In his never-ending publicity tour, Bill Ayers is transforming himself into a contemporary “hero” of the “progressive” movement. Just look at the transcript of the interview he and Bernardine Dohrn gave to Amy Goodman on her Democracy Now television program. First Ayers claimed “I was not a terrorist. I was never a terrorist.” And later in the interview, Dohrn too says “Nothing the Weather Underground did was terrorist.” They only engaged in what Dohrn says were “direct actions that were symbolic, that were recognizable and understandable to the American people.” They made sure they acted with “restraint.”
Should we respond to such claims with gales of laughter or with sadness about how these brazen lies are being spread by today’s gullible media? A more correct picture of what the Weather Underground was all about can be found in a rather unknown but brilliant book by Nigel Young, An Infantile Disorder? The Crisis and Decline of the New Left, published in 1977 by Westview Press. Young writes that the Weathermen organized as a “conspicuously para-military” organization that justified their ideology with the following argument:
“America was violent; SDS apparently had to become increasingly violent to defeat it. America was racist; so [the Weathermen] prepared to support racism in reverse…America was imperialist, and this fact could consistently be used to justify, apologize for or ignore other imperialisms, including Chinese, Russian or Vietnamese expansionism, or the invasion of Czechoslovakia [by the Soviet Union.] America’s legendary militarism became mirrored and echoed in [their] own armed mythology, rhetoric and posture; in its final year, New Left Notes literally portrayed guns on every page.”
Later Young writes that “there were undeniably terroristic elements in the Weatherman approach- with a definite tendency to endorse violence against others.” For Ayers, Dorhn and their comrades, armed violence and bombing took the place of political analysis and organizing- the exact opposite of what they claim to have believed today. The violence engaged in under the auspices or inspiration of their faction of SDS, Young writes, “ranged from killing police and taking hostages to arson; during a phenomenal fifteen months of bombings, there was a rapidly escalating violence on campus…and trashing…in the community; there were sharply violent direct responses to the [1968 Chicago] Conspiracy Trial convictions.” This is the brutal truth, not the claim by Ayers that they were only “fighting against war and against injustice and for peace.” There are many examples by Dohrn of what they called for in the 1960′s. Dohrn thus instructed her comrades in 1969: “Revolutionary violence is the only way. Now we are adopting … classic guerilla strategy…in the technically most advanced country in the world.”
What is most instructive is how different the Weather Underground’s nearest affinity group in Germany- the Baader-Meinhof gang, is treated today. Undeniably, the violent West German New Left group, led by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, was much more successful in its use of violence and murder than their American counterpart. But there were similarities in the two organizations. They called their group The Red Army Faction (RAF), and you can read about them in Jeffrey Herf’s insightful article in the new issue of Telos. Called “An Age of Murder: Ideology and Terror in Germany,” historian Herf gives us an inkling of what The Weather Underground had in mind for their own country had they been able to continue.
In Germany, the many victims of the RAF have told their stories and Herf notes how their airing is a “welcome change from a media obsession” and of the “embarrassing radical chic among intellectuals-about the RAF members.” In our country, however, a romanticization of the Weathermen is just picking up steam, as the media willingly lends itself to Ayers’ and Dohrn’s obscene attempt to rewrite the history of their past.
A new German film, The Baader-Meinhof Complex, which is having its first American screening this weekend, shows the German’s ability to candidly appraise their own New Left terrorists. Here’s one review from the British press. Reviewer Philip French calls it a “powerful movie” because of the “factual exposition.” No glamorization in this movie of the German New Left. Is it too much to ask that American journalists and someone out there in the film world try to show people like Ayers and Dohrn as they really were, and not the sugar coated image that they are now pedaling to the American public?
Addendum: Today, on “Fresh Air,” Terry Gross confirmed my argument by giving Bill Ayers an entire 45 minute segment. You can listen to it here.
“Should we respond to such claims with gales of laughter or with sadness about how these brazen lies are being spread by today’s gullible media?”
We are now living in the Barack Obama era. Get ready to possibly be arrested. The odds are better than 50/50 that the United States is rapidly turning into a fascist dictatorship. Also, Obama would not have been elected had it not been for “today’s gullible media.” And why do you still primarily describe these useful idiots as the media? The reality is that they are now out and out propagandists. Last but not least, we should be comparing Obama to Benito Mussolini. His presidential campaign is, after all, getting away with massive credit card fraud. Please note the deafening silence. Few dare to take Obama to task. He therefore realizes that he can continue breaking the law without much fear of punishment.
i heard ayers’ interview with that npr Fresh Air interview woman… whose name escapes me at the moment… last night on the way home. regarding the weather underground’s violence and advocacy of sabotage and subversion, his every response was evasive. regarding his advocacy of “revolution,” every response was gung ho. how do these sociopaths command the sympathy or affection of so many people? the answer can only be moral arrested development. let it be written into the list of historical axioms that if a country should ever find itself flooded with a supermajority of Youth, that country – unless it is chastened by cataclysm – will be spiritually and morally crippled.
Wow! What a great message to send to young people of today. Plan mass murder, lead militant revolts against your country, kill innocent people because you have been misinformed about what happened in a war,.. it’s ok!!! Later you, will be celebrated as a hero and advocate for peace.
How many sermons has this nit wit preached in his classrooms slowly honing his lies and turning them into this rosy picture of the clown and his group of Bozo’s doing good not evil.
what a crock! Saddest: bet most are eating up this garbage.
Ayers’ flimsy rationales for ‘direct action’ can be adopted by anyone with an inflated grudge or over-inflated sense of self-importance. That his ideological cousins in the media whitewash and romanticize his appalling behavior and dissembling justifications isn’t surprising at all. Repressive tolerance in action. Just ask the Unibomber.
Those of us members of Ayers’ generation who became members of the productive classes — as opposed to parasitical classes now dominating education, media and politics — must use all the tools the Founders gave us to (once again)fight against the Left’s politics of race and class envy, class warfare and grievance nurturing.
Please stop focusing on their terrorism. It isn’t working. It’s just preaching to the choir. Their weak point is their wealthy backgrounds. All I want is for someone to ask them, “Given that jobs are scarce in academia, and given that you two come from wealthy backgrounds and don’t really need these jobs, would you be willing to resign so that someone from a poorer background could take your place?”
To fight the left, you need to understand its weak points. Anyone claiming to be in favor of “social justice,” but who is nevertheless hogging a job that a poorer person would like to have can hardly be in favor of social justice.
So what Ayers is really saying is:
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
So my reaction to his actions? Build a bomb and blow up his house – while he’s off at the university.
Dohrn is correct that their actions were recognizable and understandable to the American public. I recognize they are cut from the same hypocritical amoral cloth as other rich kid revolutionaries like Carlos the Jackal, Daniel Ortega and for that matter Osama Bin Laden.
I understand they were and are demented moral and ethical pygmies who like spoiled children hate the land that put the silver spoon in their mouth. In my mind they will always be treasonous rats and a cancer on our body politic.
It is unfortunate and telling that we should be reminded of the destructive terrorist activities of Obama confidantes like Ayers and Dohrn by one Ron Radosh who of course backed the terrorist contra guerrillas in their effort to destroy the Nicaraguan revolution in the 1980s. Of course that revolution which overthrew a brutal US backed dictatorship had been partially hijacked by the authoritarian Sandinistas still celebrated by the likes of Bill Ayers. But there in Nicaragua as in the US in the 1970s during the Vietnam War there was room for peaceful opposition activity. But Radosh and his friends like Oliver North chose violence and terror thus providing political cover for the repression of the Sandinistas that continued until their ouster in a peaceful election in 1989.
Ever since authoritarians like Ayers and Dohrn who now back Chavez in Venezuela have used this sad chapter in US foreign policy to drum up support for their own worldview. Thus Radosh has only himself to blame for their return to political prominence today.
liar, liar, pants on fire. mr ayers you are creep.
This sack of crap, ayers, hid behind the same law to protect him that he tried to destroy. It is my sincere hope that he will very soon no longer have need of air.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
As for all the traitors who attemept to gloss over what he is and his part of obammy mammy’s rise to power, rant all you want. It doesn’t change the facts and no one here is going to let you get away with it.
We know the enemy and ayers is one of them.
Biden in 2009!
All this talk about Ayers is hot air! the real terrorist is Joe Lieberman, and the problem is how can Obama continue to associate with some one so vile and aganist our principles?
We have the story at our blog:
http://lumpsfromtheleft.blogspot.com/
Steve Diamond: Let’s see if I have this right. The U.S. backed a brutal regime in Nicaragua, which in turn led authoritarians like Ayers to back a brutal new regime, which in turn led to people like Radosh backing a brutal terrorist campaign against the new regime.
You could just as well take this back a step, by saying that the U.S. backed a brutal regime because, sadly, that regime seemed like the best bet against the even more brutal communist regimes that had been installed elsewhere.
I blame what you call the “sad chapter in US foreign policy” mostly on the left. Had leftists all along eschewed communism, had they insisted on empowering and educating those at the bottom instead of pushing for socialism and communism, America’s foreign policy would have been much different.
‘First Ayers claimed ”I was not a terrorist. I was never a terrorist.”’
Ayers is a self-admitted (though so far unconvicted) traitor, terrorist, and saboteur, not to mention being a communist skank, so I suppose there’s a grain of truth in his protests. He also was affiliated with a group that engaged in armed robbery and murder.
I assume he’s complaining that he’s not getting credit for all his virtues.
Btw, when is an American government going to indict this pos for treason for making war on his own country?
There is no statute of limitations on treason.
What’s the hold up at the DOJ?
I’d suggest that the “Fresh Air” program on NPR be renamed “Foul Air” after giving a platform to the psychopath Bill Ayers to lie about and excuse his foul life.
Ayers was only important to the extent that he and his equally monstrous wife demonstrated how little sense or moral fiber Obama has.He has no relevance or significance in his own right.Who cares what he says or thinks?
The best thing you could call the Weathermen is ‘the gang that couldn’t bomb straight’. As ‘terrorists’, they were a joke.
They killed more of themselves than anyone else. They couldn’t even firebomb a private house without screwing that up.
But they sure as hell tried.
There should be a special place in Hell for Ayers, Dohrn, and especially the socialist revisionist media that are rehabilitating them right now.
JFP:
I understand your reaction. But to accept that there are only two poles of contention in these situations is the mistake. In fact, there were many thousands of Nicaraguans – of all political persuasions – who opposed both the US backed Somoza dictatorship and then the terrorist proxy contra force and who were also opponents of the FSLN.
In my view it is in the mutual interest of those who control US foreign policy as well as those on the stalinist and neo-stalinist left (like Ayers and perhaps at one point Obama) to convince everyone that an independent and democratic approach is impossible. This issue led me to write my doctoral dissertation on the Nicaraguan revolution which you can access at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=333619
You can also find a shorter paper there on the Sandinistas called “Will the real Che Guevara Please Stand Up?” as well as a paper on the shared authoritarianism of Obama and Ayers in the education policy environment.
The U.S. Code defines terrorism as…
(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.
By that definition, Ayers was a terrorist. The reason he was not executed for treason is that the government (FBI, DOJ) used illegal tactics to prosecute him in the first place. You should also read your Thomas Jefferson on this issue regarding domestic uprisings and their necessity from time to time to keep a government in check. You might also notice, from the above definition, that the United States of America is the largest provocateur of international terrorism currently on the world stage. So much so, that we were convicted by the International Court of Justice in 1986 for our activities in Nicaragua. Just a thought…
I’m sick of everything falling under this ‘terrorism’ cloud ever since 9/11. How much did you here about terrorists before 9/11? Now everyone who disagrees with the government or has a different agenda is labeled a terrorist and branded for life. This seems kind of scary to me….wake-up people and stop being such block-heads.
Search for the truth yourself and stop just blindly following what the news media on TV says (all news on TV is controlled by 3 or 4 networks).
I don’t think Bill Ayers is a terrorist. It’s absolutely ridiculous. The guy’s a smart, decent Professor at a good university. Would a university really want to hire a terrorist? The McCain camp almost want as far as calling Obama a terrorist… “He pals around with terrorist” is what they were saying—-I mean ‘are you serious’?….so the president of the United States pals around with terrorists? …..for all those idiots who are actually buying this crap and believing everything they hear…..get a grip of yourself go back to school, or better yet First Grade, and get some common sense education!
The 60s ended a long time ago.
It’s long past time to move on.
Thanks, Ron. I read an earlier book of yours on the New Left specifically referencing Red Diaper Babies-I too was undergrad at Madison.
I AND Jeffrey Herf were both in RYM-II, the faction opposed to the Weatherman in SDS.
Ayers and his Nazi brownshirt boys and girls, esp Jeff Jones, Mike Klonsky and Ms. Dohrn, took over the stage at a Spring 1970 Madison SDS chapter meeting-threatened violence against US (and USA) and throughly “vamped” (their favorite word) against our faction.
To be truthful in addition to this crap,RYM-I (Weather) also organized in Wis and Chicago area high schools, as they wrote off college students as bourgeois…they went into high schools unmolested and unchallenged but didn’t hurt anyone physically THERE.
They made up for that later.
Wow, truthseeker, you are a grade A idiot.
Ayers has been called a terrorist since well before 9/11. Maybe YOU should look up exactly what him and the Weather Underground did BEFORE he became a terrorist. Bombings, killing a police officer, arson…. not just disagreeing with the government, but actively trying to harm and even topple it. Here’s a nice truth for you; direct from the FBI website; http://www.fbi.gov/page2/jan04/weather012904.htm
And yes, Obama has worked with and maybe even been friends with him, and he is a terrorist, so yes, I suppose that means the president of the united states pals around with at least one terrorist.
TruthSeeker: People like you, who will write off what he did are the proof that, yes, universities would hire him. He did what he did. He confessed. And what he did was terroristic. None of these things are disputable by someone who actually was interested in the truth rather than just saying they were. Obama being friends with this guy says a lot about his character. Yes, the President pals around with terrorists. Sorry, but if you don’t like it than why did you vote for him? You were the one who decided that it didn’t matter. Or did you think that because Obama was Ayers friend it proved that Ayers wasn’t a terrorist, despite the fact that he fits the definition, because Obama, by definition, can do no wrong?
tom; I was there and know how Kent State went down. Outsiders (SDS and Weathermen) instigated the whole mess. Their violent actions were the major cause of the four kids killed in OH. And no, moving on will never change what Ayers and Dohrn did. Ayers got off on a technicality and he was and is guilty as hell. He even admitted it. He is nothing but a fake and a terrorist.
Read Prairie Fire ….
http://www.zombietime.com/prairie_fire/
What more does anyone need to be convinced of the danger this guy represents. We are all living “on the Nile” now!
If a member of the family who’s home Billy Ayers pals bombed would counter with “direct action” on him, wouldn’t that be a more fitting end to a terrorist than a book tour?
Just wondering.
Where were the interviews before the election? Now that Obama is elected, all these controversial figures in his past are all of a sudden available for radio and television interviews — Disgusting manipulation by the Obama campaign; and the media was a willing partner.
I love how the MSM wants to put blame on the Republican party for making the election turn nasty by outing Obama’s relationship with Ayers…like we are to blame for bringing it out! He was a terrorist people! Republicans didn’t have to put a spin on it–he was a known terrorist and a family friend of Obama–to make Obama and the left wing illuminati look bad. So, the Republicans are not to blame for Obama looking like a dishonest terrorist….Obama did that all by himself.
This isn’t the first time an African American Family moved into Government housing with the aid of the left (Obama’s). I have been saying for years but have been labeled crazy with statements directed to me the “next thing you will tell us the Black Hawk Helicopters will be coming over the hill”. What Me Worry? This is the beginning of the end for all of us and especially those that have given their lives to protect our freedoms. Clinton sold us out to Indonesia and China, Obama to the 52 Muslim STates, and the rest of these mindless gen X,Y, Z or who are mindless under educated and spirtiually sheep will lead this country in the future if it survives, into total anarchy, socialism and worse, the totalitarian forces it will take tobring back order! I stand with my truely enlightened Black Brothers and SIsters (Bill Cosby why didn’t you Run?) and hope they take this affirmative action back to where it belongs.
It is the lunatics of the left-wing fringe, such as Ayers, Dohrn and Wright, who have kept the divisive rhetoric alive in America. So now the Republicans are being blamed for the nasty rhetoric? Excuse me, but Ayers, Dohrn and Wright have never hesitated with their own nasty rhetoric. It is a reflection on Barack Obama and his judgment about people.
Behold the overgrown adolescent, consumed with resentment at the world for its failure to remake itself to his liking by the time he hits 30.
`don’t you think the joker laughs at you? ha ha ha he he he ha ha ha’ – Lennon
Your permissiveness and tolerance are the very yoke that drags you down.
Ayers is a wealthy man who walks free and not only laughs at all of you, but, actually capitalizes from all of you. He spat in your face and defaced your existence
and you do nothing about it, and he hits you and he hits you again and again, now hes on TV and you’re not, now he has a book deal, and you don’t.
the reverend wright is right, the chickens have come home, goddamn America
He doesn’t think he was a terrorist? What a load of illuminati crap. A tiger can’t hide his stripes.
The Weather Underground
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvVx1ExtlP4
Ayers is scum.
The Weather Undergroung is the moral equivalent of someone going “postal” at their place of work because they don’t like the way things are run. Ayers insistance that they were on the side of right because the US Government was “violent” continues to go unchallenged by the media. Ayers already has an air of legitimacy…the interview by Terry Gross on “Fresh Air” has a bad smell to it because they don’t call it by its true name, murder most foul. We are not talking about a bomb in a garbage can that could have killed… People died and the lies continue.
Ayers is a vile criminal. Chicago awarded this vermin for his “work” in education. Says a lot about the people running Chicago and the fools that allow them to remain in office.
The Reality of Ayers
heres what we read
So what is Bill Ayers ideology? Here is a copy and paste from wikipedia online encyclopedia quoting a statement made by Bill Ayers as late as 1995, the same year he was helping to launch Obama’s political career:
“I am a radical, Leftist, small ‘c’ communist … [Laughs] Maybe I’m the last communist who is willing to admit it. [Laughs] We have always been small ‘c’ communists in the sense that we were never in the [Communist] party and never Stalinists. The ethics of Communism still appeal to me. I don’t like Lenin as much as the early Marx. I also like Henry David Thoreau, Mother Jones and Jane Addams [...]“[27
Does it appear that Bill Ayers ideology has changed that much since his radical days? Here is a copy and paste from wikipedia:
"In 1970 Ayers was called "a national leader"[28] of the Weatherman organization and “one of the chief theoreticians of the Weathermen”.[29]. . . Their founding document called for the establishment of a “white fighting force” to be allied with the “Black Liberation Movement” and other “anti-colonial” movements[30] to achieve “the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism.”[31] In June 1974, the Weather Underground released a 151-page volume titled Prairie Fire, which stated: “We are a guerrilla organization [...] We are communist women and men underground in the United States [...]“[32] The Weatherman leadership, including Bill Ayers, pushed for a radical reformulation of sexual relations under the slogan “Smash Monogamy”.[33][34]”
People, in 2006 Obama went to campaign with his cousin Odenga in Kenya to turn kenya into a “safe-haven” for terriorist to turn Kenya into a SHARIA LAW state. Had they won the elections it would have meant it would be impossible to try prosecute “any” terriorist anytime/anywhere for their illegal crimes. The terriorst would have to be shipped off to Kenya where they would have been “safe havened”. Since they lost the elections there was a pre-planned ensuing blood bath. How many don’t know that in USA 2 days before election the press too issued a statement of a pre-planned blood bath had obama not been elected??
As a result of the US not tieing it’s exit to political progress a couple days ago, the news announced that Pakistan is now a SHARIA LAW state.
A few days ago, it was announced that the SHARIA LAW people want to force the Banking industry to function under SHARIA MUSLIM RELIGIOUS LAWS which means “anyone” would be punished by death for claiming the murders and criminal activities of the islam/muslim/sharia law groups are bad.
didn’t someone say—Tolerance becomes wrong and EVIL when applied or given to criminals.
See how the American Center for Law and Justice is attempting to protect what’s left of our freedoms and how you can help. If the USA doesn’t give their signatures to protect this country there will be no one to protect WE THE PEOPLE.
feel free to cut past print re-print and just plain comment.