There was an episode of Law and Order which portrayed an interesting social movement.
The deaf community was protesting this doctor, typical stuff picket lines etc. outside his house, but what was interesting was their reasoning. Instead of the doctor perhaps saying something derogitory about the community instead they were mad because he was providing a surgery for certain clients which would give them back most or all of their hearing. The community was upset because by telling clients that they no longer had to "struggle" with being deaf, he was isolating the community and portraying deafness as a bad thing which needs to be fixed. Just an interesting inversion of thought.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
weather underground
After our discussion about the Weather Underground and SDS in reference to the Adair article I went online and watched the rest of the documentary. I was really fascinating for a number of reasons.
The fact that the Weather Underground was a faction of SDS that was connected to them through the media despite differing views, reduced SDS credibility to nothing. It was really interesting to watch this "take over" and to hear the opinions about it from both sides withing the organization. A great phrase was used by a former SDS member referring to the take over as, "organizational piracy". I thought that was a great line, and really shows the animosity that some SDS member held for the weather underground.
As the documentary continues I think the biggest element that lead to the early success of the weathermen was the historical context and problems occurring in their favor.
All around this groups of students they were seeing images of death, war and poverty. Vietnam was the first time live images of war, real images of war were being replayed over and over through the mass media. In other countries than Vietnam these same images could be found, even in the US. Historically it was a time of chaos and a period of revolution around the world.
This provided the weatherman with a symbolic slogan, "bring the war home", a slogan that enmodied this movement. Like in the Mcgee article which says that symbols used by a movement are crucial to it's success, I think this slogan and the media that the weathermen were putting our motivated a young audience...at first very successful, but as the group becomes radical they lose credibility. They used the bombings not as a way of being violent but rather as a symbol, a way of showing those in power, and every American where the flaws in our society were by bombing representative buildings. I think that it is interesting because this is a really overt symbol which displays that goal of "bringing the war home" yet I think the radicalness of it was just too detrimental to the groups membership to ever be as successful as they would have wanted.
As a final fact, like we have talked about in class new social movements connecting to the past; the use of linkages. I think that the use of McCain's allegations that Obama is "buddy buddy" with Bill Ayres and thus he is a terrorist is very interesting. Not sure how detrimental this was or will be to Obama's campaign.
Just think that it's important for people to realize who Bill Ayres was, what he was doing in the 60's and 70's but most important why. As well as the fact that in any other country in the world if this movement had happened it would have probably turned out much worse for all involved, these people were able to speak out against the American government and act out against them with mild repercussions.
The fact that the Weather Underground was a faction of SDS that was connected to them through the media despite differing views, reduced SDS credibility to nothing. It was really interesting to watch this "take over" and to hear the opinions about it from both sides withing the organization. A great phrase was used by a former SDS member referring to the take over as, "organizational piracy". I thought that was a great line, and really shows the animosity that some SDS member held for the weather underground.
As the documentary continues I think the biggest element that lead to the early success of the weathermen was the historical context and problems occurring in their favor.
All around this groups of students they were seeing images of death, war and poverty. Vietnam was the first time live images of war, real images of war were being replayed over and over through the mass media. In other countries than Vietnam these same images could be found, even in the US. Historically it was a time of chaos and a period of revolution around the world.
This provided the weatherman with a symbolic slogan, "bring the war home", a slogan that enmodied this movement. Like in the Mcgee article which says that symbols used by a movement are crucial to it's success, I think this slogan and the media that the weathermen were putting our motivated a young audience...at first very successful, but as the group becomes radical they lose credibility. They used the bombings not as a way of being violent but rather as a symbol, a way of showing those in power, and every American where the flaws in our society were by bombing representative buildings. I think that it is interesting because this is a really overt symbol which displays that goal of "bringing the war home" yet I think the radicalness of it was just too detrimental to the groups membership to ever be as successful as they would have wanted.
As a final fact, like we have talked about in class new social movements connecting to the past; the use of linkages. I think that the use of McCain's allegations that Obama is "buddy buddy" with Bill Ayres and thus he is a terrorist is very interesting. Not sure how detrimental this was or will be to Obama's campaign.
Just think that it's important for people to realize who Bill Ayres was, what he was doing in the 60's and 70's but most important why. As well as the fact that in any other country in the world if this movement had happened it would have probably turned out much worse for all involved, these people were able to speak out against the American government and act out against them with mild repercussions.
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