Rhetorical Object Analysis of the Weathermen Manifesto of 1969

ENGL 306 | Rhetorical Object Analysis

Erika Zigman

"You Don't Need a Weatherman to Tell You Which Way the Wind Blows"

            The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) grew out of the disillusionment in the United States in the 1960s. They became the largest national student led organizations in the country until they met their demise in 1969. In 1969 SDS’s inability to organize such a widely spread and massive movement exploded as the emerging factions gained a following significant enough to splinter the organization into multiple groups. One of the larger factions was the Weathermen, brought together in their desire to incorporate revolutionary and violent protest strategies into SDS and SDS’s quick refusal. Their presence was felt prior to the split, specifically after the protest at University of Columbia in 1968. After this protest they began to develop a cohesive organization which became particularly attractive after their twist on Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues in their manifesto, “You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows” (Sale 558). This rhetorical artifact is an example of the creative manipulation of communication channels to feed factionalism by the Weathermen.

               SDS was involved with several other organizations in the historical protest at Columbia University in 1968. Students who were initially participating in forms of civil disobedience escalated to siege of the campus with takeover of several buildings and the capture of faculty hostages. The protesters’ demands were eventually agreed on by the academic board and the protest was, for the most part, considered a success. However, this period marked a change in mentality of many SDSers. This was the first major victory for the organization in a while, as their picketing and strikes leading up to it in the months prior had yielded no results. Columbia made it very clear to some SDSers that they were past the point of reform. They needed to restructure, and to do that they needed more aggressive and revolutionary tactics (Sale 440). Because of the organizations abrupt shut down on the idea of pursuing further revolutionary tactics, the Weathermen needed to garner a larger following before they could take actions independent of SDS. Creating a new organization within SDS would not be difficult, as many members were already beginning to feel discontent with the movement, but first they had to make their presence known to the masses.

Part of SDS’s initial success is the result of the elaborate and innovative communication channels within the movement. Opportunities to participate and express opinions were abound in the form of bulletins, newsletters, essays and even letters that were mass produced and passed from person to person within chapters (McMillian 88). This open access to information was exemplative of a true democracy, and these diverse channels of communication allowed for rapid dissemination of information usually characteristic of a centralized political party (Michels 32). It was for these reasons that the Weathermen decided to raise awareness and cherry pick from SDS by piggy backing off their system by infiltrating the New Left Notes, SDS’s newspaper. They published their position paper (manifesto) titled “You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows” in the paper distribute to all delegate at SDS’s national convention in the summer of 1969, just a few months prior to the split.

The manifesto was plagued with pop-culture references in addition to the title line from Bob Dylan’s 1965 song, such as “Look out kid” and “keep your nose clean” (Sale 559). These lyrics resonated with the target audience, successfully establishing shared interests and like backgrounds between the intended reader and the authors of the paper. The choice of lyrics and their arrangement within the paper spoke to Americans who were disillusioned with the American system and government, appealing to the antiauthoritarian and independent natures of the students. And the paper was concentrated specifically on students, or at least the population included in that age demographic. It was that generation that grew up with these songs and artists, and knew and respected them the most. Respect was key in the revolutionaries’ choice of musical artists, whether they knew it or not. In trusting and respecting the artists’ whose work was included in this manifesto, the ethos of the authors was dramatically enhanced, giving credibility to the paper.

Although the establishment of credibility was not particularly necessary in this case. The authors of this manifesto, and the original creators of the Weathermen, were well known and respected participants in SDS. These activists had seniority, some of them had been involved in SDS since the free speech movement at Berkeley in 1965, and therefore many of the audience members they reached out to had already interacted with these activists to some extent. They were also diligent members of the organization. A key characteristic of SDS was decentralization and lack of an elite, but a natural tendency for leadership forms as interested students become good activists who then make great leaders. They were involved in different chapters of SDS and were regarded as experienced, knowledgeable and successful members who were sometimes treated as celebrity types (Alimi 101).

This manifesto gained support not only through providing a theoretical expression and resource for individuals beginning to experience a sense of revolution, but also by subtly attacking the position of another burgeoning faction in SDS: the Progressive Labor Party (PL). The PL was known for their clearly outlined methodologies and policies, which had attracted many members of SDS who grew frustrated with the disorganized and ill-defined tactical and organizational structure of SDS. However, following the emergence of a new revolutionary spirit from the 1968 Columbia protest, the distaste for rigid outline was spreading. The Weathermen recognized this and pounced before the remaining members of SDS could regain their lost followers. The statement “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” was a sharp criticism of the PL. It expressed that the revolutionary feeling was instinctive and intuitive, that its potential to create change was only limited by the harsh rules enforced by the PL. There was no need for claims or evidence to back this inferred denouncement of the PL, as reformers become anarchists there is a natural tendency to shrink away from centralization or organized leadership (Michels 28). On this level, the Weatherman statement was attractive on even a subconscious level to its target audience.

The only apparent shortcoming of the Weatherman statement was that it used much of the language from the Old Left (Sale 560). The Old Left revolved around ideologies and policies created because of the Cold War and strong feelings of anti-communism. The New Left deserted this centralized organizational structure for a loosely defined democracy in the 1960s. New Left organizations generally scorned or publicly shamed any theory baring semblance to the Old Left, and SDS was no exception. However, after experiencing a period of disillusionment, a successful movement will respond to those attitudes and evolve accordingly. The Old Left ideologies presented by the Weatherman policy paper came at just the right time for it to be excepted by the disaffected members of SDS.

Although unsatisfied with SDS and/or PL, the individuals who were still active members were committed. Many long-term members can be divided as either individuals who are diligent participants and those who participate out of habit. Considering the risks faced by participating (SDS was under thorough investigation by the FBI, the media vehemently attacked the activists, and school administrators had begun revoking scholarships of identified activists) and the SDS’s continuing failure to meet the expectations of the members, the organization consisted primarily of the former rather than the latter. The Weathermen therefore appealed to a sense of duty in the manifesto. They declared that the youth of America had a special role in this movement, a position that only they could fill, to aid in the liberation of black communities and denouncement of the war in Vietnam (Sale 560). However successful this call to action was in inciting participation, it would have been overwhelmed by the number of non-radicals in the organization had it been proposed years earlier and quickly snuffed out. The timing and methodology of the Weatherman statement was crucial to its success in garnering a support in the SDS organization.

Works Cited

Alimi, Eitan Y. “Relational Dynamics in Factional Adoption of Terrorist Tactics: a Comparative Perspective.” Theory and Society, vol. 40, no. 1, 2011, pp. 95–118

McMillian, John. “‘Our Founder, the Mimeograph Machine’: Participatory Democracy in Students for a Democratic Society's Print Culture.” Journal for the Study of Radicalism, vol. 2, no. 2, 2008, pp. 85–110.

Michels, Robert. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. Kitchener, CA: Batoche Books, 2000. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 23 October 2016.

Sale, Kirkpatrick. SDS. Random House, New York. 1971.