First off let me say that the connection between Barack Obama is a stretch. Their relationship amounts to time spent serving on a board together, and Ayers is a professor at The University of Chicago, so plenty of Chicago politicians, regardless of their political affiliations, are probably going to have some connection to him. However I've researched the man and I have some things to say about him.
It's pretty inconceivable that someone can go from terrorist to college educator, but that's exactly what happened. He declared war on the United States government, and his final goal was world wide communism, which, for an "anti-imperialist", sounds pretty imperialist to me. He bombed the NYPD headquarters in 1970, the Capitol building in '71, and the Pentagon in '72.
Ayers and the rest of the Weather Underground are a perfect picture of why the Communist movements never got anywhere in this country. He went to a Prep school and then the University of Michigan. His main partner and future wife got her law degree from the University of Chicago. Two of the members who were killed in the Greenwich Village Explosion came from very wealthy and prominent families. They thought they were standing up for the working class, but as indicated by the Hard hat riot in 1970, where a couple hundred construction workers attacked some protesting hippie college students (who were not the ones who had to serve in Vietnam anyway), the working class was actually not behind them at all. The communists in America were mostly college educated and from affluent backgrounds, not the proletariat.
Today's descendants of the New Left and Students for a Democratic Society complain that America is full of ignorant "rednecks". What do you think a redneck is? Rednecks blue-collar, working class, often the most disenfranchised white folks in America. The word was originated as a description of white farm workers in the Deep South, and the red neck they got from working in the sun all day. I'll admit I like the Daily Show, but it regularly pisses me off. I remember several times during this election Jon Stewart complaining about the focus on Middle America (basically the South and Midwest) during elections, basically asking what's so great about it, to the applause and agreement of his New York crowd. It's a general sentiment felt by the Northeastern and West Coast liberals.
Back to Bill Ayers. A recent petition by college professors supported the man, not that that would change anyone's opinion, because we all know where the elitist far left academics stand on this kind of thing. Ayers never served time for his shenanigans. Had he not been a college-educated white boy from an affluent family, I think the situation might have been different.
by JT (NOT a Republican)
Over thirty years ago, when the members of Weather Underground were active, they were not considered "terrorists" by most journalists and the public. They were radical militant anti-war, pro-equality, anti-racist activists. There is no rational defense for violence, but there is also no rational defense for the violence cops used against protesters or other activists or random people on the sidelines. Just out of curiosity, what are your sources?
From http://www.democracynow.org/2003/6/5/the_weather_underground_a_look_back...
June 05, 2003
The Weather Underground:
A Look Back at the Antiwar Activists Who Met Violence with Violence
A conversation with Weather Underground co-founder Mark Rudd on why he went underground for 7 years and has since renounced violence. A new documentary which tells the story of the militant antiwar group holds its premiere run in New York.
The invasion of Laos, the killing of four Kent State university students by the National Guard, the relentless violence of the Vietnam war—these were the U.S. government’s actions 30 years ago. And peaceful protest was not stopping it.
In 1969 one group decided to meet violence with violence.
They called themselves the Weather Underground.
A radical splinter group which broke off from the Students for a Democratic Society, the Weather Underground were convinced that only militant action could end racism, the war in Vietnam and the inequalities they felt inherent in a capitalist society.
They took responsibility for bombing two dozen public buildings, including the Pentagon, eventually landing on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
A new documentary, “The Weather Underground”, which tells the story of the militant antiwar group, held its premiere run in New York last night.
The group took its name from Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, with the lyric, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
I studied them too. Is this the first time you've heard of them? They did make things worse when they added in violence.
From http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/weatherunderground/movement.html:
How did the Weathermen arrive at this point? Some of the group’s former members, interviewed in THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND, cite the murder of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in a December 1969 Chicago police raid as a turning point. What many believed to be a government-sanctioned killing in an effort to wipe out militant groups such as the Panthers was, for the Weathermen, the final straw.
In 1960, nearly 50 percent of America’s population was under 18 years of age. This surplus of youth set the stage for a widespread revolt against the status quo: against previously upheld structures of racism, sexism and classism, against the violence of the Vietnam War and America’s interventions abroad. At college campuses throughout the country, anger against “the Establishment’s” practices turned to protest, both peaceful and violent.
As the decade continued, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, an organization founded by Martin Luther King, Jr. in order to promote nonviolent protest, grew increasingly militant—as did the mostly white, middle-class “New Left,” which took cues from the civil rights movement, protested policies both home and abroad, and sparked factions like the Weathermen. By the late 1960s, activist movements had also mobilized among Asian Americans, Native Americans, Chicanos and Puerto Ricans, as well as a second wave of activism among women, gay and lesbians and the disabled.
So basically, we have a bunch of kids that just went through the civil rights movement, that were excited and explosive to make bigger and better changes. The government was pushing violence, with wars and attacks on activists. Not to say it was an excuse, but I can understand the circumstances that led these kids to do this. It wasn't about violence or selfishness either. Many former members of the Weather Underground have worked to make the world a better place. Dohrn is an associate professor and director at Northwestern University's Children and Justice Center. Rudd now teaches at a junior college in New Mexico. Ayers is currently a school reform activist and a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Jaffe is executive director of a foundation that supports women's activism. Whitehorn is active in a wide range of progressive causes. (see above citation)
I don't know if this makes up for it, but at least there is an attempt there. Dohrn and Ayers did not go to prison because of bad police work. (Even OJ got off the first time.) They are not kids anymore.
I don't think the connection between Obama and Ayers is even relevant, and I'm frankly sick of the whole story. Most people don't even know what it is.
-Sonja :)
"Democracy works only when you vote. When you don't take the time to vote for the candidate you find the least offensive, you run the risk of electing the candidate you find the most offensive."
I've also heard that the only reason Bill Ayers got away with the bombings was that crucial evidence was deemed "inadmissible" at his trial. So, yea, what sonja said: the police (or FBI or whoever) dropped the ball.
All the same, any defense of him seems like an "ends justify the means" approach. Yes, Ayers and the radical factions of SDS intended well, but as the saying goes, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." They wanted real change in their society, but went about doing it in a pretty misguided (or maybe just evil) way. This man should probably not be in a position to educate others, but that just reflects the liberal bias at this nation's colleges.
As for the connection to Barack Obama, he was acquainted with Ayers, and maybe that shows bad judgment on Obama’s part. I do not think the connection should at all suggest that Obama supports Ayers, supports terrorism, is a terrorist, or hates America.
Ayers is a professor at University of Illinois-Chicago, not University of Chicago. There's a big difference between the schools. But that does not diminish Ayers' contributions to the body of knowledge in the field of education. He is well-known for his work on equal educational access.
"Never go with a hippy to a second location."
~Jack Donaghy
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman