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Bill Ayers Fan Club
Over 3,000 fervent supporters have signed a statement emblazoned "Support Bill Ayers," describing the former leader of the Weather Underground, Chicago educator and Obama associate William Ayers as a victim of McCarthyite slurs by the McCain campaign. The naivete and self-delusion of the signatories heats up the already boiling Ayers issue on the day of the final debate between Obama and McCain.
A complicating factor: Bill Ayers always was—still is—a good and decent educator. Even before he made his disastrous entrance into American left-wing politics, he helped run a hippie-style pre-school center in Manhattan, and his pre-school center was first rate, by all accounts. Left-wing politics of a lunatic variety led him into an underground existence for a while, armed and on the lam. But when he re-emerged, he resumed his educational work, and he became a professor of education. And, again by all accounts, or at least by some respectable accounts, he has applied himself with admirable sincerity and skill to his educational work.
Ayers has got to be, even so, the stupidest man in America, politically speaking. Always was; and is. In the 1960s the big left-wing student organization on campus was called Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS. At the beginning of the decade, SDS was an organization with a sturdy social-democratic or democratic-socialist pedigree, roughly in the style of the British Labor Party. Then SDS moved leftward, and kept on moving.
Obama never shared, not even for the briefest second as a kid in high school or college, the political imagination of Bill Ayers.
By the time Ayers became prominent in the organization, SDS could claim 100,000 members. Ayers rose among those 100,000 because he came from an extremely wealthy background, which gave him an aura of command. He was also several years older than most of the members, which allowed him to manipulate his younger followers unscrupulously. By the time he and his faction were done, they had dismantled SDS in favor of their own mini-organization, the Weather Underground, which called itself "revolutionary communist." And Ayers and the Weather Underground launched a Che Guevara-type war in the United States, than which nothing could be more idiotic.
Armed left-wing movements like the Weather Underground cropped up all over the world in the late 1960s, and failed everywhere. In France, Italy, Germany and other places, a good many earnest souls with backgrounds in the armed left-wing movements of that time, or in the wider circles that lent support to those movements, long ago owned up to their own crimes and errors—not just their violent tactics, but their goals, which were a communist revolution. Some of those people managed to establish their democratic bona fides, too, and have made their way in the political world. But not Ayers. He has learned nothing. He is still proud of himself.
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Mr. Berman, to put it simply, you are wrong. Ayers has repudiated violence as a tool for social change. He has, in the classic sense of the word, rehabilitated himself. And your post has disturbing intimations of some kind of personal vendetta against Professor Ayers--what's wrong, did he give you a bad grade on a paper?
How do 3,247 supporters of Bill Ayers wash over to Obama's prospects for winning the election. From what I can see, Obama's so-called ties to Ayers is a case of no there - there. Unless someone can show something more than a six degree of separation between the two, all we are left with is a feeble attempt at guilt by association. Such an attempt has appeal to Pavlov's dogs but not so much to the thinking.
I wholeheartedly agree with your view, and feel that Mr Ayers could have deflated this by appearing publicly and giving people a picture of who he is now, to contrast with the 'picture' the McCain campaign is promoting.
The Far Right Wing Christian Wing of the Grand Orgy Party, has as one of its mottoes, "never forgive, never forget."
Why do they have this motto? Isn't the Christian way to forgive and forget the sins of the past?
With a person such as Bill Ayers, who has redeemed himself, without the, "Help of JESUS, they cannot forgive and forget, for the operative words are, "Help of JESUS."
My how times and doctrines have changed, the principles that I grew up with in a Roman Catholic home, were once a sin had been confessed, that it was forgiven and forgotten. Yet the Protestant Far Right Wing Christians are of another breed, they do not follow the scriptures of the new testament and the sayings of their leader, Jesus. I for one, cannot see the difference between these people and those of the "world," for whom such niceties do not exist.
With this in mind, I commend Bill Ayers, for not allowing himself to become a spectacle and sideshow for the Grand Orgy Party. He is a principled and courageous man to stand up to the slurs and smears that have come his way. Surely, such a man, as Bill Ayers, deserves to be left alone by those who, for lack of a better platform, cannot and will not win this election, other than to sling bullshit around by the pound and give the American people nothing but sound bites in the process.
Isn't it just as likely that the influence of the Weather Underground was positive in that it brought about the end of the Vietnam war and thereby saved the lives of many?
These rightwingers only forgive their own rightwing nut jobs. Palin/McCain are trying their best to paint Obama with Ayers. The more they do it, the more they look dumb. It is so amazing to watch these rallies and see some of these people getting the wrong information. They are proud to be stupid. Many of these people say they get their information from Fox news. It is amazing they believe that scum from fox news.
Perfect perspective, Berman. Nicely done.
Unrepentant. Terrorist. Mendacious. Typical rich punk who's been getting away with it all his privileged, putrid, self-absorbed life.
Now, here's everyone's homework reading assignment before tonight's anticlimax:
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/
This is the archived 2001 Chicago Mag article that most clearly depicts this Ayers, Version 2.0. The great city of Chicago should be ashamed... very ashamed of this unrehabilitated piece of dung. Not to mention Dohrn, who's probably the least forgivable of the two, neither of whom did a single day of prison time for what they did, thanks to FBI overzealous incompetence.
What a farce.
Question of the month: during Barack's "soul searching" period in the mid- to late-80s as he cruised from NY thru Chi to LA to etc., what lifelong, self-styled white champion of all causes Black was emerging into the Overground and setting himself up as a socially acceptable savior of wayward youth? Coincidence? Hyde Park serendipity?
When do we get the air-clearing "we've known him since..." interview with Dohrn/Ayers? How are they keeping their inflated egos in check? ...off the tube? It must be killing them.
Talk to us, Bernardine... Billy... tell us how stupid we all are... you know, like you always have.
Maybe those Bill Ayers supporters can sell his likeness
on t-shirts much the same way communist Che Guevara has been turned into a corporate brand .... a logo, a symbol of "cool" ... with little regard to the truth.
What about G. Gordon Liddy, a convicted, unrepentant felon who has raised funds for John McCain and considers him his friend?
C'mon, Barry... Back in the '80s? Why Chicago? Why Hyde Park Leftist elite political circles?
WHY CHICAGO?
**WHY CHICAGO?**
Why Billy's LIVING ROOM???
All we want is the truth, baby. Don't go all A Few Good Men we can't handle the truth on us. C'mon Mr. Cool... 'sup with ChiTown in the '80s? I know you ain't no lifelong Sox fan...
What's that you're hiding.... ?
Lucidity: Liddy did his time... and never slithered around Under anything but his own slime. For sure no hero... but at least with enough balls to stay in the light of day and take what was coming to him. But what would the Left know about something called Honor?
First off, Ayers is not a repentant terrorist. Asked the day after 9/11, "I wish I had done more" (NYTimes). Second, its not Ayers its Obama. How many different explanations did he and his staff give to his association. I lost count, Tell the truth Barry. That;s all the voters want. Tell us how you distributed monies to Acorn and other orgs in Chicago gotten by Ayers through federal grants. How about that Ayers was the ghost writer for your first book?? Just tell us the real associations with him and not the BS you and your campaign have put out!!
One thing I couldn't understand so far: if this guy has really bombed the Pentagon and done all this stuff, why isn't he in jail? (Seriously, I'm not trying to be smart)
Perspective is always nice, if the concern is really just truth for it's own sake, then I submit to reader's that the election of 2000 takes the prize as the moment in time where truth had been absolutely obfuscated from the public view. More than once during dubya's infernal run for supreme decider I can recall proactive measures to keep bush's 'Driving Under the Influence' bruhaha from wrecking his campaign even though there is a truncated video with audio indicting bush just in the little bit that wasn't kept from public view. The media looked at this very hard, and they couldn't pry this story open any further, to my knowledge, but the story here was just how fast and how well bush's father could button things up from leaking to media view. Next there was the matter of the 'missing year' of dubya's life while still in the Houston Air National Guard. You will recall dubya's order's had him stationed at the Houston Air National Guard base between 1968 and 1973 (6 year's), except that bush asked to go to Alabama in April '72 through October '73 to work on the Congressional Campaign of Winton Blount, but bush exceeded that time arrangement by close to 6 month's, he was due for his annual physical in August '72, which fell in that first 1st six months and is mandatory in order for him to maintain his wings, (bush was an F104 pilot), and bush was a no show according to the government. In fact the military has NO record's to show that bush ever served in Alabama, and if there is one thing that the government is good at doing that is to maintain someone's military service records. So, as it turned out even without serving for the better part of the '72 through 73' year bush's final order record and discharge record's indicated that earned the necessary point total, and he received an honorable discharge most likely at the behest of his Congressman father George H W bush, but Poppy's fingerprint's are nowhere to be found in this scandal, so it was ALL left to look like a function of the invisible hand of government.
In every Presidential election there are elements of candidate's lives that will cause indigestion for campaign staffer's who then encourage their candidate to stay away from a particular pothole at all costs. McCain's foibles are probably in no particular order; his temper, 'The Keating Five,' The POW coverup, his persona change from the 2000 campaign through 2008 when he is a different candidate, his infidelity inflicted upon his first wife and then divorce. This yuck, yuck about Obama is smaller than trivial nonsense, but since a big shot like McCain dredges it all up partisan's then pounce, as for potential drags on the Obama campaign, experience could be his only weakness.
''Isn't it just as likely that the influence of the Weather Underground was positive in that it brought about the end of the Vietnam war and thereby saved the lives of many?''
The Weather Underground was a blip on the screen, you would've needed to be there in the 1960's to really understand just how widely unpopular Vietnam was in the United States, there were so many crazy things happening then that the Weather Underground was part of a mosaic of anti-war push back. I see your point, but it probably isn't a determining factor, but to say again that it was part of the greater effort.
Phil, our young and earnest friend, thank you for asking. Foremost, there is absolutely no "if" about it. The Weather Underground, a small group of ultra-radical leftist-communist self-styled guerillas of which Ayers was one of the "intelligensia", did indeed bomb the Capitol, the Pentagon, and NYPD (headquarters, I believe), claiming credit openly... hey, it's all on Wikipedia.
They drove the FBI nuts for a few years... literally. The feds got so goofy in chasing them playing underground games that they grossly overstepped their bounds. As a result, when Che Ayers and his playmates came out from their cowardly hiding cells one at a time in the period of 1980 , some of their cases were thrown out on technicalities. Some of the women did time... up to 14 years in one case, I believe. But Billy boy and Bashful Bernardine Dohrn, his wife, managed to slither free. At which time, unrepentantly thumbing their noses at the rest of America, they set up housekeeping on the Southside of Chicago.
Read this... it explains it all and gives you an idea of the arrogance of the Little Puke Ayers:
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/
Coward. Liar. Miscreant. Unrepentant firebomber who wishes they had done more. Misguided supposed champion of black civil rights (the Black Panthers officially denounced the Weatherman) and now clearly linked politically with the naive Mr. Obama, perhaps even a mentor / collaborator in the taking of your White House.
Thanks Southpaw. I still can't understand how someone can get out of something like this on a technicality. The man has some nerve:
"Guilty as hell, free as a bird-America is a great country"
Those were different times I guess.
Southpaw, I so admire your attestation of G Gordon Liddy's honor- the same man who once planned the murder of a journalist and instructed Branch Davidians on how to kill federal agents, for which he remains unrepentant. Whose contempt for the Constitution, i.e. the heart of American democracy, is a matter of record. It truly speaks well of the clear moral lens through which most conservatives see the world.
The story on Ayers and Obama is that Obama was deeply involved in education initiatives in Chicago as was Bill Ayers. That explains the majority of their 'association'. The rest can be explained by Ayers significant political connections, including with the Daley machine, and the Hyde Park establishment, and Obama's political ambitions. Of note is what conservatives haven't charged of Obama as regards Bill Ayers. We haven't heard that Obama defended nor empathized with the guy, as the few thousand misguided signatories of this letter have, nor have we seen, despite concerted efforts on behalf of right-wing partisans, any evidence that at any stage in his political, academic or community organizing career, Obama showed common cause or sympathy for anything Bill Ayers stands for. Quite the contrary.
In fact, the only thing that can be said of this 'association' is that Obama didn't refuse to have anything to do with the guy on account of what he had done 40 years ago when he was 8 years old. It's a peculiar indictment, in that such a standard has hardly ever been applied before to my knowledge (which, as we can see, can be applied just as unflatteringly if not more so to John McCain). I mean, how many conservatives refused to associate with Strom Thurmond because he once advocated the morally reprehensible? How many associate with the numerous deviants on the right, of the ilk that McCain did with that death squad funding organization he associated with in the beginning of his career?
Simply put, there isn't any there here, unless we want to have one standard for Obama and another for everyone else (little wonder that conservatives see such a ploy as their only hope of obfuscating their frighteningly disgraceful record).
Southpaw refers to an Ayers quote that is often mis-identified as having been said by him after the 9/11 attacks. In fact, when Ayers said, "We should've done more" it was during an interview that occurred on 9/10/2001 on the occasion of the launch of his new book. He was talking about how the entire anti-war movement should have done more to bring about an earlier end to the Vietnam War. He has condemned the attacks of 9/11 as "crimes against humanity".
Hate him all you want -- there are probably enough facts to make your case without distorting them.
Well put Majorajam. And thanks to Southpaw for the link to the Chicago Mag article. Fascinating to read something on Ayers published before 9/11, which forever casts the violent acts of protest of the 60's in a totally different light, and before Obama.
It is as if the writer finds the origin of violence in Mr. Ayers, and not in his response to it. What an ignorant people we are. This whole episode is exhibit A.
"Mr. Berman, to put it simply, you are wrong. Ayers has repudiated violence
as a tool for social change."
He didn't repudiate it at all. What he actually told the NY Times was "''I don't regret setting bombs, ... I feel we didn't do enough"
Even more troubling is Ayers's statement about his future intentions.The reporter asks further down the page: So, would Mr. Ayers do it all again?And he responds: ''I don't want to discount the possibility,''
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0 A9679C8B63
Gathered New Friends.... nice, very nice dialog. Bootspur's chronology of Dubya's embarrassing (at the very least) brush with our military's uniform code is especially appreciated. I'm sure I will surprise a few here when I say, W... what the hell were we thinking? And Majorajam, please spare me the Leftist Sanctimony... I SAID Liddy was no hero... didn't I? "... slithering around under his own slime"? Remember? My only point is whether they should be cut off and stuffed into his mouth or not... he's got a real pair... infinitely more than can be said for the Slippery Cowardly Ayers.
For you see, I am no knee-jerk anything. In fact I'll spare you any ill-spent defensiveness and just assert: Independent, TRULY Independent, now and forever.
And you are most welcome, Phill... the ChiMag 2001 piece really IS the article everyone needs under their belt. But there is something even juicier out there... a documentary called The Weather Underground, directed by Bill Siegel and Sam Green, released in 2002. It's available on Netflix. You'll find it fascinating, too, Dadzo1. Ayers, Dorhn, Rudd, and the rest live and in person with the REAL story of those times... those truly crazy times.
But back to my REAL point:
Barry... Billy... look into the camera and tell us... truthfully... didn't you guys really get together in the '80s???
And isn't this really... REALLY... a long, strange trip you find yourselves on that will wind you up doing bong hits on Pennsylvania Avenue with Rosie holding the lighter???
'Cause as long as we're paying for it.... we've got a right to know.... don't you think?
HUZZZZZAAAHHHHH!!!
I've been following the pre-election campaigns, debates, etc. in both Canada and the US. There is a fundamental difference. Canadian politics tends to be "not so childish", although, at times, that can be debated. At the very least, Canadian politicians tend to sling political mud as opposed to the US tradition of slinging personal mud.
I watched the US debate tonight. What struck me so clearly is that although both candidates have been guilty of negative campaigning, there is absolutely no way that anyone with a brain can compare this negativity. To say that someone is acting erratically and irrationally is far less negative than to say that someone associates with terrorists and is for all intents and purposes "evil". There IS NO COMPARISON. Obama has no more of an association with this man (Ayers) than hundreds of other well respected individuals. He explained tonight that he was on an educational board with him "and so were other respected Republicans and Democrats". Guilt by association could condemn just about anybody if we let it. Didn't Jesus associate with sinners of all sorts. Perhaps McCain stood beside a terrorist on a Washington sidewalk one day 10 years ago. Does this make McCain a terrorist? The entire inference is ludicrous and frankly, it shocks me that McCain would participate in such nonsense. It is beneath McCain's reputation. And Sarah Palin should be begging for forgiveness from her "Lord and Saviour" and the American public for promoting hatred or at the very least saying nothing against such hatred. Her grins at the horrific comments made by members of the crowd, really said it all regarding her character. Even if it was just a few, she should have said something. She shouldn't have "implied" certain things to start with.
And Obama continues to insist that he is going to cut taxes for the middle class and the poor and McCain keeps insisting that Obama is going to raise taxes. Does McCain have a hearing problem? Obama is only going to raise taxes for THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD IT. So they have to cut back to 3 yachts instead of 4... I'm certain that all of America is sad for them! Does anyone really think that "common" people give a hoot about the rich being taxed. They won't even notice it.
In any event, I digress. Ayers, deserves no consideration whatsoever, mainly because he has NO ties to Obama. If he, indeed, has a thirst for violence to make a point, then it is evident that he has a deep sociopathic personal problem. People who "support" him must have similar issues. If, on the other hand, his focus is now on education and he no longer wishes to blow things up then I suggest everyone leave him to his business, ignore him and he will go away... at least from the spotlight. Then, perhaps, the US can return to focusing on the real issues that could and will have a profound affect on each and every American citizen. Wake up and smell the coffee! Give your heads a shake! Hello... hello? Is anyone listening? Are there other "to the point" cliches I can interject here?
Who is going to get the US out of the "current state of affairs"?... my belief is that Obama is the right person for the job... and that belief is based on his policies and political platform because after all is said and done, wouldn't everyone rather have substance than gossip?
Southpaw... just one point really... you do know... I mean you are aware... that ANYBODY... can write whatever the heck they want in Wikipedia... just ask Stephen Colbert.
Thank you.
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