December 02, 2004 - There are times when even a blue-state fellow like me thinks that liberalism goes too far. Now, before you dismiss me as a former left winger-turned right wing crackpot, hear me out; I'm really only applying the statement to a particular instance anyway. But where has common sense gone? It's like the lines between good and evil are as clearly defined by liberals as the conservatives; the only difference is that the conservatives are far more willing to make that distinction public. But when you look at something like the Hearst kidnapping in the 1970s, which is being revisited this week via the documentary Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, it becomes blindingly evident that the liberal impulse can be just as misguided and destructive as that of conservatives.

Hearst is a young woman of privilege who disappeared for more than a year, fell in love with her captors, and ultimately emerged from the experience with a windfall of publicity and little more than a slap on the wrist. This documentary collects all of the available footage surrounding the incident, assembles it chronologically, and spins a mesmerizing yarn about one of the most shocking cultural moments in American history. But the film's true accomplishment exceeds even the scope of that unforgettable event: it captures our country in a time when cultural upheaval was beginning to draw the lines that would divide our nation for decades to come.

There are four forces impinging on this historically-significant scenario: The Symbionese Liberation Army, the Hearst family, the media, and the public. The first of these, the Symbionese Liberation Army, was a group of over-educated, disenfranchised young Americans who grew dissatisfied with the government during the late '60s and early '70s. They were frustrated with Vietnam and incensed at the growing feeling that their government was lying to them, and became a faction of vaguely communist "soldiers" whose philosophies were committed to so-called populist interests. When they kidnapped Patricia Hearst from her dormitory on February 1, 1974, their rhetoric was immediately cast upon a much larger canvas – one that the whole nation was watching.

	Patty Hearst (a.k.a. Tania) in Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst

The Hearst family, on the other hand, was an evil Empire to the SLA's rebellion; it was entrenched in the origins of our country's capitalism before these amped-up kids were even in diapers, and they chose Patty as a symbol of their aggression towards the corporate infrastructure that was threatening to overtake both public and private discourse. Naturally, the Hearsts used any means possible to see their daughter returned, including complete acceptance of SLA's demands, but were nonetheless refused. When the kidnappee succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome and fell in with her captors, the family retained hope against hope, but were rebuffed with a hurftul rebuke by no less than Patty herself.

The media, of course, had a field day with the event, and long before such media circuses were commonplace. They polarized the conflict between the Hearst family and the SLA, and exacerbated the kidnapping by reporting in too much detail the travails of both sides. But it's the public, and more specifically, the college-age liberals who deserve the lion's share of the blame for this egregious display of poor judgement by the SLA. Before they kidnapped Hearst, the group was just a militant faction who was self-destructing from pointless violent episodes and a rudderless philosophical stance; afterward, they became a signpost for the supposed disenfranchisement for every impressionable kid who felt like his or her life was too controlled by some force or other.

It's in this infuriating group that the film's focus strays, though Guerrilla does address the growing complicity of the public as the SLA continued on their unabated rampage against any and all government-sponsored control. Regardless, these idiotic kids fueled what now remains as one of the watershed moments in American history, and one that along with Watergate and Vietnam stands the test of time as a sort of disputable implosion in the resiliency, reliability and intelligence of our government.

The Symbionese Liberation Army was a group of crackpots. The Hearsts were a family with too much money. The media was a cache of opportunists with too many microphones, too many opinions, and too little discretion. But the public? Too little intelligence. Guerrilla:The Taking of Patty Hearst shows not how the SLA kidnapped just Hearst, but all of America; how it seduced our weak and impressionable minds; and how it left us scarred more deeply than we will likely ever realize.

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