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With the Weathermen: The personal journal of a revolutionary woman
Drugs, sex, and revolutionary violence - from its first pages, Susan Stern's memoir, "With the Weathermen", provides a candid, first-hand look at the radical politics and the social and cultural environment of the New Left during the late 1960s. The Weathermen - a U.S.-based, revolutionary splinter group of Students for a Democratic Society - advocated the overthrow of the government and capitalism, and toward that end, carried out a campaign of bombings, jailbreaks, and riots throughout the United States. In "With the Weathermen", Stern traces her involvement with this group, and her transformation from a shy, married graduate student into a go-go dancing, street-fighting "macho mama." In vivid and emotional language, she describes the attractions and difficulties of joining a collective radical group and in maintaining a position within it. Stern's memoir offers a rich description of the raw and rough social dynamics of this community, from its strict demands to "smash monogamy," to its sometimes enforced orgies, and to the demeaning character assassination that was led by the group's top members. She provides a distinctly personal and female perspective on the destructive social functionality and frequently contradictory attitudes toward gender roles and women's rights within the New Left. Laura Browder's masterful introduction situates Stern's memoir in its historical context, examines the circumstances of its writing and publication, and describes the book's somewhat controversial reception by the public and critics alike
374 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1975
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 10, 2022
In her vivid memoir, Weather Underground member Susan Stern tells her story as a student activist in the sixties and seventies, sharing her views about the protest movement and well-known radicals, such as Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, Kathy Boudin, and others. Although her account might not be the most insightful analysis of SDS and the Weathermen faction, it distinguishes itself with its directness and its ability to capture the spirit of the tumultuous decades.
In terms of background, Susan was a typical American student activist. She was well-educated and from an upper-middle-class family, and had attended a great institution, the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University. She became known as one of the Seattle Seven, a group of activists who were put on trial in 1970 for protesting the imprisonment of Bobby Seale, a Black Panther who was convicted after protesting at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
The Weather Underground captivated her with their rebelliousness and boldness. She writes about the almost child-like fascination with which she regarded them in the late sixties. While reading, I could not help thinking that the title fits Susan's story really well: she was less of a Weatherman and more with the Weathermen, an admirer who aspired to be like them. She gives the impression that she had believed that she was part of the revolutionaries, but she had not actually been one of them.
Her thoughts and experiences also allow the reader to trace the daily life of the activist youth of those times. Susan was a true representative of her kind: she smoked dope, took acid trips that, according to her, changed her whole perspective on life, and engaged in promiscuous sexual behavior. Like other radical activists, her husband, Robbie, and she rejected monogamy, believing that if everyone loved everyone, there would be a stronger sense of community. Why loving someone had to mean sleeping with them she does not elaborate.
Despite her fascination, Stern is not entirely uncritical. Contrary to the majority of her fellow Weathermen and other radicals, she had a grasp on the student organizations' weaknesses and mistakes – and she had reached this understanding remarkably early, in the first half of the seventies. She notes that SDS leaders were mostly bark and no bite. They formulated great theories about fighting in the streets and then got scared when the fighting happened. The Weather Underground, she also notes, made grand plans about how to destroy the existing power structure in the country, but no idea how to build a new one.
Nevertheless, she constantly glorifies the prospect of martyrdom, in all its spectacular gruesomeness, that defined the spirit of the Weathermen. For instance, she evokes the desperate pride and almost manic determination she felt as the Days of Rage approached: "We weren’t just a bunch of superviolent kids out to destroy Chicago because we enjoyed vandalism. . . . We were serious revolutionaries, who felt the necessity of doing something so earth-shattering in America that the American masses would finally take notice." She wanted America to "see our bodies being blasted by shotguns, our terrified faces as we marched trembling but proud, to attack the armed might of the Nazi state of ours. Running blood, young, white human blood spilling and splattering all over the streets of Chicago for NBC and CBS to pick up in gory gory Technicolor." She believed that to draw America's attention to this scene, the student radicals had "to do something so unholy, so strong and so deadly, that they would have no other recourse. And that is what we’re about."
She also writes that the 1968 Democratic Convention cleansed and converted her. Observing rows of riot police attacking protesters, bloodied from the previous days’ battles, she thought that "about bullets ripping through flesh, about napalmed babies. I thought about Malcolm X and lynching and American Indians. Lying there, sweating from doses of speed and terror, I thought about Auschwitz, and mountains of corpses piled high in the deep pits dug by German Nazis. . . . A new feeling was struggling to be born in me. It had no name, but it made me want to reach beyond myself to others who were suffering. I felt real, as if suddenly I had found out something true about myself; that I was not helpless, that life meant enough for me to struggle for it. . . . [N]ow I would fight." In her mind, oppression linked past evils with the aggression in Vietnam. The grim images imbued her with a sense of compassion, purpose, empowerment, truth, and realness. Fighting, which she would do during the rest of the convention, convinced her that life became meaningful in struggle – that life itself was struggle.
It is in such depictions that her obsession with death reveals itself. Having attempted suicide when she was younger, Susan dreamed of her life's ending in a meaningful way. In her vision, meaningful was to perish while shooting "pigs". It is worth noting that her definition of "pigs" was disturbingly vague. When an exasperated friend had asked her if she was going to fight everyone who did not agree with her and if she thought that every white person in the country should die, she had replied: “If they’re not going to do shit, well . . . yes, I do. If people won’t join us, then they are against us. It’s as simple as that. That includes the working class, and kids, if necessary.” "“Everybody has to die?” the friend had asked. "Everybody has to die," Susan had said, revealing the disturbing vision of the future that some Weathermen had.
Stern's dream did not come true as she died in 1975 from drug-induced heart seizure and drug failure. She was only thirty-three years old.
WITH THE WEATHERMEN is an interesting memoir. Although Stern, who treated murder as an acceptable method for dealing with those who disagreed with the radicals' ideology, is not a sympathetic person, her story is worth reading. This book will be especially useful for those who have not experienced the sixties and seventies themselves.
In terms of background, Susan was a typical American student activist. She was well-educated and from an upper-middle-class family, and had attended a great institution, the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University. She became known as one of the Seattle Seven, a group of activists who were put on trial in 1970 for protesting the imprisonment of Bobby Seale, a Black Panther who was convicted after protesting at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
The Weather Underground captivated her with their rebelliousness and boldness. She writes about the almost child-like fascination with which she regarded them in the late sixties. While reading, I could not help thinking that the title fits Susan's story really well: she was less of a Weatherman and more with the Weathermen, an admirer who aspired to be like them. She gives the impression that she had believed that she was part of the revolutionaries, but she had not actually been one of them.
Her thoughts and experiences also allow the reader to trace the daily life of the activist youth of those times. Susan was a true representative of her kind: she smoked dope, took acid trips that, according to her, changed her whole perspective on life, and engaged in promiscuous sexual behavior. Like other radical activists, her husband, Robbie, and she rejected monogamy, believing that if everyone loved everyone, there would be a stronger sense of community. Why loving someone had to mean sleeping with them she does not elaborate.
Despite her fascination, Stern is not entirely uncritical. Contrary to the majority of her fellow Weathermen and other radicals, she had a grasp on the student organizations' weaknesses and mistakes – and she had reached this understanding remarkably early, in the first half of the seventies. She notes that SDS leaders were mostly bark and no bite. They formulated great theories about fighting in the streets and then got scared when the fighting happened. The Weather Underground, she also notes, made grand plans about how to destroy the existing power structure in the country, but no idea how to build a new one.
Nevertheless, she constantly glorifies the prospect of martyrdom, in all its spectacular gruesomeness, that defined the spirit of the Weathermen. For instance, she evokes the desperate pride and almost manic determination she felt as the Days of Rage approached: "We weren’t just a bunch of superviolent kids out to destroy Chicago because we enjoyed vandalism. . . . We were serious revolutionaries, who felt the necessity of doing something so earth-shattering in America that the American masses would finally take notice." She wanted America to "see our bodies being blasted by shotguns, our terrified faces as we marched trembling but proud, to attack the armed might of the Nazi state of ours. Running blood, young, white human blood spilling and splattering all over the streets of Chicago for NBC and CBS to pick up in gory gory Technicolor." She believed that to draw America's attention to this scene, the student radicals had "to do something so unholy, so strong and so deadly, that they would have no other recourse. And that is what we’re about."
She also writes that the 1968 Democratic Convention cleansed and converted her. Observing rows of riot police attacking protesters, bloodied from the previous days’ battles, she thought that "about bullets ripping through flesh, about napalmed babies. I thought about Malcolm X and lynching and American Indians. Lying there, sweating from doses of speed and terror, I thought about Auschwitz, and mountains of corpses piled high in the deep pits dug by German Nazis. . . . A new feeling was struggling to be born in me. It had no name, but it made me want to reach beyond myself to others who were suffering. I felt real, as if suddenly I had found out something true about myself; that I was not helpless, that life meant enough for me to struggle for it. . . . [N]ow I would fight." In her mind, oppression linked past evils with the aggression in Vietnam. The grim images imbued her with a sense of compassion, purpose, empowerment, truth, and realness. Fighting, which she would do during the rest of the convention, convinced her that life became meaningful in struggle – that life itself was struggle.
It is in such depictions that her obsession with death reveals itself. Having attempted suicide when she was younger, Susan dreamed of her life's ending in a meaningful way. In her vision, meaningful was to perish while shooting "pigs". It is worth noting that her definition of "pigs" was disturbingly vague. When an exasperated friend had asked her if she was going to fight everyone who did not agree with her and if she thought that every white person in the country should die, she had replied: “If they’re not going to do shit, well . . . yes, I do. If people won’t join us, then they are against us. It’s as simple as that. That includes the working class, and kids, if necessary.” "“Everybody has to die?” the friend had asked. "Everybody has to die," Susan had said, revealing the disturbing vision of the future that some Weathermen had.
Stern's dream did not come true as she died in 1975 from drug-induced heart seizure and drug failure. She was only thirty-three years old.
WITH THE WEATHERMEN is an interesting memoir. Although Stern, who treated murder as an acceptable method for dealing with those who disagreed with the radicals' ideology, is not a sympathetic person, her story is worth reading. This book will be especially useful for those who have not experienced the sixties and seventies themselves.
February 17, 2022
If you're the kind of person who enjoys doing lots of drugs and, by and by, making revolutions along the way then this is the book for you. Young, 23-year old Susan takes up with Students for a Democratic Society and drops much acid; joins the Weathermen revolutionary underground and does much speed; has sex with lots of men while high on Seconol; works at a strip club to pay for both the revolution and her drug habit, and finally goes to jail and prison for conspiracy, only to emerge a cokehead. No wonder we never got the revolution going in the USA in the Seventies! This memoir is recommended for leftist masochists and fans of THE BIG CHILL.
February 2, 2008
This book was surprisingly enjoyable. It chronicles the journey of a woman who became a Weatherman...and then got kicked out before they went Underground. She joins the Seattle Liberation Front and ends up on trial for conspiracy and spends several months in jail. Worth the read if you want an insider's take on violent revolutionaries. (My one criticism is that she is a bit self-important. But I suppose you'd kind of have to be self-important to be a Weatherman.)
July 28, 2008
The author's critique of the subculture she was a part of is really what drives this book.
April 11, 2015
I thought the book was gritty and informative. Susan Stern provided a female perspective on life and culture in the 1960's, along with her viewpoints and involvement in WUO.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews