June 18, 2008

Radicalism even among babes

Something people my age don't recognize is how widespread the insanity was in the late 1960s. In reading a post of Steve Sailer's about Michelle Obama's track record, I came across this gruesome quote from a former female Weatherman, Bernadine Dohrn, referring to the Manson Family murders:

Dig it! First they killed those pigs and then they put a fork in their bellies. Wild!"

Here is her mugshot and a press conference photo, both taken when she was 27:



Aside from a mannish chin, she looks quite attractive (imagine her 5 years younger). During my clueless college student days, I was involved in the early 2000s version of what she was into (though not violent and destructive like The Weathermen), and it would have been impossible to see someone like that lobbing back a teargas canister during a demonstration.

For, despite the upsurge in radicalism during the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was nowhere near as widespread as in the late 1960s, when it affected even those who would be jeopardizing their potential trophy wife status. * Trying to understand its scope for someone who wasn't there is like reading through your assigned book in English class in which everyone seems to be dropping dead from the Plague or tuberculosis, diseases that nowadays would claim the lives of only the most invisible sectors of the population.

* Note that the 1960s outbreak of radicalism among good-lookers is not comparable to the Lebanese babe protester phenomenon, as the latter is not a violent and destructive movement. There, it's OK to turn out and flash your Christian Dior sunglasses for the cause, and then return to life as normal.

5 comments:

  1. the upsurge in radicalism during the late 1990s and early 2000s

    You sure? I sort of recall early '90s to be radical, with things dying down by late-mid decade.

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  2. I mean in terms of direct action protests, that kind of thing. The identity politics and grunge stuff from the early '90s didn't produce any protests (aside from the LA riots).

    The late '90s was when people started organizing large-scale demonstrations against the WTO, the FTAA, W. Bush's 2000 inauguration, etc.

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  3. and it would have been impossible to see someone like that lobbing back a teargas canister during a demonstration.


    I'm not so sure, you did have girls like this doing just that, http://media.villagevoice.com/1932202.64.jpg,
    (not the best photo of her, she's featured prominently in one of the battle of seattle videos, I recall her hotness being commmented on more than once by activists, even if it was in the form of complaining that protest movement shouldn't be dominated by photogenic types). Like this girl, I was involved in the far-left anarchist wing of this protest movement and my general impression was that the girls in that segment were fairly good looking, though with a good deal of variance. Maybe an assortive mating beauty effect from the being significantly composed of upper-middle class people? The crowd I hung out with were mostly kids from northeastern colleges with a few working class types mixed in.

    (though not violent and destructive like The Weathermen)


    I might be remembering this wrong, weren't the Direct Action folks okay with destruction as long as it didn't hurt anyone? If so then the difference, is one of scale not orientation, since the Weathermen took precautions not to injure anyone with their bombings, and in the end never did (a part from one of their own members).

    (please delete the other comment)

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  4. P.J. O'Rourke commented in the 1990s about how protests didn't attract the hot babes anymore, unlike the way they did in the 1960s.

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  5. I saw a documentary on the Weathermen recently. I was struck by how much Dohrn seemed to dominate her husband. Clearly a domineering personality with the looks to command some male attention.

    Julian

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