By
James Curcio
I've written some about how Euripides' The Bacchae was an early inspiration in the writing of
Fallen Nation. However, there are many more, some of which have only become more clear to me at the end of the writing process. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but I've found time and again that I stumble upon something that seemed to inform a project I was working on, which I was in the past only loosely aware of... and now I've finished the thing and suddenly these cultural pointers are there, tangible to me as my hand.
So this leads me to ask if any of you know about the Weather Underground? Named after that line from a Dylan tune, ("You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows") the WUO were a "radical left" organization that seemed to use white guilt to crystallize the need for revolution. Not so much on the methodology, but culturally, the forces that created the WUO couldn't have been far from our minds when dreaming up the
fictional side to the
Mother Hive Brain.
Here is a rather good documentary on the Weather Men which is available free online.
Watch the whole documentary on YouTube, it's also available on Netflix On-Demand.
Skilluminati Research has an excellent write up on a figure that had connection with this organization, using more methods sanctioned by the need to counter fascist order with blind chaos,
Ronald Stark :
"He had a mission, he explained, to use LSD in order to facilitate the overthrow of the political systems of both the capitalist West and communist East by inducing altered states of consciousness in millions of people. Stark did not hide the fact that he was well connected in the world of covert politics." ("article.)
Perhaps this Batman-esque weaponized hallucinogen campaign tickles our wicked imagination, however, when a rebellion is fought as a reaction to violence, violence seems a paradoxical choice. My stance on this issue is not a straightforward one. It's doubtless that not only is there a "time and a place" for revolution, but more importantly, there are times where to do anything but revolt is a crime against one's own humanity. That said, most of the options available to the average citizen amount to petty crime, and are unlikely to result in positive change. As toothless as pacifist rebellion can be, violent rebellion will always spiral out of control or burn itself out, leaving rubble in its wake. We say missiles and bombs can't bring freedom to Iraqis - they can't bring it to Americans, either.
