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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Mr. Ayers, thank you for your service toward securing freedoms and fairness for the little people of the world. Our still out of control military-industrial-oil complex must be continually exposed for its terrorist activities around the world. Lovers of fairness and freedom must hold our politicians (I include Obama here) accountable for any activities or inactivities which support or cause suffering in the name of the evil trifecta: Military-Industrial-Oil.
Hope, vigillance and action are necessary for the success of a our return to the ideals of fairness and freedom. Yes, we can.
Members of the Weather Undergound took part in a Brink's robbery in '81. Waverly Brown, Edward O'Grady, and Peter Paige were murdered. The perpetrators were Kathy Boudin, Judith Clark and David Gilbert - all members of the Weathermen - along with members of the Black Liberation Army. These people were arrested fleeing the scene.
So yes, they did murder people. They would have murdered more -like the soldiers at the a dance a Fort Dix - had they not been so incompetent.
To allow Ayers to portray himself as a victim and not ask him about this and other episodes when he and his wife were recognized as primary leaders of the group is journalistic malpractice.
A new paperback edition of "Fugitive Days" was released Nov. 5, and is selling well on amazon. I wonder if Ayers' publicist was working with John McCain?
The sad thing is, Ayers has become a hero because he was attacked by Barack Obama's opponents. Being the enemy of the left's enemy doesn't make Ayers a good guy. He's still the same spoiled rich kid who thought it was his right to take the law into his own hands -- and who, thanks to his father's influence, avoided legal punishment and social stigma for his misbehavior.
The most tenuous association with a Vietnam war activist was taken and used to try and slander Obama. Why? For a few lousy votes! But, like most things in the world. Eventually the slanderous statements made by McCain/Palin came back and landed on them in a big way. Because most American's weren't interested in their lies to win the election. They were more interested in the sad state of this country after 8 years of Bush. More worried about the prospect of another 4 years at least of the same failed policies that got us in this mess. It's going to be difficult for the Republican Party to undo the harm it's done itself with continued tactic's like this! Because they have demonized themselves in the minds of a lot of American's!
"We were so glad that we had because it was a moment that we wanted to share. We didn't want to be by ourselves. It was just too sweet. It felt like a page of history was being turned."
There were excesses and appalling events and death all through history but if we cannot move on, we cannot change.
Here is to empowering the forces of good for positive changes.
I enjoyed the video of the Ayers interview and hope that Salon will put up more of them. Ayers is articulate and thoughtful and he remembers. We all need to remember.
I don't know about who should or shouldn't turn off whose judgment and "learn something about his/her self at long last" (I may not have quoted you quite right because I don't have the computer skill(s) to know how to see your "text" and type some words of my own at the same time). Isn't that maybe being a little judgmental? [? ;-)]
That aside; I learned something quite useful to/for "myself" from reading your categorizations of the more or less "radical". You see, I guess I thought of radicalism itself as more a conceptual category than an extremism-of-behavior one. If you're crazed or demented (temporarily or permanently) the extent of extremism of your behavioral choices is often these days (for better or worse I honestly don't -- for the moment any way -- know) adjudged by standards such as the Diagnostic and Statistical [psychiatric] Manual and/or by the courts. The (o.k., so ?"my circle"? were all to greater or lesser degree "eggheads") "radical" choice I and a group of 12 (count 'em 12) people -- for whom Noam Chomsky became the "talking head" while still a young bright-[unknown]-guy-on-the-horizon in the M.I.T. linguistics department -- chose an official, government-notified refusal to pay, in our annual taxes, the amount of money we calculated was what the federal government was spending on the military budget. We notified our senators that we were setting this money aside in a special account, to be repaid to the government when the war was stopped. [We were legally advised that we could be tried for conspiracy and, if convicted, sentenced to I think it was then 12 years in jail (but at least not at Guantanamo).] "My" (Massachusetts) Senators at the time were Senators Edward Brooke and Senator "Ted" Kennedy. I received a courteous note of acknowledgment from Brooke (then a young Republican); nothing from Kennedy. We all know where Noam has gone and what he's done in the intervening years. As my husband also had a record as a convicted felon for having declared as a conscientious objector in World War II (of all things?!), I suggested he not join with the 12 of us in case we were in fact sent to jail. We got a note from a friend of his to whom he'd reported his support of me in what I chose who'd written saying he hadn't realised my husband was "such a radical". My husband wrote him back some egghead remark about "radical' meaning "going to the root". [Sounds like loony math to me?! ;-)]
My point? I don't know whether violence is "more radical" than other choices or whether it's just ... well more violent. A poorer choice? More extremist. Is that what "radicalism" means to you? Extremism?
I'd really like to know more of your experiences and opinions.
salonmarte
It never ceases to amaze me how soon the cause is forgotten and how many times they shoot the messenger. Had there been no protests against Viet Nam we would still be there, had there been none over Iraq we would still have no exit strategy. Yet those responsible for the larger number of deaths continue on unquestioned by the "SUPPOSED" authoritarian pundits.
Recently Iraq posing demands for US withdrawal on a set and timed level of withdrawal, and Obama still being shot down for mentioning such a drastic thought as a plan to ease the pain and save what little face the USA has in the world.
More is better in the case of resolving illegal and immoral wars , and the level of participation is most important. Unfortunately most Americans have no recall today of yesterday, let alone yester year, and so their cause is killing the messenger, over and over.
What an excercise in stupidity.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
