I know that most PJM readers- being conservatives- do not read The New York Times. For that reason, I want to suggest they immediately turn to the wonderful Op-Ed by writer Caitlin Flanagan, on the parole last week of Sara Jane Olson, a.k.a. Kathleen Soliah, the name she took as part of the 1970′s “Symbionese Liberation Army,” a radical terrorist group that made the Weather Underground look like amateurs.
Ms. Flanagan presents the strongest case possible for how hypocritical it is for the courts to allow Olson to serve her parole at home in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she lives with her husband, a wealthy doctor and their children. Olson, after all, was taking part in a bank robbery when a gunshot killed a guard, and when she kicked a pregnant bank teller in the stomach. The teller later miscarried. Her group also tried their best to assassinate police offers.
The excuse for their actions, of course, is that they carried them out for idealistic reasons. As Flanagan writes, they claim they were only reacting to the terrible times in which they lived, in which the U.S. was waging a horrendous war in Vietnam which they opposed. Pace Bill Ayers, whom as we all know, makes similar excuses for his own behavior in that era, which to this day he does not regret.
At least the founder of the Weather Underground, Mark Rudd (whose book I review today) admits the truth in his new memoir Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen. Unlike Ayers or Olson, Rudd acknowledges that their goal was not to build a peace movement opposed to the war, but to engage in guerrilla warfare at home, waged through terror and violence, for the purpose of overthrowing our democratic government. Yet in his conclusion, Rudd too contradicts all he writes earlier, arguing that there was an “idealism inherent in our rebellion.” If so, it is the kind of idealism that leads to murder of innocents, one of which the 20th Century World was all too familiar from the likes of Hitler and Stalin.
“I know that most PJM readers- being conservatives- do not read The New York Times.”
I once subscribed to the New York Times on a daily basis. Reading the Sunday edition was deemed mandatory. I cancelled my subscription probably sometime in 2002. I do not normally read the Times because I’m conservative—but because it is a lousy publication not worthy of respect. There are just too many blogs and publications deserving of to placed higher on my list of priorities.
“…and the parole terms others – especially poor African-American parolees”
This is one of those rare times when the race card is not being used. It is indeed a white thing—-or to be more precise, an affluent white thing granted to those who attended the “best” schools. The legal system cuts them a lot of slack because on a gut level, many white judges and prosecutors feel empathetic to those “idealistic radicals who fought the good fight while I whored myself out to the establishment. Damn it, they make me feel so guilty. These brave souls deserve a break. If nothing else, this stuff is ancient history.”
Good intentions are so interesting, when brought up by killers and people who kick a pregnant woman in her stomach.
“….combined a set of generally laudable goals- they wanted to end poverty, improve public schools and eradicate sexism and racism-…”
Well aside from racism, both Hitler and Mao and Stalin had exactly the same laudable goals as has Kathy Soliah. Given the opportunity (and she never did, I am sure to her own not-so-secret regret), she would have made a very excellent Kapo in a re-education camp.
Ron, good points, the SLA/SDS/Weathermen were not anti-war and killed for a communist victory of force over non-violence. The SLA was formed in a prison sponsored group by a crazy licensed shrink in the mode that proven violent criminals were needed to compensate for the ineptitude of the intellectuals in the violent arts. They do not regret violence because they enjoy it, then and now.
But then Sara Jane Olson, a.k.a. Kathleen Soliah did not kill any important people-just a policeman-policeman are not Beautiful People but rather just blue collar types and thus expendable.Mumia Abu-Jamal killed Philadelphia Police officer Daniel Faulkner and has been a hero to the left ever since–Hollywood just drools over the man. Besides killing policeman the lad writes childrens books.
Now Shiran Shirhan and the Manson Family killed Beautiful People so they are not Heroes. If Timothy McVeigh had bombed a Church things would be much different-A Hero to be sure and on parole by now.
Hooray for Pajamas for publishing this commentary. Yeah, where are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton on this?
If radicals are as dangerous as they think they are and if Americans are as horrible as the radicals believe, then why haven’t the Americans murdered all the radicals already? Why are they allowed to walk the street, to have nice lives and families and cushy college jobs? What stops us American thugs from just killing the bastards?
Couldn’t be respect for human life and justice, could it?
It is sad. Logic and common sense have been exterminated from the present . The Donkeys’ trek to eliminate moral values and replace them with nothingness is succeeding. Reward criminals ,punish victims ,reward failure, punish success, reward insanity ,punish sanity ? I am scared . This is not the America I grew up in. Something very evil is lurking on the horizon of our Nation’s survival and it is not just Islam. Trust me . If one has any insight into human nature, one knows …. “There will be blood.”
American Christian Infidel
Michael Canzano
we do so live in a an Orwellian “doublespeak” world – where the leftist radicals who seek to destroy us are held up as those to be admired. (or at least never censured.) Look who the majority of those who bothered to actually go vote, elected.
There is nothing wrong with allowing Ms. Olson to serve her one year of parole out of state. What is wrong is that so many Americans are languishing in prisons and in poverty. Ms. Olson served her sentence, and she will no doubt serve her parole without incident.
Peace.
DS
“Yeah, where are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton on this?”
They are adhering to their part of the tacit bargain. It goes something like this: “We affluent whites want to provide our kids with special breaks. This is especially true when they get arrested for abusing drugs or violent behavior. Of course, we feel guilty and hypocritical. In return, however, you black radicals can get your way regarding affirmative action programs, lowered academic standards and destroying neighborhoods other than our own.”
Why is this terrorist still around at all? Why was she not given a lethal injection years ago? What now is to stop her from killing another policeman or kicking another pregnant woman in the stomach whenever the mood strikes her?
A society that does not have the will to punish criminals is a society that is too weak to survive.
Soliah lives in the same St. Paul neighborhood (not the suburbs, btw) I used to live in. News about her dominated the local media at various times. Never once did she express any remorse or shame for what she did. In fact, she, her family, and her “supporters” carried on about how persecuted she was by the entire ordeal. During her arrest and trial, she was obnoxious, arrogant, and supremely unconcerned with anyone other than herself. She couldn’t even pretend to adopt a remorseful attitude. E.g., during her trial she published a cookbook entitled, “Serving Time: America’s Most Wanted Recipes.” The depths of her assholishness are unfathomable. Her supporters tried to defend her with declarations that she always gave really good dinner parties and was active in community theater. They were as oblivious and arrogant as she.
I wouldn’t have given her needs or comforts a second thought if I were on the parole board.
Too much. The best writing on Olson’s los angeles crime spree and California parole is by a writer for the New Yorker in the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times, which ran endless sympathetic stories on Olson’s trial, supported her Minnesota parole. It was the one cost in the state budget they claimed we ought not to absorb.
Jamie Glazov’s book, “United in Hate,” explains very well why the Left in the United States cannot bring itself to
a. distance itself from terrorist killers and totalitarian thugs
b. repudiate the domestic terrorists in their own midst
c. even romanticizes the Sixties radicals who talked of using violence to advance a revolution, at the end of which they would put a lot of Americans in “re-education camps.”
Ms. Soliah is not, David S, an ordinary criminal out on parole. I would pose the question, “Why should this person, who has expressed no remorse whatsoever for her crimes, even be granted parole in the first place?”
I hold the same contempt for Billy Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn. Or the founder of that Communist terrorist group, Mark Rudd. These are despicable human beings. Ayers is beneath contempt. At a recent event a participant of the lecture Mr. Ayers had given went up to Billy and gave him two books: a Bible and a work of Ayn Rand. The man was arrested on the spot. He threatened no violence whatsoever. There was nothing threatening or obstructionist about this guy. Yet, Ayers is said afterwards to be visible nervous and shaking his hands. What a coward! He who would bomb a dance hall at Fort Dix, NJ and butcher a couple of hundred people without any qualms of conscience, and yet be frightened of a man who gives him a Bible and a book by Ayn Rand????
Another hero of the Left, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, a killer and torturer of maybe thousands of human beings, went to his death whimpering like a baby and pissing his pants!
This is just another case of justice misguided.
I am sick of the B.S. and anyone not sick of it or condoning it will be forced to endure it for the rest of their lives. It saddens and amazes me at how naive people are . Stalin called them “Useful Idiots”. I call them “Liberal Idiots”. Does anyone believe she could get away with her over throw the government attitude in any other Nation ?
She would have been executed ! The only aggression Liberals have is directed towards Conservatives. Does anyone really believe she should still be a presence on this Planet ? They refuse to fight for our sovereignty our Democracy ,our existence as a Nation. They side with our enemies. The truth is they are our enemies ! They want to destroy America and make it a Socialistic /Fascist Nation.
American Christian Infidel
Michael Canzano
Maybe ACORN will organize bus tours past her house and post her name and address on the web. /s
She should get a job in the Obama administration. Or maybe at any ivy league leftist university. They love their terrorists. From Hezbollah to Bill Ayers.
For the record, the woman killed in the Crocker Bank robbery, wasn’t a teller she was making a bank deposit for her church.
“If one has any insight into human nature, one knows ”
Ah Yes, but you see that is the fundamental issue. Progressives, leftists, liberals, whathaveyou, believe fervently that they can and will change human nature by any means possible. Certainly by legislating correct behavior and if necessary by force.
THEY and THEY alone know for a fact that Human Nature is very malleable. Unfortunately they are completely wrong.
A corrupt businessman who is thrown out and replaced by the government, will have been in the end replaced by a corrupt bureaucrat.
I will never understand why the common folk on the left continue to buy into this ‘I care more than you do’, ‘Feel Good’, ‘Imposed Correct Values’ nonsense spewing from the left. Don’t they get that this is just a new religion to worship and pray to so they can feel good about themselves?
Changing human nature is not unlike teaching a pig to bark. It ain’t going to happen. And unfortunately someting much uglier will be created in the process. A pig barking, that IS sort of ugly, donchathink?
Thanks,
C’mon folks, she served her time, she obviously has certainly led a very good life of redemption, cut her some slack. If you can forgive Bush and Clinton, who both by action or by neglect destroyed lives, but not forgive her, then something is wrong with you.
She led a well-off, upper-middle-class life of comfort and ease. Since she expressed no remorse or regret for what she did, where does the redemption come in?
She should be wherever Scooter Libby is – free or in prison, you decide.
Tell us Bill, If your Mother, sister or daughter were gunned down during a bank robbery, would you be so forgiving of Olson. Would her 5 year sentence for murder satisfy you. Let’s hope that you never have to find out.
I’m an urban guerilla
I make bombs in my cellar
I’m a derelict dweller
I’m a potential killer
I’m a street fighting dancer
I’m a revolutionary romancer
I’m society’s cancer
I’m a two-tone panther
So let’s not talk of love and flowers
And things that don’t explode
We’ve used up all of our magic powers
Trying to do it in the road
I’m a political bandit
And you don’t understand it
You took my dream and canned it
It is not the way I planned it
I’m society’s destructor
I’m a petrol bomb constructor
I’m a cosmic light conductor
I’m the people’s debt collector
So watch out Mr. Business Man
Your empire’s about to blow
I think you’d better listen, man
In case you did not know
-Urban Guerilla by David Brock (1974)
So, in other words, you don’t care that she served her sentence. In fact, you want her executed (even though when these crimes occurred I believe the death penalty had been overturned in California. Wait, you want her retried then? Sent to prison again?
By the way, the people who rally around Mumia don’t do so because they think it’s great that he killed a cop. They rally around him because they insist that he DIDN’T kill the cop. BIG difference there.
The leftist comments here are about as galling as Olsen herself. One, they show the inability of the left raised on moral relativism to judge anything immoral or evil (other than their own country). She “did her time”,she’s led an exemplary life in prison”, blah, blah.She’s the freakin’ queen of the may. In reality Olsen, Ayers, Dohrn, Rudd are vile spoiled rich bastards who played revolutionary because they could and it was hip. Kicking a pregnant woman and causing a miscarriage, yeah she’s a real sweetheart. She should have had a date with Old Sparky.
Erasmus states Mumia’s supporters insist he didn’t kill a cop. Never mind the cop was dead and he was holding the smoking gun. They insist he didn’t kill a cop ,just like they insisted Huey Newton wasn’t a crazy street thug. He was a badass revolutionary. Leftism; the stupid choice.