Reply #108: Zanne, I think you have a valid point about

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the trial of the Chicago Eight.There are a few things totake into account, though, regarding Hayden. Hayden's letter was in praise of Bobby Kennedy who was very different in tactics, and not in praise of his own actions or those of his co-conspirators. And in looking at Hayden, this is the person who started in the Civil rights movement, went on to write the Port Huron statement with SDS, went on to the Chicago Eight, and then pulled back to the community. He didn't go Weather Underground. He went community.

From my own point of view, if we look at those names - Bobby Seale, Abbie Hoffman, Arlo Guthrie - to take three - Seale at 31, Hoffman was 31, Arlo was 22. They were pretty young.

More to the point, it was that they kept working over the years, after the war was over and central stage was gone and we slogged through the years under Reagan, and they kept going. And they still are.

And actually, I don't know if it didn't do us any good. I honestly don't. Being polite certainly was not working. Chicago set the stage for the defeat of Humphrey, but how much of Chicago's anger and insanity - and the subsequent trial - was, at least partially, in frustration and anger over the assassination of Kennedy. I don't know if you were around then. but the rage was palpable and we younger ones were not always thinking too straight.

It is a very complex issue