necessary “expropriations”–necessary because “revolutionary work is not funded by government.” The joke was well-received, despite the shadow of three innocent lives lost in the incident.
Jaffe’s radical past, infused with today’s radical movement, could prove quite dangerous. She is very active in the Occupy Albany protests, routinely downplays violence in the name of stopping oppression, and repeatedly downplays her own violent past–not just in the ’60s but over the last several years.
A full report on the meeting can be read here:
The Weather Underground — Alive, Well, and Mentoring the Occupy Movement
Highlights include:
- The meeting was designed to discuss common struggles between the Weather Underground and Occupy Wall Street and, in particular, the shared vision between David Gilbert (another member serving jail time for his role in the Brinks murders) and the Occupy Wall Street movement.
- In attendance or serving on the panel were five major players in the domestic terrorism group: Naomi Jaffe, Jeff Jones, Eleanor Stein, Suzanne Ross, and Kathy Boudin.
- All of the above named have been involved in some of the most radical elements of the Weather Underground, including assaults on police officers, bomb plots, and murders.
- All had been involved with the notorious Bill Ayers, some of which lived in a San Francisco “bomb factory” that several entities have claimed was used in the San Francisco police station bombing that killed Officer Brian McDonnell.
- A former Weather Underground member turned FBI informant makes several interesting observations about the meeting, including his assertion that the group hasn’t “changed the color of any of their stripes even after all of these years.” He also adds, “It makes me sick to watch and listen to this kind of BS, especially when I realize that 100 years ago or less, these people would all be in prison or shot as traitors.”
Is this really a group that the Occupy movement wants to be associated with? Are they following through with their threat to become more radical?
Only they know for sure.