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• Monday, November 17, 2008 07:37 PM

  Smart Boys

  It's really good that Bill Ayers has continued to work for justice and education throughout his life. That's pretty redemptive. And who am I, etc.

  I remember that horrible national darkness like yesterday. It doesn't amaze me that some people succumbed to the contagion of violence. Violent plans, violent acts.

  I wish that one million people had gone to Washington and stood silently in the streets until the capital ground to a halt. No flower, rock and roll and joints...just silence.

  Ayers reminds me of some of the coldly furious radicals I was close to. Cerebral, full of testosterone (in their 20s) and likely feeling guilty. The farmer's son I sat next to at Fort Meade when my privileged boyfriend was getting through his physical...I'll never forget that kid. I was 19, the only woman in this huge room full of teenaged boys. Buses literally pulling out as we sat there, roaring away...to Nam. I was horrified, this cannon fodder crowd. I asked the boy beside me, why are you doing this? He said, I'm seventeen but I'm going. Why? I don't get along with my old man.

  My boyfriend came out white as a sheet...his bad knee got him out of it. He drove all the way to downtown Baltimore standing up in his red convertible. I celebrated with him. The farmer's son got on the bus.

  So Ayers and Bernadette wanted to bomb things? Imitation, I think. An impotent and immature echo of war. It didn't help. It hurt the peace movement just as a previous poster said.

  I don't know if he owes anybody any groveling at this point. But I don't think he seems very reflective about it. I'm glad he's stayed busy with productive things.

  Me, I prefer Ghandi. King. They had guts.

  Bombing is never, ever about bravery.

  —Lobelia Read Lobelia's other letters
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