Thursday, August 26, 2010

1320 Under Weather

How soon we forget. In the golden era of the sixties, when Woodstock ruled the air, there were many who felt we’d turned over a new leaf. To others it was simply about smoking it.
To a different group of people, righting social injustice was a violent affair. They reasoned the US Government was committing violence overseas and sending our sons to war, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, love children.
Or put something else in a pipe and blow it up.
The most radical among them did some pretty violent stuff in the pursuit of their goals of peace. Peace by sword is a recurring human endeavor.
These groups had catchy names, like the New Left, the SDS and the Weathermen. The Weathermen took their name from the Bob Dylan song Subterranean Homesick Blues, one of the original rap songs. It had the line in it, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” The Weathermen used that line as a title to their manifesto, in which they spelled out the need to shake things up violently to bring about change.
To the truly peaceful elements of the Vietnam anti-war and civil rights movements, the Weathermen were pretty scary. Eventually, after a series of bombings, and the FBI hot on their tails, they went underground and starting calling themselves the Weather Underground.
Recently I found that name again, in a most surprising place, the internet. The name is being used by an organization whose goal is a single-minded dedication to one mission.
To report the weather.
Yep, the Weather Underground name is now a brand name for a company reporting the weather. How did that happen? The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind.
Not unlike our memories...
How soon we forget.
America, ya gotta love it.

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