FOR A SHORT period of time, between 1974 and 1976, the nation was transfixed by the actions of a tiny band of crazy leftists in the Bay Area who went by the name Symbionese Liberation Army. The SLA murdered Marcus Foster, a well-liked, respected African American school superintendent in Oakland. Then the group kidnapped Patty Hearst, the daughter of Randolph Hearst, heir to the publishing empire; shortly afterward Patty changed her name to Tania and, toting a machine gun, "joined the revolution." In 1976 the SLA robbed a bank in Carmichael, killing a mother of four who was depositing her church's Sunday collection money.

It's not a shining chapter in anyone's political history. But as J.H. Tompkins reports on page 20, it's also not a coincidence that federal and state authorities have just arrested several former SLA members – all of them now living peaceful, productive lives – and charged them with the Carmichael killing. This case has been languishing for 25 years; the only trial, of SLA member Steven Soliah, ended in acquittal. And a lot of legal experts are dubious about the "new evidence" that the government claims to have unearthed.

Since Sept. 11 the nation has been in the grip of a war on terrorism, and the SLA (made up, the prosecution will say, of "domestic terrorists") is an easy target that's being used to discredit a generation of people – and a tremendous amount of extraordinarily important political activism that took place in the 1960s. Nobody wants to defend the SLA's political madness, but almost nobody is putting it in its political context, either.

The U.S. media has never been much for remembering history, so let's set a bit of the record straight: The Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, which spread across college campuses nationwide, was a watershed event. Antiwar activists stopped the Vietnam War. The civil rights movement changed the entire nation. Feminism, gay and lesbian rights, modern environmentalism, the underground and alternative press, including the Bay Guardian and the many papers it inspired, and a whole lot of other social movements came alive or of age in the 1960s – and the world is a better place for it.

Yes, there was violence among some of the leftist groups of that era, but there was at least as much, if not more, violence on the part of the police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Guard, and other government agents. And they were the ones who usually started it.

If some SLA members killed someone in a bank robbery, and the government can prove it, then sure, put them on trial. Murder is murder and has no statute of limitations. But if the nation wants to reopen that chapter in history, there are a lot of other criminals who are getting away. What about the FBI agents who framed Geronimo Pratt? What about the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton? What about Robert McNamara and William Westmoreland and all the other military and political leaders who led the nation into the Vietnam War – and repeatedly lied to the American public about what was happening there? What about Henry Kissinger, who helped engineer the U.S. overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile? The list goes on and on.