Your hagiology to Weathermn Kathy Boudin, appalls those of us who witnessed the destruction of the Students for a Democratic Society by terrorists, liberals who sought to replace a mass, anti-racist, anti-war movement with bombs.
Boudin was not a child with a "core of idealism." She was an adult, Bryn Mawr grad, daughter of the rich with close ties to the corrupt Communist Party USA, like most Weatherman leaders.
She tried to blow up a dance of low-level officers and their dates at Ft Dix. Instead, her terrorist pals blew themselves up. The townhouse bomb could have killed hundreds.
If successful, that operation would have caused a mass round-up of hundreds of serious, real, SDSers who opposed Weatherman.
The Weathermen were always hostile to the patient long term anti-war, anti-racist, organizing that eventually did produce change. They believed Americans were completely bought off by US imperialism and, thus, deserved to be bombed--killed.
They destroyed SDS on the verge of the largest student/worker actions in the last sixty years.
Marc Rudd is one of the few ex-Weathermen who takes responsibility.
Weatherman leaders like Boudin and others lied about their ideas and actions for years. The press loved it, proving "radicals" are dangerous crazies. Hence, your untrustworthy piece heaping praise.
Once liberals with bombs, never radicals, the Weatherman leaders became plain liberals, as with Boudin.
In contrast, many of us never gave up.
Professor Arthur Eckstein recently wrote an excellent, revealing book on Weatherman: "Bad Moon Rising."
Dr Rich Gibson
Emeritus Professor, San Diego State University.