I just watched the movie, Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst on PBS. I was profoundly affected by the entire Patty Hearst incident, but in ways that aren't normally talked about. I was a senior in high school when she was kidnapped, seeing my friends getting killed or warped by their experiences in Vietnam. Two years into the story, I was a journalist and waited with baited breath for the two-part story that Rolling Stone did about William and Emily Harris and Patty Hearst hiding out in Pennsylvania. I was in southeast Ohio at the time and everything seemed so close and immediate.

The webiste that PBS set up is hilarious. You can find it here. I'm thinking if the SLA had ever had the kind of production values PBS put into their little web sitelet, they might have won a few advertising awards!

I took their little "What's your bag" quiz and here's the result:


Authoritative Activist

You continue to speak out for what you believe is right, as part of a left-wing social justice organization. You've found a life partner who is a kindred spirit. The whole Nixon debacle affirms that the political system is corrupt, and you find yourself saying, "I told you so" to all those who doubted your earlier criticisms. Maybe now that Vietnam is in the past, the country can evolve -- you are committed to working for change through peaceful means. The Sixties might be dead, but the spirit of activism keeps on truckin' in the Seventies.

Well, that's only because the answers I wanted to provide weren't available, of course.

If you watch the film, I recommend you also listen to an interivew Terry Gross did with the film maker and a journalist who covered the story. It is available here. It does a good job of explaining how the timing of the Hearst kidnapping made all the difference. It was the first time journalists were able to report from the scene. They camped out in front of the Hearst mansion and competed with each other for coverage of the distraught family. The shoot-out in L.A. was the first life coverage of such an event. The media was so as much a part of the story as anything the activists or the authorities attempted in the whole affair.

I hope to write more about this soon.