Former Barack Obama associate Bill Ayers spent part of this past weekend attending the occupy protest at New York’s Union Square. Captured on camera during the protests, Ayers talked about optimists, pessimists, and what gets him out of bed in the morning.
“I think the future is unknowable, so I’m not a pessimist either,” Ayers said. “Pessimists think they know what’s gonna happen. I instead choose to nourish what I call a politics of confidence. I get up every morning thinking ‘Today is the day that I’m gonna make a difference. Today I’m gonna end capitalism. Today I’m gonna make a better future.’ I go to bed every night disappointed, but I’m back again tomorrow.”
Ayers’ comments were captured in a video posted at The Political Commentary.
Bill Ayers came to national attention during the 2008 election, when it was revealed that he had hosted a sort of political “coming out” party for a young Barack Obama in 1995. The party, at the home of Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, launched Obama’s political career by introducing him to many influential activists and fundraisers in Chicago politics. Ayers and Obama planned that launch party. They served together on the Woods Fund board from 1999 to 2002, positions from which they moved millions of dollars in grant money to various left wing causes and efforts. The Obamas and Ayers’ relationship extends beyond that launch party and serving together on a board. They socialized in the same radical Chicago circle for years. The mainstream media, by and large, ignored the significant and longstanding ties between the Obamas and the Ayers.
Bill Ayers is an unrepentant domestic terrorist. He spent much of the Vietnam era leading the Weathermen and the Weather Underground, a group that committed a string of serious crimes including bombing the Pentagon on May 19, 1972.
Bill Ayers, 1968 mug shot. Don’t most presidents have friends who have mug shots?
Both Ayers and Dohrn were among the group’s most notorious members; Dorhn spent three years on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and would serve prison time for her crimes. Ayers escaped a similar sentence when the Supreme Court threw out FBI wiretap evidence against him. Dorhn’s radicalism extends to praising the 1969 Manson murders, which were perpetrated to incite a race war. In a fawning article that appeared in the New York Times on September 11, 2001, Ayers said that not only did he not regret his terrorist past, he regretted that the Weathermen didn’t commit more violence. That same article noted that Ayers’ philosophy during his Weathermen days was:
”Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.”
The NYT article also helpfully adds that both Ayers and Dohrn were “joking” when they advocated mass murder. The bombs they set off and the crimes they committed, and the quote above about what animates Ayers even today, however, serve as evidence that they were quite serious the entire time, and still are.
The occupy protests themselves also have an Obama connection. Van Jones, who was President Obama’s “green jobs czar” until he was outed as a 9-11 Truther and communist and resigned in September 2009, leads the groups “Rebuild the Dream” and “Color of Change.” Both groups are among the driving forces behind the occupy movement, and Jones regularly delivers speeches at occupy events.
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