Shame on The New Yorker and its editor David Remnick for playing a role in the attempt of Bill Ayers and his publisher to resurrect both Ayers’ book and his reputation. Beacon Press has announced that they are releasing an updated version of Ayers’ 2001 book Fugitive Days on November 12th, a publication date purposely held until after the election. As most everyone knows, the original edition had the misfortune of being published on 9/11/2001, a date that led to cancellation of Ayers’ book tour, and to reams of negative publicity. The last thing the American public wanted to hear about was the glamorization of a 1960’s terrorist.
But in our celebrity driven culture, the attention to Ayers in the election campaign has made him a hot number, and he has decided to make his views known in a new afterword that appears at the end of the book.
And now the current edition of the elite Manhattan weekly has helped Ayers in his new campaign, with a fawning “Talk of the Town” article. That the piece is written by its editor-in-chief David Remnick, a first rate writer and a very smart man, makes it even more inexcusable.
Remnick lets Ayers get away with almost every point about his time in The Weather Underground. Attacks on him were all “guilt by association; ” he was made a “cartoon character.” Ayers expresses sympathy with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who also was, Ayers told Remnick, “treated grotesquely and unfairly.” Evidently listening to, watching and reading Wright’s actual sermons is not enough for one to be allowed to render judgment.
Most egregious is that Remnick also lets Ayers get away with his excuse that he never meant to imply in the 2001 Times article about him that he wished they had engaged in more violence and bombings. When he told them “I wish I had done more,” Ayers claims, “it doesn’t mean I wish we’d bombed more shit.” He never had been responsible for violence against other people, he said. He was only acting politically to end the war in Vietnam. His only sin was to use juvenile rhetoric, and he says that he only engaged in “extreme radicalism against property.”
Ayers and Remnick must think people cannot read for themselves. Ayers actually said: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Asked whether he would advocate bombing again, he answered: “I don’t want to discount the possibility.” Or as he writes in his memoir: “I can’t imagine entirely dismissing the possibility.”
By repeating Ayers’ false excuses, and without challenging or correcting him, Remnick allows his publication’s readers to conclude that Ayers is, not as his enemies have claimed, an unrepentant advocate of terrorism, but a wise 1960’s activist, who has learned bitter lessons and who is now much wiser. I assume Remnick has not read Ayers two year old interview in Revolution and his speech in Venezuela standing next to Hugo Chavez, two examples which alone would quickly disabuse anyone of Ayers’ having learned anything in the past decades.
Most outrageous is letting Ayers get away with his claim that he and his comrades only bombed property and harmed no one. Remnick does not ask him about their planned bombing of Fort Dix in New Jersey. The explosion there would have occurred had the bombmakers not prematurely exploded their homemade device while putting it together on March 6, 1970, killing themselves and destroying the Greenwich Village town house in which they were making the explosives. The bomb was an antipersonnel bomb meant to be placed at a dance for new soldiers and their dates at the fort clubhouse. Had it gone off, thousands would have been murdered. The bomb was an explosive wrapped in nails, meant to maim and cause severe pain as well as death. Had it been set off, historian Jeremy Varon writes, “it is possible that Americans would now speak of the 1970’s ‘as a decade of terrorism.’” The New York Times was correct when it editorially commented that the Weather Underground were “criminals, not idealists.”
The basic text that presents the truth about the group is the book by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Destructive Generation:Second Thoughts About the Sixties. The authors spent thirty hours interviewing all the factions of the Weather Underground, and ten hours alone interviewing Bill Ayers. It is to them that Ayers first uttered the words he used at the end of his own memoir, “Free as a bird-guilty as sin. America is a great country.” Perhaps Mr. Remnick should have read the Collier-Horowitz book before setting forth to speak to Ayers. Clearly, the life and times of Ayers’ terrorist comrades is not anything he has any real familiarity with.
It is apparent from reading David Remnick’s words that in fact, he has not even read Fugitive Days. Even a cursory reading of the book reveals clearly that Bill Ayers is lying through his teeth in The New Yorker interview. At the end of this blog, I am posting my own detailed review of Ayers’ book, which appeared soon after 9/11 in the pages of The Weekly Standard. I dissect the book and what Ayers actually writes about his experiences and his view of bombing American targets. What he says disproves virtually all the claims he makes about himself to David Remnick. Or does Remnick really believe, As Ayers writes, that his actions were not terrorist, since they “intimidate, while we aimed only to educate?” Ayers also tells Remnick “I wish I had been wiser.” If this is true, how come he writes in his memoir that when people tell him the United States is a great country, he answers “It makes me want to puke?”
I ask readers one thing only. Please circulate and pass on my review. The new Ayers release will get much media attention. And I believe my critique will be effective in countering it. Let’s do what we can to foil Beacon Press’ campaign to sell his autobiography anew, and let them and Bill Ayers know that the American public may have elected Barack Obama President, but they have not changed their mind about the sordid role of Ayers and the Weather Underground in our country’s past.
___________
Don’t Need a Weatherman
The clouded mind of Bill Ayers.
by Ronald Radosh
10/08/2001, Volume 007, Issue 04
POOR BILL AYERS. His timing could not have been worse. Just when his widely publicized memoir of his days as a terrorist was coming out, our nation suffered its worst terrorist assault ever.Indeed, the very morning of the attack, the New York Times printed a fawning profile of Ayers and his comrade in terror, Bernardine Dohrn. Under the headline “No Regrets for a Love of Explosives,” accompanied by a large color photo of the couple, Ayers boasts that he bombed New York City’s police headquarters in 1970, the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972—and proudly adds, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Asked whether he would do it again, he answers, “I don’t want to discount the possibility.” Or, as he puts it in Fugitive Days: A Memoir, “I can’t imagine entirely dismissing the possibility.”Given the timing, the New York Times may have regretted printing the piece, but worse was to come—for, five days after the destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists, the newspaper printed yet another flattering interview with the terrorist. (The story appeared in the Sunday magazine section of the paper, which the Times had printed before the attacks.) In this second interview—conducted by a writer whose parents were comrades of Ayers in the Weather Underground—Ayers lets us know that America “is not a just and fair and decent place.” This, from the man who is now a distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and who brags at the end of Fugitive Days that he is “Guilty as hell, free as a bird—it’s a great country.” As for those who might believe without irony that America is a great country, Ayers has one reaction: “It makes me want to puke.”Bill Ayers belonged to a late offshoot of what began in 1962 as a protest group, the Students for a Democratic Society. SDS subsequently held the first student antiwar rallies in Washington, D.C., and organized large chapters in nearly all major American universities. By June 1969, it had split into two distinct groups—those with a traditional Marxist approach aimed at organizing the working class, and those spurred on by visions of revolution in the Third World. This latter group, inspired by Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong, opted for a homespun guerrilla army of covert terrorists. Deciding to become warriors who would, as they used to say, “bring the monster down” by using violence against those living in “the belly of the beast,” they named themselves “the Weathermen” (after a line in a Bob Dylan song: You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows). All that was more than thirty years ago, but Bill Ayers still looks back with fondness on the violence of what was called in those days the “New Left.” Indeed, in Fugitive Days, he attempts to bring his readers to share his reasoning. He and his comrades were moved, he insists, by the most decent of motives to undertake, not terrorism, but a restrained and purposeful form of “resistance.” Terrorists seek to harm average people—men, women, and children—without regard to the target. For the Weather Underground, “the symbolic nature of the target” was paramount. They were only trying to prove “that a homegrown guerrilla movement was afoot in America,” and thus they bombed police stations, statues to those they considered oppressors, ROTC buildings, draft offices, and corporate headquarters. OF COURSE, THEIR DECISION TO MOVE to bombing came at a cost. On March 6, 1970, a bomb they were constructing in their Greenwich Village townhouse accidentally exploded, killing Ayers’s girlfriend Diana Oughton and his Weatherman comrades Ted Gold and Terry Robbins. Ayers begins his book with a portrait of how he heard the news, waiting by an isolated phone booth for his weekly report to be phoned in. Shattered, Ayers realized that they were destroying themselves and the time had come to quit. What Ayers does not mention is that the bomb that killed his friends was an antipersonnel bomb meant for an army dance at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Had it exploded at its chosen target, thousands of soldiers and their dates would have been killed. “Terrorists destroy randomly,” he writes, “while our actions bore…the precise stamp of a cut diamond. Terrorists intimidate, while we aimed only to educate.” Somehow, the GIs his comrades aimed to kill—or the policemen he might have murdered had a bomb he planted in a Chicago station gone off—do not count. And the GIs’ dates, and the civilians working at the police station, also do not count. Their deaths would simply have been a way of educating people—as Bill Ayers continues to educate them at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Despite his numerous disclaimers that he was never a terrorist, Ayers often emotes about the mystical wonder of bombs. He reprints a verse in praise of dynamite by the nineteenth-century anarchist Johann Most: “Stuff several pounds of this sublime stuff into an inch of pipe,…plug up both ends, insert a cap with a fuse attached,…and light the fuse. A most cheerful and gratifying result will follow.” Throughout the book, he often ends with such words as “Bombs away!” After witnessing riots and a shoot-out between police and black radicals in Cleveland—a murderous assault he calls a “loving attempt…to change so much of what was glaringly, screamingly wrong”—Ayers writes: “Night after night, day after day, each majestic scene I witnessed was so terrible and so unexpected that no city would ever again stand innocently fixed in my mind. Big buildings and wide streets, cement and steel were no longer permanent. They, too, were fragile and destructible. A torch, a bomb, a strong enough wind, and they, too, would come undone or get knocked down.” The extraordinary mau-mauing that convinced the New York Times to print not just one but two obsequious profiles of Bill Ayers was only part of the publisher’s plan for promoting Fugitive Days. Had the events of September 11 not taken place, Ayers would have embarked on a twenty-city book tour. Ron Rosenbaum, writing in the New York Observer, found some merit to the “terrible logic” of the terrorists’ “convictions,” praised them for having “emerged from the underground without betraying their principles.” Edward Said, Columbia University’s own radical intellectual, blurbed the book for “its marvelous human coherence and integrity.” Studs Terkel called it a “deeply moving elegy to all those young dreamers who tried to live decently in an indecent world.” Thomas Frank declared Ayers a man who took a “quintessentially American trip,” and Scott Turow in his blurb regrets that Ayers’s “critical point of view” is one we are “barely able to recall.” THE WORLD TRADE CENTER SEEMS to show that we are able to recall it all too well. In its press release after the attacks, Beacon Press printed a statement from Ayers (also printed, in shorter form, in the New York Times, though the Times has not printed any of the scores of letters it received protesting Ayers’s double appearance in its pages). In the statement, Ayers refers to “the barbarism unleashed against innocent human beings” as a “nightmare” and claims he is “filled with horror and grief.” Noticing that his memoir is “now receiving attention in a radically changed context,” he asks that we not “collapse time” and imagine that his words apply to the United States today. Fugitive Days, Ayers says, is simply his effort to explore “the intricate relationships between social justice, commitment, and resistance”—and “to understand, to tell the truth, and to heal.” Not surprisingly, to read Fugitive Days is to discover that Bill Ayers intended precisely the opposite when he wrote it. “Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon,” he rhapsodizes. “The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.” Ayers and his comrade (and now wife) Bernardine Dohrn were merely “ordinary people,” he recently explained to the Chicago Tribune, “trying to do our best in extraordinarily extreme and violent times.” But Ayers remains, in fact, a man in love with his years of violence. In his account of the “Days of Rage,” the October 1969 riot the Weathermen organized in Chicago, he describes Dohrn admonishing her troops to violence wearing a “short skirt and high stylish black boots….Her blazing eyes…allied with her elegance,…a stunning and seductive symbol of the Revolutionary Woman.” (Ayers also reminds us that it was at the Days of Rage that Tom Hayden, one of the founders of SDS, told the rioters, “Anything that intensifies our resistance…is in the service of humanity. The Weathermen are setting the terms for all of us now.”) CURIOUSLY, YOU WON’T FIND IN AYERS’S PAGES an account of the “War Council” held by the Weather Underground in Flint, Michigan, in December 1969, at which he and Dohrn were key players. It was at the Flint War Council that Dohrn admonished the four hundred delegates to stop being “wimpy” and “scared of fighting,” and to “get into armed struggle.” Invoking the example of Charles Manson, who had killed Sharon Tate and all her houseguests in the Los Angeles hills, Dohrn declared, “Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!” She closed her speech by holding up three fingers in what she called the “Manson fork salute.” Dohrn was followed by one of Ayers’s friends, John Jacobs, who told the crowd, “We’re against everything that’s ‘good and decent’ in honky America. We will loot and burn and destroy.” The delegates then discussed how to get weapons, make bombs, and rent “safe houses”—after which they broke into a nearby Catholic Church to engage in group sex. Similarly, Ayers never acknowledges that later terrorism followed directly from his example and his policy. After the Weather Underground collapsed, many of his old comrades joined the new May 19th Communist organization, which became a support group for the ultra-violent Black Liberation Army. Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, for instance, ended up in prison for life for their role in the Black Liberation Army’s 1981 Brinks Robbery, in which a black cop was murdered. (Ayers and Dohrn took in Boudin and Gilbert’s child after their imprisonment.) Ayers ends with the scene of rejoicing as he and Dohrn watched the television images of America’s defeat in Vietnam. “We were overjoyed,” he writes, and they “spent several days celebrating, laughing and crying.” Today, they still go every March 6 to put flowers on the site of the Village townhouse where their own bombs destroyed their comrades’ young lives. They also traveled to Vietnam, to pay homage to Ho Chi Minh at his grave. In perhaps the most disgusting pages of the book, Ayers describes the brave American soldiers who, coming upon the My Lai massacre in 1968, landed their helicopter and tried to save Vietnamese civilians from other American troops gone mad. This action was finally acknowledged by an official government ceremony in 1998. But Ayers mentions these soldiers only to compare them to Diana Oughton, Ted Gold, and Terry Robbins—who died making a bomb meant to blow up other American soldiers at Fort Dix. “How much longer” will it take to honor “the three who died on Eleventh Street?” he demands. “How much longer for Diana? When will she be remembered?” BILL AYERS HAS LEARNED NOTHING in the years since he was a terrorist. He still thinks he and his comrades should be forgiven, because their terrorism was “propaganda of the deed” meant to “blaze away the masters of war,” a cause for which he used “explosive words at first, slowly replaced by actual bombs.” He still thinks that America “shatters community everywhere”—and intends the publication of Fugitive Days to encourage another generation of terrorists against the United States, however much he has tried to deny that intention in the days since the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Preparing for his book tour, Ayers posed for a publicity photo with the American flag crumbled in weeds underneath his feet. This man still hates America and seeks its destruction. Ronald Radosh’s most recent book is Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left, published by Encounter Books. |
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90 Comments
1. vb:I hope someone in the media will ask Obama what he thinks about reprinting this book.
Nov 7, 2008 - 5:54 am 2. Pajamas Media » Shame on The New Yorker For Glorifying Bill Ayers:[...] Read the entire piece here. [...]
Nov 7, 2008 - 8:54 am 3. dan:I’m trying to be upbeat about all this and hope for the best, but the more I read the harder it is to resist the sensation that Obama and his friends really will push this country toward convergence. Probably most depressing: my friends are not conscious Marxist-Leninists, and yet they have no idea of the pedigree of the propositions coming out of their mouths. They cannot even appreciate the venomous aspect of their partisanship, though they are generally pleasant and considerate enough people. Yet The New York Times announces something, and it immediately becomes incorporated into the vocabulary – the grammar, if you like – of their presumptions. How depressing all this is. And I notice Rachel Maddow has been installed as a permanent attack-wench, not simply as a temporary insturmental one to keep up the useful anti-Bush venom. Bah. It is all so depressing. When the hell is Mel Gibson going to make a movie based on Venona, Angleton, Golitsyn, Pacepa, Bukovsky? C’mon man! If nothing else, it’s vastly entertaining, and could maybe crack the spell. What a handicap that the reliable conservatives have been generally so reliably artless lately…
Nov 7, 2008 - 9:19 am 4. susan:welcome to the world as seen by marxist glasses.
Take the lowest scum of the planet and they elevate him to the highest levels. It’s so radical chic.
I have already seen this movie in Europe. Former bombers now write books, write columns or are in the parliament.
Don’t let it happen in the USA.
Nov 7, 2008 - 9:23 am 5. RE:Ayers is a miserable and disgusting blight on humanity that in a just world would be rotting away in a prison. He and his wife Bernadine Dorhn are human scum.
Nov 7, 2008 - 9:23 am 6. AnninCA:Ayers is just a left-thinking college professor with little or not impact on anyone these days. He’ll be remembered more for holding a soiree for Obama than anything else in life.
I totally agreed with John McCain. He is a washed-up former activist.
Nov 7, 2008 - 9:29 am 7. view from afar:Susan the problem is that the over-educated left leaning elitists have always admired the sophistication and superioirity (lost on me, but I’m from the Midwest, you know small town fly-over zone) and how cool these lefter leaning former bombers now writing books, columns or are in parliament, so, of course that’s what will have to happen in US or it just won’t do.
Nov 7, 2008 - 9:36 am 8. BackwardsBoy:How convenient that the press told us everything except the truth about this burnt-out leftover from a bad acid trip. Had The Vapid One been fully vetted by the press, in an open and honest way, he wouldn’t have risen to the post of dogcatcher, much less POTUS.
Nov 7, 2008 - 9:38 am 9. ROB:I fear for my country as never before.
The New Yorker is no longer an elite magazine in any sense. It has been turned into an illustrated version of The Nation with upscale ads. There is, sadly, not one hint of wit in it.
Nov 7, 2008 - 9:45 am 10. cfbleachers:Susan the problem is that the over-educated left leaning elitists have always admired the sophistication and superioirity (lost on me, but I’m from the Midwest, you know small town fly-over zone) and how cool these lefter leaning former bombers now writing books, columns or are in parliament, so, of course that’s what will have to happen in US or it just won’t do.
Viewfromafar, sometimes sophistication, superiority and being “cool” are a matter of where you sit in the bleachers. I don’t know this woman, I don’t know anything about her story…but here it is, in its entirety as printed in Frontpage Magazine.
Remembering a Sixties Terrorist
By Donna Ron
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, January 04, 2006 I read occasionally of former Weatherman Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, both now not only accepted, despite their bombing campaign against America in the 1960s and 70s, but successful , establishment educators whose opinions on social issues are taken seriously. Every time I see Ayers’ name I shudder with fear and rage and realize that I will never be able to erase the mark he left on my life one evening 40 years ago.It was at the Undergraduate Library at the University of Michigan on a Friday night in November 1965. I was a sophomore and was living in a sorority house — Alpha Epsilon Phi. I was walking down the stairs to leave the library. Billy Ayers was standing on the first floor and started talking to me.
I thought he was cute. There seemed to be jovial kind of instant connection between us. As I am writing this now I think he must have noticed me before , boys were attracted to me in those days , and planned to try to pick me up. As we struck up a conversation, Ayers told me very quickly about his leftist activism as if he knew this would intrigue me. In fact, I had made attempts to join SDS and the anti Vietnam War Movement on campus during my freshman year but had been put off by what hustlers the young male “activists” were. They talked in lofty ideological abstractions, but they also used their political sophistication as a lure for young women who wanted to be on the right side of the great social issues of the day. I picked up on that cynicism early and so spent much of my freshman year at Michigan trying to figure out how to act. I was politically idealistic back then and believed in Tikkun Olam — that we had to do something to make the world better.
My freshman year at Michigan I attended the Teach-Ins and the campus demonstrations against the Vietnam War and studied hard for my Chemistry exams once a month. At the same time, I decided to pledge a sorority, partially just to prove I could and partially because young women’s options for campus living arrangements were still quite limited in those years.
Despite the caution I’d learned about young ideologues on the make, I was charmed by Bill Ayers and by his savvy talk of politics and the children’s school he was involved with. He asked me to go to a party with him and I did. I have a vague memory of the house where the party was and the people there. I think he got quite drunk and I suppose I drank too. I remember walking home with him. He was very open about himself and told me he was one of 5 children and that he was from Chicago and that his father was rich.
I felt comfortable with Bill. Throughout my life I had always had a friendly buddy-kind of connection with certain boys and felt that I was developing such a connection with him.
I remember going back to his attic apartment — he describes it in his book Fugitive Days. He had a roommate — a black man who was 23 and married with children. There was a couch, a table, a stereo and a sink in the room. There were two beds – Ayers’ and his roommate’s on each side of the attic wall. I slept with him there.
I came there a few times afterward to talk and to listen to his LPs. I especially loved Glen Yarbough’s album Come Share My Life. I met Bill’s roommate who also worked at the children’s school. I also met Bill’s younger brother Rick. Bill was a year older than I and his brother was a year younger. He spent a lot of time at Bill’s apartment.
Bill Ayers’ apartment was around the corner and a half a block away from the sorority house. The more time I spent there, the more out of place I felt with my sisters. Sometimes I would stop by just to keep from having to go back to a place I had begun to think of as boring. I guess it was one of those evenings — maybe on the way back from the library, maybe just to get out of the sorority house, I don’t remember exactly. What I do recall is that when I was getting ready to leave Ayers told me I couldn’t go until I slept with his roommate and his brother. At this point Bill and I had slept together just once. I was sexually inexperienced, having had only one serious boyfriend with whom I had recently broken up.
At first I thought Ayers was joking. I got up; and went to the door. He moved quickly to block me at the doorway. He locked the door and put the chain on it. I went to the couch and sat down and told him that I had no intention of having sex with his roommate and his brother or him. He said that I had no choice but to do as he said if I wanted to get out of there. He claimed that I wouldn’t sleep with his married roommate because he was black — that I was a bigot. I had gone to school with black kids and had them as friends all my life. I couldn’t believe he was saying that to me
I felt trapped. I had to get out of the situation I was in and because he was so effective a guilt-tripper, I also felt I had to prove to him that I wasn’t a bigot. I got up from the couch and walked over to the black roommate’s bed and put myself on it and he fucked me. I went totally out of my body. I floated beside myself on the outside and above the bed looking at this black stranger fuck me angrily while I hated myself.
After that I had to go lie down on Bill Ayer’s bed for his brother to screw me. Rick Ayers was a decent person, unlike his brother, and couldn’t go through with it He started and stopped and let me go. I also thought I had to let Bill screw me but at that point he unbolted the door and I left.
I remember going back to the sorority house and talking to my best girlfriend and telling her what had happened. But there were no words yet to describe it. There was no term “date rape” yet in our political vocabulary. The notion of a psychological rape was not on the table.
I was a mess and felt it was my fault for letting it happen. I was ashamed. Back home at the end of the semester, I got my parents to send me to a psychiatrist. What had happened affected my ability to trust in a relationship with a man and I didn’t have a close relationship again for a long time.
I graduated in 1968 and went to Europe for the summer and came back right before the Democratic Convention. I worked for McCarthy in the Indiana primary. Wherever I went over the next few years, I carried with me the shame and guilt with me. I felt it had been my fault for not putting up more of a struggle against Ayers.
I started a PhD program in clinical psych at Yeshiva University in 1969. I was also working part time for a branch of the University of Chicago Institute for Social Research which was in the same building. I was there in a room with other employees one day sitting around a big table and coding questionnaires for a research study on Head Start when we heard a huge explosion. Soon after we discovered that it was a bomb that went off in the brown stone on 10th street which killed three buddies of Bill Ayers, who was now one of the leaders of the WeatherUnderground, a terrorist cult. One of the victims was Diana Oughton, his girlfriend at the time. I had known her: a kind soul who had worked at the Fresh Air Camp for troubled kids before she got mixed up with ever so persuasive Bill and the other Weatherman terrorists. When I found out she had been blown up, I thought how like him to send his girlfriend to make the bomb rather than do it himself.
I eventually moved to Israel, married and had a family. But for a long time I felt as if I existed in a time warp in relation to events in the US that were a continuation of the 1960s. In 1994 I returned to the States for my 30-year Mumford High School reunion. I was in NYC visiting a friend and asked about the Weathermen. He told me that Billy and Bernardine Dohrn had come up from the underground and resumed middle class life—including the radical politics—without being prosecuted for their crimes.
Later I read about Ayers and his book Fugitive Days on the Internet. This was just after the terrorist attack on 9/11 and he was entirely unrepentant for having been a terrorist himself. “I would do it again,” he told the Times when he was asked about having set a bomb in the Pentagon. I also discovered that he was a Distinguished Professor of Education at University of Illinois Chicago campus. I think that freaked me out more than anything. That a man so cruel and conscienceless could attain such a position enraged me. I contacted him by email through the University’s website. He wrote back that he didn’t remember me.
I was in Detroit in November 2001 and bought his memoir at Book Beat at Lincoln Plaza in Oak Park. I looked to see if there was some hint in it of what had become the defining event of my life. Nothing. But why should he remember me if he has convinced the world to forget, or is it forgive — that he set out to launch a bombing campaign to blow up America?
Nov 7, 2008 - 10:07 am 11. susan:he was a scum from his birth.
Those are the kind of people that makes you think abortion not only should be a choice but a rule.
Nov 7, 2008 - 10:14 am 12. goy:This one’s easy: resurrect Prairie Fire along with it.
Problem solved.
Nov 7, 2008 - 10:48 am 13. David Thomson:The odds were always in John McCain’s favor to win the election. Unfortunately, he did an extremely poor job of dealing with the Bill Ayer’s issue. I remain convinced that the majority of the middle of the road voters were confused about Barack Obama’s relationship with the terrorist. They bought into the bovine excrement that the Anointed One barely knew Ayers. Still, the truth concerning Obama and Ayers will eventually filter down to the hoi polloi. My guess is that this will occur before the president elect is even inaugurated.
Nov 7, 2008 - 10:51 am 14. Valerie:Oh, by all means let Bill Ayers have his fifteen minutes of fame. Give his ideas a thorough airing, and let’s ask lots of questions about “prairie fire.” The more the American people know about him, the easier it will be to disinfect our educational system.
Nov 7, 2008 - 11:18 am 15. Kevin:Proof that any press is good press. Pathetic. Are students going to start wearing t-shirts with old pictures of Ayers and throw away their Che shirts?
Nov 7, 2008 - 11:22 am 16. kelly k:When you read anything about Baader-Meinhoff, the Red Brigade, the Japanese Red Army, or the Weathermen, two things are obvious–the leaders were psychopaths and the followers were pathetic losers. Really, how any rational adult could excuse, much less admire, these people is beyond comprehension.
I wouldn’t breathe the same air as Bill Ayers or Bernadine Dohrn (or, for that matter, Jeremiah Wright). The fact that Obama apparently had no problem at all with them is just something I can’t get past.
Nov 7, 2008 - 11:27 am 17. Robert Hurley:The rest of the country is moving on from Ayers and looking forward to the new day of January 20, 2009. I hope you all continue to fight this old issue as the Democrats focus on passing the bills initiating their agenda
Nov 7, 2008 - 1:30 pm 18. Marc:There’s an Ayers/Dohrn connection to the Brinks robbery that the media has missed.
During the time of the robbery Ayers and Dohrn were living on the Upper West Side in New York. After the robbery in 1981, Dohrn was called before the Brinks gand jury but refused to testify and she spent 7 months in prision. She later claimed that she refused to testify because the trial was illegitimate and that she had no information on the robbery anyway.
That’s a lie. Her real reason for not testifying was that police suspected her of helping the Brinks robbers obtain false IDs, by providing customer information from the Upper West Side children’s store where she worked as a salesgirl.
False IDs (duplicate driver’s licenses) had been used to rent the cars and trucks involved in the robbery. The only link the police could find when they interviewed the real people whose personal info had been used was that they had shopped at the store where Dohrn worked. They had paid by check and information on their driver’s licenses had been recorded. Shortly thereafter, duplicate driver’s licenses were issued to imposters who claimed they had lost their license.
For details, see pages 151-152 of THE BIG DANCE by John Castellucci, the definitive book on the Brinks case.
Nov 7, 2008 - 1:41 pm 19. Mike:Ayers is a symptom of a disease called Marxism. I knew bunches like him back in the 60’s while in college only then they were called members of the “New Left”. They had then and still have no regard for the rights of others. Ayers was and still is the spoiled brat scion of a rich family. He wouldn’t even know how to have respect for a genuine working person. For he and others like him the proletariat is only a means to an end and that end is all power to the state.
Nov 7, 2008 - 1:51 pm 20. dan:Actually, most of the country never really considered Ayers. He’s just one of the more eccentric romantic personalities from the halcyon 1960s, right? Harmless, just like rock n roll and weed and all that nonsense about communism. Who cares – what matters is that we get flatscreens and don’t have to hear about the hillbillies getting to go fight their fascist-stupid wars. Obama will make all that happen, Yes We Can.
Bob, it’s a shame you’re so uninterested in the world. It is so much more incredible than that tiny little picture in your head.
Nov 7, 2008 - 1:56 pm 21. susan:Robert hurley, you are definitely a scumbag like hurley. You could have at least the decency not to show up in a thread that glorifies a murderer and a rapist.
You are exactly at his level.
You would praise even Hitler if it was useful in advancing zerobama’s cult, you have no morals.
Next time a political terrorist attack touches USA, I hope someone like you is nearby.
Nov 7, 2008 - 1:57 pm 22. Pat:Mr. Radosh’s content and logic are superb, but the moral importance of his article is indispensible.
To each of you now reading this comment: morality requires that you judge every fact by the rational standard of what promotes man’s life, and then act accordingly and courageously.
Ayers words, actions and career as a so-called “teacher” deserve the strongest condemnation for the anti-mind, anti-life, anti-American wickedness they are.
Accordingly, please take a moment right now to forward the link to Mr. Radosh’s article to as many friends as you can think of.
As to Remnick and The New Yorker – they’re just fawining prostitutes – exercising their right to free speech to endorse someone dedicated to destroying all rights in favor of dictatorship. Dont’ buy their trash, and be sure to let others know that The New Yorker has become another in the stale progression of apologist mouthpieces for thugs.
Nov 7, 2008 - 1:58 pm 23. Robert Hurley:Poor Susan: When she has nothing intelligent to say (Which from the evidence of these blog is everytime she blogs) she stoops to calling people names. I can’t imagine that is what passes for discussion in your European country. Maybe that is why you blog here, everyone there must ignore you
Nov 7, 2008 - 2:12 pm 24. dan:someone above made the obvious point: bill ayers is a spoiled brat, a horrible little sociopath. how people can actually allow him to *lead* them is truly unbelievable.
in fact, it reminds me of the way i feel every time howard dean or george stehpanopolous come on the tv: it’s just unbelievable that people take such smirking midget assholes seriously.
but hey i don’t like hannity or o’reilly either. goddamnit, where did all the cool people go?
Nov 7, 2008 - 2:18 pm 25. Robert Hurley:See below for Obam’s gains over the 04 election when Ayers was not the issue. I guess no one paid attention:
AL: D+4
Nov 7, 2008 - 2:18 pm 26. DJ in PA:AK: R+5
AZ: D+2
AR: R+11
CA: D+14
CO: D+12
CT: D+11
DE: D+16
DC: D+6
FL : D+8
GA: D+12
HI: D+36
ID: D+12
IL: D+14
IN: D+22
IA: D+10
KS: D+9 KY: D+4
LA: R+4
ME: D+9
MD: D+10
MA: D+1
MI: D+13
MN: D+7
MS: D+6
MO: D+7
MT: D+17
NE: D+17
NV: D+14
NH: D+8
NJ: D+8
NM: D+16
NY: D+7
NC: D+12 ND: D+20
OH: D+6
OK: Even
OR: D+11
PA: D+8
RI: D+7
SC: D+8
SD: D+14
TN: R+1
TX: D+11
UT: D+17
VT: D+15
VA: D+13
WA: D+10
WV: Even
WI: D+13
WY: D+8
Hey #9, I agree, let’s all move on and stop fighting about these old issues. Slavery died out 145 years ago and it’s freakin’ time to move on. We’re in the 21st century now. Good advice, let’s move on!
Nov 7, 2008 - 2:44 pm 27. Paul_Unalaska:“..a ‘new’ day of January 20, 2009..” Comments such as this bring to mind a scene from the movie, ‘Independence Day’. Excited folks on rooftops with placards, costumes, open-arms and giddy over the arrival of their alien visitors. Suffice to say the aliens blew the rooftops, admirers to bits.
Nov 7, 2008 - 2:45 pm 28. Donna V.:Mr. Hurley, movie comment aside, sometimes what you see isn’t always what you get. The old adage, ‘The person you are is set in motion by the company you keep.’ It’s proven to be the case 100%.
Robert Hurley: If the political landscape were reversed and the GOP president-elect was friends with someone who bombed an abortion clinic, would you be all fine and dandy with that? I think not. (And for the record, I wouldn’t be fine with it either.)
I don’t care if most Americans didn’t know or care about Ayers. He attempted to murder Americans and should not be given a free pass or portrayed as a glamourous figure.
But then the people Ayers tried to kill weren’t “cool” – just US servicemen, judges, people working at the Pentagon. And it was all for a good cause, right? Can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs?
It is things like this that led me, a former liberal, to believe that under the “caring and compassionate” mask of the Left lies a heart of ice.
Nov 7, 2008 - 2:45 pm 29. Donna V.:And Hurley, you seem to get your sense of right and wrong from whatever the majority believes.
In the 1850’s South, you would have been a firm believer in slavery – because the majority thought it OK.
You’re as much of a conformist as any ’50’s suburbanite – you just conform to the conventional wisdom of the MSM circa 2008.
Nov 7, 2008 - 2:50 pm 30. kelly k:“I hope you all continue to fight this old issue as the Democrats focus on passing the bills initiating their agenda.”
I think we can fight more than one thing at a time, ace.
But thanks for being such an intelligent, articulate, mature voice for your side. Keep up the good work!
Nov 7, 2008 - 3:03 pm 31. Robert Hurley:Donna V You have to leave this irrelevant issue behind. It has nothing to do with right or wrong. You guys will end up spinning your wheels while the rest of us concentrate on the real issues of the day
Nov 7, 2008 - 3:09 pm 32. heather:These hard working intellectuals like David Remnick are quite the fellas. I guess they are too important and sophisticated to bother with “research” their subjects before scribbling something in their magazines.
I know that Remnick is a busy guy, so here’s the best source for Weatherman – and it’s SHORT, David!!!: Collier and Horowitz, “Destructive Generation” pp 67 to 116. You could polish that off in a couple of hours, David. Try it.
Nov 7, 2008 - 3:16 pm 33. Evil Pundit:I always appreciate helpful advice from leftists.
If they say “dump Sarah Palin”, then it means Palin scares them and she needs to be front and centre. If they say “forget Bill Ayers”, it means the truth worries them and it needs to be exposed.
Republishing Ayers’ book provides an opportunity to remind Americans just what they have put in the White House.
Nov 7, 2008 - 3:19 pm 34. Someone75:susan:
“You would praise even Hitler if it was useful in advancing zerobama’s cult, you have no morals.”
When there is nothing useful or intelligent left to say, the cretin invariably mentions Hitler. Wow, Susan.
Nov 7, 2008 - 3:20 pm 35. proud elitist:This continued Ayers focus baffles me. The election is over. Obama isn’t “friends” with Ayers, but he did have a working relationship with the man. Ayers is not going to be in an Obama administration. Thus, the only people he now matters to involved Illinois and education.
If I was to go on and on about Palin, I would be told by this blog to stop trashing her, “who cares, you won,” and the like.
Hypothetical: Obama, in his heart, forgave Ayers for his past sins. A Christian act, no?
do not beat down on “susan” — she is fascinating and entertaining. she spews hate, moral superiority and the like ALL from across the atlantic. love her. she’s nuts!
Nov 7, 2008 - 3:29 pm 36. Donna V.:What kelly k said.
Jeez, Robert, I’m sure we’ll have plenty to say about Obama’s economic plans, foreign policy and everything else. There will be an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Obama screw-ups, I’m sure.
But that doesn’t mean we’re going to cease pointing out that an attempted murderer is an attempted murderer, even if you degree that attempted murder is no big deal – as long as you choose the right targets.
Nov 7, 2008 - 3:32 pm 37. Chaz:Hurley:
If having a former unrepentant terrorist as a friend of the nest POTUS to be isn’t an issue, what is? He bombed the Pentagon! If McCain had a friend, what would you say? His terrorist group KILLED people! There is blood on his hands! How can you excuse that?
Elitist:
Nov 7, 2008 - 5:32 pm 38. fred:Where are you from? I care about this nation! I’m a citizen of it. The reason I didn’t like Obama was because of his Chicago Connections. Coming from Illinois (his home state, where Chicago rules everything with an iron fist to it’s detriment and ruin), I could never bring myself to vote for anyone, black or white, from that damned city. Nothing could convince me to do it. He would have to be the paragon of Humanity in order for me to even consider it, and he would still have the odds against him.
cfbleachers @#10
I read the same story some time ago. The thing about men like this is that is highly probable that it wasn’t his first rape or abuse of a woman. I’m willing to bet that Billy Ayers has done this to many other women, before he was an open terrorist, while he was one, and perhaps even when he was a professor. I wonder how many coeds he’s bedded. I never respected teachers and professors who hit on their students for sex. I think it violates every kind of ethical code one can conjure up for how educational professionals to act.
Billy Ayers is scum. His wife is a horrible human being who revels in torture, murder, and violence. Anyone who would prefer their company and not be creeped out should creep you out.
Nov 7, 2008 - 8:19 pm 39. fred:Chaz,
I have a feeling that Hurley is not an American. Methinks he’s from the U.K.
Nov 7, 2008 - 8:20 pm 40. fred:Mike, @#19
Your descriptions of those New Leftists from the 1960’s is spot on. I was an aspiring academic Marxist, albeit a Catholic one, during the late seventies and early to mid eighties (I left the Left and Marxism in 1987). I remember some of those people mocking the values of working Americans. And I know that you know some of the things those people would say about working people. I’ve heard them too, but I kept my distance from that kind of talk coming from the activists. I was not an activist; just a bookish seeker of truth, from whatever quarter it emanated from. Which is why I eventually left the Left. Some very scorching critiques of socialism and Liberation Theology by Michael Novak served as the sand irritant inside the oyster and I forced myself to test revisionist Marxism against those critiques. I came out the other end the wiser for it.
Nov 7, 2008 - 8:27 pm 41. thegr8_1:Ayers for Secretary of Defense he could build more bombs and bomb who he should be bombing.
Nov 7, 2008 - 8:32 pm 42. Frank Richards:May Allah bless Ayers for his holy work in the glorious jihad. It portends victory over the disgusting Christian infidel filth who control this foul enemy country.
Nov 7, 2008 - 9:20 pm 43. dan:forget it – hurley’s lost in the fantasy world created to make ayers seem heroic. lets move on.
Nov 7, 2008 - 9:39 pm 44. joe:There is no shame at the NYT they hate America more than Ayers. They surely have done as much if not more damage to America than he ever managed.
Nov 7, 2008 - 9:46 pm 45. Prophetic.:Something written a long, long time ago.
“The day shall come that ‘they’ shall call good evil,
Nov 7, 2008 - 11:13 pm 46. susan:and evil ‘they’ shall call good!”
Stupid75, if mentioning hitler is so passè, I guess you retarded democrats are the champions for the past 8 years.
What’s the taste of your mouth?
And robert, once a scumbag, always a scumbag, and I am talking about you.
Don’t worry, what passes as discussion in my country is not the pravda lapdogs you have here.
Nov 8, 2008 - 5:28 am 47. trangbang68:Ayers and Dohrn,Jeff Jacobs and the rest of the Weathertrash are blots on the American democratic landscape. We have managed a largely peaceful transition to the place we are today, other than the Civil War. That Barack Obama is President (short of media end running) is a testament to Medger Evers, Dr. King, and countless others who overcame bigotry with Gandhian peaceful protest. The Weather rats were evil profane self centered bastards who killed and did damage to our nation. That liberal media now want to shine up their image is disgraceful and no doubt one of many sad spectacles we’ll see in the next few tortured years.
Nov 8, 2008 - 8:35 am 48. susan:If anything needs to be ignored it’s old clueless jackasses like Hurley.
fred
“I have a feeling that Hurley is not an American. Methinks he’s from the U.K.”
does this make him less revolting?
Nov 8, 2008 - 1:19 pm 49. Cary:I read the New Yorker article about Ayers. In it he mentions a campus policeman he is friends with. I wonder if this officer knows that his wife Bernardine Dohrn was involved in the S.F. Ingleside police station bombing that killed a policeman?
Nov 8, 2008 - 11:13 pm 50. dragonfly:Mr. Radosh: I am late in picking up your article and the powerful review of Ayers’ book. I will give them both circulation. Ayers is actually a good writer, which has led one scholar to postulate the he ghost-wrote Obama’s memoirs, since Obama was floundering hopelessly in meeting the terms of his advance.
The truth about Ayers is important on two counts:
1) he is the quintessential U.S. marxist and held in close to reverence by revolutionary marxists worldwide. Hugo Chavez does not invite him to share the stage at victory rallies because he is a tenured professor of education in Chicago. There is no doubt in my mind that one of Obama’s reasons for coming to Chicago was to associate with a Socialist icon, was embraced by his hero and became a surrogate because Ayers knew he could never personally attain any elective office. The closeness of their bond reflects the depth of Obama’s radical roots.
2) It reveas how well the Socialist Strategy for proseletizing for Marx has succeeded beyond their early dreams. Take advantage of the general public’s tolerance for those who would turn America into a Socialist Republic and readily forget extremist past, get into the sympathetic cover of a professorship in the field of Education or Political Science and secure tenure. use it to publish “education text books” that espouse your cause, discover and support potential “comers” and help them gain poliical standing using the Rules for Radicals of Saul Alinsky. Once the top is achieved, move legislaion and coourts toward collectivist goals, eg. Pierre Trudeau in Canada.
History will reveal the central role that Ayers has played in this cammpaign, launched and orchestrated by the Chicago radical machine.
Other potential Democrat nominees, if successful, would have ruled by moving left of center. Obama moves toward the center, as little as he must –but his default setting is “Doctrinaire Socialist.
Nov 9, 2008 - 1:09 am 51. david:A book by Horowitz is far from an academic or journalistic interpretation of past events. Horowitz is a flagrant polemicist, whose goal is not toward truth, but as an academic warrior. I agree with the mission of this article, and condemn Ayers actions, but listing the Horowitz book is perpetuating the very defense put forth by Ayers, supporting opinions by quotes out of context.
Nov 9, 2008 - 8:01 pm 52. Scott:I was led here thru the ABC news site and
Nov 9, 2008 - 8:06 pm 53. define:terrorist:discovered an incredible bunch of losers.
Get a positive life folks.
Obama is our new president and if we care about the USA we’ll try to give it the best we’ve got- not a load of whining and fear mongering.
ok I get it, the weathermen ALMOST blew people up. That makes them terrorists, pre-criminals are terrorists?
Nov 9, 2008 - 8:12 pm 54. policywank:wow, I’m glad I found this blog and by that i mean: wow you guys are idiot fox news drones
I love the irony of using David Horowitz as a source meant to discredit anyone. The sooner conservatism jettisons people like him, the sooner it will garner credibility with the remainder of the country again. Horowitz is every bit the fringe nut now that he’s on the right as he was a fringe nut on the left in his youth. This man knows nothing of good sense or charity toward his fellow man. Whatever end of the spectrum he finds himself on, the rest of us are merely pawns in some grand struggle that he envisions himself to central to.
Nov 9, 2008 - 8:16 pm 55. Jim:one word for you all – enantiadromia – it is remarkably true
Nov 9, 2008 - 8:19 pm 56. Danko Ramone:Ok, so there’s Bill Ayers. He’s been meaningless and washd up in the terrorism business for years. Why’s he matter? Why do you care?
His Obama connection, is so minor as to be meaningless at this point. You can scream and say it’s not meaningless forever, but not once have you given any example of how it matters, or of it in action today.
http://www.bustergetmypills.com
Nov 9, 2008 - 8:24 pm 57. ReignForrest:This must be a Republican site!
Ayers appears to have been a misguided radical against the Vietnam war and appears to be unrepentent even today for his sins against humanity.
But to take that capital and use it to lay vile invective on Obama is unjustified.
But go ahead; don’t mind me. Better use up that misanthropy, xenophobia, racism, etc. — or some of you will also be inclined to go “Kill him! Terrorist!! Socialist!!! Muslim!!!! Arab!!!!!”
Nov 9, 2008 - 8:47 pm 58. Tom Marks:“History will reveal the central role that Ayers has played in this cammpaign, launched and orchestrated by the Chicago radical machine”
You are beyond loopy, and have achieved full clinical insanity.
There is not the slightest evidence that Ayers and Obama had anything except a casual relationship that is well known. But all of you keep on spewing your gibberish, it worked great so far. If your goal is permanent irrelevance, you’re doing great.
Nov 9, 2008 - 8:53 pm 59. Rich:Wow, you should all calmly, reflectively read your comments. Many (not all) of you come across as petty children. I assume you are only interested in attacking your chosen target, but the effect to an outsider is to call into question, or even invalidate, your arguments.
Rise above and behave like adults and your thoughts will likely carry more weight.
Nov 9, 2008 - 9:27 pm 60. Nolyn:Why do you guys even care about Ayers? So he wrote a book about the 60’s and the weathermen. Don’t read it if it bugs you so much. Don’t let it get to you. His relationship with Obama is not of any great importance, so no need to worry about it. Obama is so center, so mundane, so WASP when it comes down to it. You are getting all worked up over nothing. Get a life!
Nov 9, 2008 - 9:32 pm 61. jon:Ayers and Obama are not really friends, and Obama probably wasn’t really aware of how big of a scumbag Ayers really was the few times he interacted with him. Our current president’s administration is full of people who spent the 80s working with all sorts of murderous thugs – Saddam Hussein, for example – and you hypocrites didn’t seem to care. McCain was buddies with G. Gordon Liddy, and Palin’s husband wanted Alaska to secede from the United States. And most importantly, Obama isn’t a Marxist, and your pathetic whining is an insult to anyone who has actually experienced totalitarianism and oppression. You all need to grow up.
Nov 9, 2008 - 10:17 pm 62. Chagrined:I think neocons have been rendered irrelevant! Not a word about the terrorist attack on the USS Liberty by Israel. Some time ago I met a survivor of the USS Liberty. As he recounted the attack by Israel on the USS Liberty, tears rolled down his face. He said he could remember as clearly as if it had happen yesterday. America should remember this “War Crime” by Israel also, but it seems that AMERICA – HOME OF THE BRAVE AND LAND OF THE FREE has betrayed the patriotic sailors.
These insidious neocons avoided serving in the Vietnam War that Bill Ayers protested. Of course they get other to fight and die in wars they support. They are America’s most unpatriotic citizens.
Attacking Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright did not diminish President elect Obama. It did diminish the Hate mongering, Fear mongering and War mongering unpatriotic neocons and other insidious ingrates who do not deserve to use our cherished Constitutional freedoms for whey many brave people, excluding theirs, fought sacrificed and died.
Please remember your place! You have not earned the right to criticize!
Chagrined
Nov 9, 2008 - 11:54 pm 63. wy_cowboy:What do you expect? It’s the New Yorker, probably the largest liberal magazine out there. This isn’t a big shocker folks.
Nov 10, 2008 - 1:26 am 64. Dagny Taggart:Robert Hurley said:
“The rest of the country is moving on from Ayers and looking forward to the new day of January 20, 2009. I hope you all continue to fight this old issue as the Democrats focus on passing the bills initiating their agenda”
Whose agenda it really is, is what concerns us about Ayers and Obama’s other associations. Anyone who has done even a modest amount of research into the Ayers-Obama relationship knows that it has existed much longer than Obama admits. There is evidence that Obama may have known Ayers while he was at Columbia. Ayers’ wife Dohrn and Michelle Obama both worked at Sidley Austin Law firm at the same time for at least a year. Obama’s Chicago Annenberg Challenge office and Ayers’ Small Schools Workshop shared the same address for a number of years – three years that can be proven by tax returns. There’s more to be discovered, if only the media would do its job.
Nov 10, 2008 - 3:34 am 65. Alex S:Not only should you stop chastising people who go out of their way to try to find out something about the man who will be running OUR country, YOU should be joining us in our search for the truth.
Hey Donna V. Thank you so much for opening this door. You said:
Nov 10, 2008 - 4:50 am 66. Malaia:“If the political landscape were reversed and the GOP president-elect was friends with someone who bombed an abortion clinic, would you be all fine and dandy with that?”
Let’s change it to the VP candidate, and see why she would be friends with a terrorist who blew up an abortion clinic. Oh wait, she does not consider people who blow up abortion clinics killing Dr’s, Nurses, and Patients to be terrorist. Words from her own mouth on video.
Q: Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist, under this definition, governor?
and her answer, first she tries to skew it by saying Ayers is def. a terrorist, but finishes with the fateful words. “I don’t know if you’re going to use the word terrorist there.”
So of course she can be friends with the bombers, she does not consider them to be terrorists.
So thanks again Donna V. for opening that door.
Now before you poo flinging momkeys start in on the attack, here are some details. I know John McCain, dad went to the USNA with him and served with him. I have drunk with him. (Well, one drink, and only once) I was born and bred republican. But I was bred with some intelligence. So when the Republican party picked a VP candidate who had less qualification a queen at a renaissance festival, it pretty much shot my vote. C’mon people, the woman went to 4 colleges in 5 years. Took time out to try a and be a beauty queen, I could go on with the data I consider valid, but I do not want to cause too many of you fatal brain anuerisms, you might take it as intentional and try to label me a terrorist.
So you do not like Obama, cool, that is the beauty of this country, you are allowed to have that opinion. You do not trust Obama (which makes you a monirity in the US right now) also cool, again perfectly legal in the US. Then I recommend you quit putting blinders on and beign distracted by his past. I recommend you take your astute skills of mankind and pay attention to all his actions and proposals. Place a moratorium on yourself to only discuss events that are recent occurrences.
Like abortion clinic bombers, who are not terrorsts, so Governor Palin can pal around with them.
Thanks again Donna V. and Susan… did you forget to take your meds today hun? You’re droolong again.
Hey Hurley, keep up the good work, you have more patience than me.
While not disagreeing that Ayers is a complete detriment to our society, I would like to point out to you racist, propaganda-believing, parrots that just cuz someone tells you something you dont need to believe it. Research it.
Nov 10, 2008 - 6:06 am 67. Left, Right and Centered » Another Reminder:Fact: I hate Palin.. do I believe she didnt know Africa was a country? No.. cuz I have some common sense and can look things up myself.
Fact: Using words like Marxist, socialist and terrorist brands people and it is NOT true. Even Ayers himself said he barely knew Obama.. dont you think he would have announced if he did so he could sell more books?
Fact: the days of negative, name-calling campaigning are coming to an end. No one but McCain and Palin are to blame for losing the election.. and trying to muckrake believers is downright pathetic.
Vote for issues you believe in and stop believing crap.. after all, if you want to point fingers about associating with terrorists and bad preachers you can find PLENTY on McCain and MORE than plenty on Palin.
Stop pointing fingers and start using your pointer. Find out about the ISSUES.. thats how Obama won.. he didn’t lower himself to calling names, he talked about what WE the American people WANTED to hear about.
For gawdsakes people READ the TRUTH which plenty of orginazations have put there for you www,factcheck.org. That site there tells about ALL parties truth. ALL the politicians in this election stretch the truth. ALL of them.
Stop regurgitating allegations made by right wing or left wing political nut jobs who think the way to win is to find ridiculous statements about their opponent.
[...] Once upon a time, the New Yorker was the best written magazine in the country and relatively apolitical. Some time around 20 yearsago that changed. If you had any doubts read this. [...]
Nov 10, 2008 - 7:32 am 68. hulagate.org:Invoking the mental memory and keen floor planning of the Branch Davidians in Waco, the Obama pre-administration today announced detailed plans to transit killers of U.S. troops and allies, from their current confines in Cuba to a less well appointed if chillier enclave on Cape Cod. “We must show the world that freeing terrorists is not just our hope, but the real change we so dearly campaigned upon for the last 2 years,” said an anonymous almost White House spouse. “If we’re unable to provide Mullah Omar’s taxpayer protected kids the benefit of the doubt, what does that say about Howard Scream, Jane Fondle, Ted Turncoat, Alexi Ballsless, and all the other semi-Americans that fought dinner parties for so many severe limo parking minutes to help get The One selected?” Preliminary details were sketched on the back of a cocktail napkin at the Springfield, Virgina Trader Vic’s by Rahmbo Emanuel and Cyrus Vance’s rotting corpse, but insiders describe a legal beaver combination of the old Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia with very off track betting, less the actual judgment afforded to the bleating drunks at Eagles games. “We’re not talking about perfection here, we’re just trying to create a Swiss-style political stick from thin air that we can use to bash Jeb Bush in 2012, assuming we’re not allowed to run for a third term in 2016. Mind you, nobody wants to see this devolve to actual trials with expedited results and long term incarcerations of these fine Muslim people, where they might accidentally be subjected to playground activities with the general prison population. Putting them or our leftist legacy of appeasement is simply non-negotiable,” said the young radical woman looking for a puppy that won’t pee on the Rose Room piano legs. “Certainly the major media will get behind this, and in numbers never seen before ACORN got ahold of the PBS contributor files, but we must strive to stay focused, keep our eyes on the prize, reach the highest ground — which basically comes down to Obama empowering the worst elements on the face of the globe, for no other reason than cheap political stuntsmanship that even a Hillary backer will love.” More later, on this same Ali Franken Punch Bowl (coming to the BCS in 2010) network.
Nov 10, 2008 - 9:22 am 69. Jim Harrison:Since World War II, right-wing terrorism has been far more deadly than left-wing terrorism in the U.S. Remember all those blown-up churches, abortion clinics, the Federal Building in Oklahoma? As terrorists, the American left makes a pretty unconvincing impression. If we ever have a serious insurrection in this country, my money is on the red-state thugs who are already armed to the teeth, not a bunch of conscience-ridden grad students.
Nov 10, 2008 - 11:08 am 70. Victor Erimita:Many ask why Ayers is still relevant. I don’t know how relevant he is or should be, but it is relevant that formerly intellectually stimulating publications like The New Yorker have become vehicles of mindless radical chic, as evidenced by the attempted mainstreaming of a narcissistic little punk like Ayers. So many formerly intellectually diverse publications, like The Atlantic Monthly, have devolved into homogeneous journals of leftist groupthink. And as the Left in America has abandoned liberalism for college dorm Marxism, the moral relativism of postmodern poststructuralism and the silencing of dissent, it is no surprise that the rersulting moral and intellectual collapse of the “intelligentsia” would come around to glorifying rebel-without-a-clue Bill Ayers. Too bad the only kind of arrest Ayers really experienced was of the developmental sort. But I guess that’s why he so appeals to the legions of may-you-stay-forever-adolescent products of our spoiled, descended culture.
Onward to socialism and homogeneous thought! It’s worked so well everywhere else.
Nov 10, 2008 - 11:13 am 71. istanbruce:Uh, sorry, but to me and all my friends, what the Weathermen did in the 60s and 70s was good. The Vietnam war was brutal and unnecessary and anybody that didn’t think so was (to us) a moron. And that went doubly when our friends got back from it. Ayers was a product of his time and I thank him and his friends for doing all they could to stop the war. You really had to be 18 in 1968 to feel what many of us felt. And didn’t Obama win? You guys got that, right?
Nov 10, 2008 - 11:15 am 72. The Bill Ayers Switch Project:[...] At one time, I read The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” column avidly, and even held it up as an example of solid writing for my students. That was years ago, though, before the publication caught BDS and became Harperized. And perhaps I could still hold up “Talk of the Town” as an example of sterling prose, but I couldn’t possibly hold it up as an example of good research, given the David Remnick whitewash of Bill Ayers against all evidence, detailed here by Ron Radosh. [...]
Nov 10, 2008 - 11:24 am 73. jel:Can anyone tell me if Bill Ayers was involved in training the “Chicago 7″ (Rennie Davis, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, et al) in the bombing and riot techniques they used to turn Chicago into an inferno at the Democratic Nat’l Convention in 1968?
Nov 10, 2008 - 11:27 am 74. Party of 1 » Blog Archive » Ayers Reemerges; Radosh Pushes Back:[...] the election over, William Ayers has reemerged to grant an interview to the New Yorker. Ron Radosh is pushing back, claiming that Ayers is trying to whitewash his [...]
Nov 10, 2008 - 12:03 pm 75. Gekkobear:“istanbruce:
Uh, sorry, but to me and all my friends, what the Weathermen did in the 60s and 70s was good.”
Right, because killing people, setting firebombs, threats, intimidation, etc. These are good ways to try to enact political change.
Thank you for your opinion, and your clarification that murder, terrorism, firebombs, and violence should be part of the political process… some people will probably differ with your opinion.
Lucky for you they probably won’t set your house on fire while you’re asleep to show their disagreement… because sometimes life isn’t fair.
Nov 10, 2008 - 3:10 pm 76. Bob:The comment left by Define:terrorist, #53, is by far the stupidest thing I have read in the past year. Evidently planting bombs with the intent to kill mass amounts of people is not terrorism as long as, by some momentous stroke of luck, no one dies. By that rationale, if I bomb black churches on a Tuesday, when no one is in them, I am not a terrorist either.
Nov 10, 2008 - 4:40 pm 77. Cosmo:And then to top off the stupidity, he mentions Fox News. Why does every left-wing moron think mentioning Fox News is some brilliant put-down? Maybe people on the right should start mentioning MSNBC every time they comment on the idiots, like the aforementioned commentor, on the left. At least the guys on Fox have people on who disagree with them. For the losers who always mention Fox, get back to me when Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have a guest on that actually disagrees with them.
I’ve done a lot of research on Obama in the past few months, probably more than most people offering their opinions on this blog.
I still haven’t totally figured him out, but from what I’ve found, this guy shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office. He has a pattern of associations and alliances that would probably preclude him from passing the background check necessary to become a gardener at the White House.
For anyone who might be interested, I’ve collected a small portion of the information that’s available on Obama, Ayers & other friends.
http://www.ProudLegacy.com
Nov 10, 2008 - 10:13 pm 78. bernie reeves:I think I am the only person to confront Bill Ayers and challenge his book and his career as a terrorist. I wrote an account in my monthly Raleigh Metro Magazine in February of 2006. Go to http://www.metronc.com and enter key words Bill Ayers or Weatherman.
Of note was the appearnce on stage with Ayers of the FBI special agent who investigated the Weather Underground. He went on about the excitement of those heady days and prasied Ayers and his cohorts as smart and hip and well versed in “tradecraft”.
Ron Radosh, who was a speaker at my annual Raleigh Spy Confernce in 2005(www.raleighspyconference.com), does not broach the similarities of the Weathermen and their brothers in terror to the Soviet model. In his book Ayers says a guy showed up regularly with a suitcase of money. We thought it was DB Cooper Ayers lauginghly explained.
Nov 11, 2008 - 7:44 am 79. Dennis Byrne:As a Chicago journalist for more than three decades, here’s my view of Ayer’s book: Funny.
Getting through it was like a slog through a used clothing store crammed with bellbottoms, psychedelic art, tie-died T-shirts, fat ties, extra-wide lapels and huge collars. It was hard to tell whether his book was meant as homage to those goofy days, or a put-on. Was it written as an acknowledgment of the banality of his cause, or was it in praise of the banalities? A parody, a lampoon, a spoof? After fighting through one platitude after another, the question raises itself: Did he, could he, really mean any of this?”
Read more of this on my blog: The Barbershop, Dennis Byrne, Proprietor at: http://cdobs.com/archive/our-columns/ayers-shudda-been-on-laugh-in%2C1121/
Nov 11, 2008 - 10:19 am 80. nlcatter:I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough
he DID NOT say that
you losers lsot but keep lying!!
Nov 11, 2008 - 6:47 pm 81. B Dubya:Mr. Hurley still thinks this about the election.
Nov 11, 2008 - 7:22 pm 82. Sammy Finkelman:It isn’t, Mr. Hurley.
Now, be a good lad, and go crawl back under the same rock that I suggest Mr. Ayers should plan on hiding under until this all blows over. He’s much better off if we forget he exists, which I will give America about another 15 minutes to do.
There is one point I want to comment on. For many years we thought the target of the Greenwich Village townhouse bomb was Columbia University – specifically either the Low or the Butler library – the very place that a dozen years later, Obama said was his favorite place to be in Columbia University.
It was reported this way as late as the year 2000 in the New York Times in an article by the late Mel Gussow and repeated again in 2002 which referred to the year 2000 article.
Mel Gussow had researched this. The only specific thing he mentioned was a map of the underground passages at Columbia University found in a coat recovered from the townhouse.
At that time he reported the members of the Weather underground had not talked about it.
In 2003 it was included as one of a number of targets along with Fort Dix.
By 2008 it was only Ft Dix and Columbia University had gone into had gone into in the memory hole
Ayers seems to have said at least as far back as 1993 (quoted in a Chicago Tribune article) that the target was Ft Dix, but I wonder if there is any evidence of this beyond the Weathermen themselves and they didn’t say that for years. It seems unlikely they would have planned to explode a bomb so far away from where they were. They apparently had to vacate the building that day and that’s why it was thought that the bomb would have destroyed the low Library the very next day.
There was something published a few years ago which said some members of the Weather underground said Columbia University and others said Ft Dix. But that the ones who said Columbia had not been in the townhouse
Nov 11, 2008 - 7:31 pm 83. B Dubya:It sudeenly ocurred to me that you moonbat trolls are so effing screwed.
Nov 11, 2008 - 7:33 pm 84. Robert:Nobody cares about you anymore, kids. Your messiah is elected and you are all just so many used condoms. The central point of your lives has ceased to exist. You got your hearts desire. It just wasn’t what you really wanted though, was it. There is still that empty hole in your souls that you thought hate, treason and idol worship would fill, and it just isn’t happening.
I can’t wait until your heads explode. Tape it for us, will you?
Thanks to the liberal media, to include tne Caliphate News Network (CNN), Obama was elected by the media and not the people. Welcome to the United Socialist States of America (USSA). Informed sources indicate that Obama has started writing his new book: “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire.” What ever happened to a government of the people, for the people, and by the people, not of the politicians, by the politicians, and for the politicians. When will we rid ourselves of these political demagogues? Perhaps we need a new party for the people and we can call it the Populist Party… How can we accept a man who has been directly or indirectly supported by the radical Iranian government, HAMAS, Hezbollah, and the Al Qaeda website? To all those voters who elected Obama: “Be careful what you wish for…”
Nov 12, 2008 - 6:46 am 85. nlcatter:65 million people did not fall for the media
just you stupid fucks who voted palin
Nov 12, 2008 - 10:35 pm 86. snilkunsack:Greetings! http://demya.com/images/smile.gif
Kudos to the mods on a great place to hang out on…!
I’ve been here as a guest for a while and finally got around to registration.
I sorta live online – spend most of my days addicted to social sites like MySpace.com and gambling sites like Betot.com.
Besides gambling (this week I made a sweet $2,000) off of betot, I love sports and hiking.
So that’s my self introduction. Happy New Year to All and hope to get to know you all better… http://demya.com/images/forum.gif
Peace…
Jan 27, 2009 - 2:17 am 87. Lynccoicy:Hi Everybody http://demya.com/images/smile.gif
Great Forum & Community!
I’ve been here as a guest for a while and finally got around to registration.
I sorta live online – spend most of my days addicted to social sites like MySpace.com and gambling sites like Betot.com.
Besides gambling (this week I made a sweet $2,000) off of betot.com, I love sports and hiking.
So that’s my self introduction. Happy New Year to All and hope to get to know you all better… http://demya.com/images/forum.gif
Ok – Back to Watching the SuperBowl!
Feb 1, 2009 - 8:29 pm 88. Google:Each to their own
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Aug 11, 2009 - 2:28 pm