In Sam Green and Bill Siegel’s documentary, Weather Underground, it is not the mythical organization, the acts of violence, or the moral efficacy of the group’s actions, which take center stage. Instead, it is the personalities - Bill Ayes, Mark Rudd, Brian Flannagan, and David Gilbert - who take that stage. Interestingly many of these weathermen and weatherwomen are still active in various political and cultural circles in the United States (with exception of Flannagan.) Despite convincing performances from those mentioned above, it is Bernardine Dohrn, in particular, who steals the show. Both the youthful good looks of her seventies’ image as well as her forlorn and depressed modern persona leave one wondering what exactly is this women’s essence? From where does her radical commitment to social justice through radical action come, and how does it still prevail despite her current lack of active radical involvement? An upper-middle class girl from a suburb of Milwaukee who excelled at the University of Chicago, who then ran the most radical, leftist, ‘white’ revolutionary group in modern times. So, Dohrn is fundamental product of the establishment but has made a living of trying to tear it down. 
    Her later history is much more fascinating to me than her earlier work with the Weather Underground. She comes out of hiding and decides to work for Sidley Austin, the sixth largest corporate law firm in the world, and then goes on to use her contacts at Austin to gain a job on the faculty at University of Illinois Law. It is not that I object to using your privilege as a mechanism to gain power in the establishment in order to affect change, but her reason for leaving the Weather Underground was her commitment to her children does not hold now. They have grown up, but Dohrn continues to ‘palling around’ with the establishment in Hyde Park, which is all well and fine. However, I do not see how she can maintain her commitment to radicalism while she profits from the capitalist establishment. In this vein, I urge her to challenge Senator Dick Durbun in Illinois Democratic Primary in 2012!