The way the wind blows

"The Weather Underground" is a surprisingly non-sensationalist and non-judgemental documentary about the Weathermen or Weather Underground, a radical leftist group in the United States that carried out a string of bombings during the 1970's. The Vietnam War and the state repression of the Black Panthers were some of the issues against which the Weathermen protested in this ultimately unproductive manner. (The Timothy Leary incident is apparently exaggerated.) Most of the members eventually turned themselves in, and received relatively light sentences, due to the scandals surrounding FBI's COINTELPRO operations. A few made the mistake of joining other illegal armed groups, eventually ending up in prison.

The program is a good overview, regardless of how you might feel about the people involved and their political tactics. Ex-Weathermen leaders Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn were wrongly associated with Barack Obama (sic) in a Republican smear campaign during the 2008 presidential elections, and hence became famous once again, after a fashion. This isn't mentioned in "The Weather Underground", however, which was produced several years in advance.