New Left Terrorism in America

I've been doing reading on the Wether UnderGround and the Symbionese Liberation Army among others, so my question is this, is there any way that Communism terrorist groups becoming a major long term problem in the USA? like South American groups (FRAC etc.)
 
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I've been doing reading on the Wether UnderGround and the Symbionese Liberation Army among others, so my question is this, is there any way that Left Communism terrorist groups becoming a major long term problem in the USA? like South American groups (FRAC etc.)
Neither Weather nor the SLA were influenced by Left Communism.
 
Problem in the short term? Sure. Long term? Probably not. Lasting long-term for any organization requires it to be able to control at least some territory from the organs of the state it is fighting. That in modern America is impossible, the military is too strong and the military, through the National Guard, can be used in such conflicts.
 
The best that they could do is a more prolonged struggle through the 70s Red Army-style, but the Weather Underground had largely abandoned violence against people after backlash resulting from their accidentally killing an innocent during one bombing.

The Symbionese Liberation Army was considered an embarrassment even by other radical groups, and only their kidnapping of Patty Hearst gave them any real exposure.
 
The best that they could do is a more prolonged struggle through the 70s Red Army-style, but the Weather Underground had largely abandoned violence against people after backlash resulting from their accidentally killing an innocent during one bombing.

The Symbionese Liberation Army was considered an embarrassment even by other radical groups, and only their kidnapping of Patty Hearst gave them any real exposure.

I wasn't talking about those groups per-say, just groups with similar ideas, just much larger and more violence/"successful"
 
Still difficult. You need some sort of popular support in order to keep going, and Americans were fatigued at that point, too fatigued to want to deal with bloodshed in their streets spilled by angry student radicals and other self-styled revolutionaries. Youth culture was largely disintegrating, having been co-opted by Wall Street and the major media conglomerates. And drugs were so much a part of the lifestyle that many radicals ended up becoming nothing more than addicts with guns, looking for their next fix.

A single POD wouldn't do it. You'd need several commercial, political, and cultural factors to come together in order to have a longer lasting radical movement, and then you run into the law enforcement issues detailed by TheMann.
 
And drugs were so much a part of the lifestyle that many radicals ended up becoming nothing more than addicts with guns, looking for their next fix.

thought, a large number of American GIs in 'nam were hooked on Heroin, I'd think that an army of junkies that like guns and have killed who have a big problem with the government.......
 
thought, a large number of American GIs in 'nam were hooked on Heroin, I'd think that an army of junkies that like guns and have killed who have a big problem with the government.......

Yes, but junkies cannot effectively organize themselves, especially heroin addicts. There's far too much backstabbing, willingness to sell out anyone or anything for a fix, and sickness from withdrawals involved, not to mention the host of health issues: Even pre-AIDS, you're looking at hepatitis, staph infections, abscesses, and all sorts of nastiness.
 
Yes, but junkies cannot effectively organize themselves, especially heroin addicts. There's far too much backstabbing, willingness to sell out anyone or anything for a fix, and sickness from withdrawals involved, not to mention the host of health issues: Even pre-AIDS, you're looking at hepatitis, staph infections, abscesses, and all sorts of nastiness.

true, maybe not an "army" in the way FRAC is an Army, more a great number of small groups, like the SLA or WUG, a group of 10-40 people bombings, shootings, banks robbings etc, none related per-say but fallowing similar ideas and with similar supports so on.
 
true, maybe not an "army" in the way FRAC is an Army, more a great number of small groups, like the SLA or WUG, a group of 10-40 people bombings, shootings, banks robbings etc, none related per-say but fallowing similar ideas and with similar supports so on.

Going from personal dealings on the Venice Boardwalk, even two addicts will not trust each other enough to make any concerted effort beyond scoring for their next fix, and even then will inevitably end up stealing from and lying to each other. It's a sickness.
 
The only way I can really see this in modern times is a worse energy crisis in 1973-74. What I'm thinking is something like the 1990s video game Vigilante 8. A massive energy crisis causes civil violence in the cities, which is made worse by the returning vets from Vietnam.

By January 1974, the fuel crisis is critical in the United States, and the police forces of the countryside have been called back into major cities to help control things there. Realizing the mold, organized gangs begin running around the Western US, where there is many places that they can hide. They take on a socialist ideology, and are more than the beleagured local police can hope to handle. Hence, there are parts of the country where it is pretty much every man for himself.

Now, as soon as the energy crisis ended, this area would be flooded with police and the terrorists would be stamped out fairly quickly, but it would be a big problem in the shorter term.
 
Going from personal dealings on the Venice Boardwalk, even two addicts will not trust each other enough to make any concerted effort beyond scoring for their next fix, and even then will inevitably end up stealing from and lying to each other. It's a sickness.

got it, Junkies Idea a bad one.
 
The key to achieving what you seek to get, Black Angel, is for the police and heavier forces to be unable or unwilling to respond.

You have the right time frame. The 1970s were not a good time in the USA. The energy crisis, vets returning from Vietnam, drugs becoming a major problem and a great many discontented young people, many of them coming into their twenties and thirties, those who had been in the baby boom. Too young to remember WWII, knowing only the prosperity of 1950-early 1970s America, now facing a major recession, also remembering the hippies of the 1960s, and as such wanting social changes. This is particularly true of African-Americans, who are now getting the same rights as whites.
 

Nikephoros

Banned
The reason (one amongst many) that no one saw a sustained Left-wing terrorism campaign is that quite frankly, they were very incompetent. (So are most right-wing groups for that matter.)

There's also the fact that most of them were peace groups. Hard to be a peace group if you go around killing people.
 
The reason (one amongst many) that no one saw a sustained Left-wing terrorism campaign is that quite frankly, they were very incompetent. (So are most right-wing groups for that matter.)

There's also the fact that most of them were peace groups. Hard to be a peace group if you go around killing people.

I disagree that most of them were peace groups. One of the major reasons for the SDS split was that a determined faction wanted to take stronger and (if necessary) violent actions against "imperialism". Peace was not seen as an issue on the table, instead they saw it as a just war against an oppressive government.

Not that any of them knew an oppressive government from a hole in the ground, but that was the idea.
 

Nikephoros

Banned
I disagree that most of them were peace groups. One of the major reasons for the SDS split was that a determined faction wanted to take stronger and (if necessary) violent actions against "imperialism". Peace was not seen as an issue on the table, instead they saw it as a just war against an oppressive government.

Not that any of them knew an oppressive government from a hole in the ground, but that was the idea.

True, but where did those groups recruit from?

Students who were opposed to the war in Vietnam.
 
a question I've asked on here before, and never really got an answer to:

who are the Symbionese, and who do they need liberating from?
 
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