I certainly wish Bill Ayers had been able to do more to end the Vietnam War

[ecdab]

but I'm old enough to remember how f**king sickening that conflict was. I remember the draft. I remember the anger felt by people that were being forced to fight in an immoral conflict.

Listening to bunch of petty Clinton supporters try and twist what Bill Ayers said - and using the exact wording used by the Republicans to do so makes my stomach turn.

Bill Ayers is a distinguished professor at UIC. He teaches social justice. He helps children in trouble with the law. He works arduously to implement urban educational reform. He serves on the board of the Woods Foundation - an anti-poverty philanthropic foundation, which is how he is connected to Obama - they both are working to help the impoverished.

Of course the Republicans are going to spread lies about Bill Ayers. Of Course they are going to call him a terrorist because of his associations with the weather underground. Going after people that fight against immoral wars and poverty is what they do. What the f**k is the excuse that Hillary and her supporters have?

Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator Clinton. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency Madam, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency

[Why Syzygy]

1. The dodgers were pardoned. Time to heal came a long time ago.

People who pick at old wounds are morbid.

[Bicoastal]

3. Remember how so many suddenly proclaimed the Vietnam war had been "winnable"...

...the day John Kerry won the nomination?

This is no different.

[ecdab]

4. It is different - because this time Democrats are joining in the smear fest.

[Bicoastal]

5. Well, yeah--but I mean the spirit is the same.

Digging up long-dead issues simply because some down-and-dirty supporters perceive it to be a liability for the other candidate.

[Leopolds Ghost]

47. No, it'sd not -- Sen. Clinton joined in the attacks on Kerry's record shit-fest.

[sandnsea]

2. We want a candidate to stand up for Dem values

but when we get one, we trash them from the right wing playbook. It's ridiculous. I don't know what is wrong with people, all people.

[benddem]

6. If some of these people

had contributed to society half as much as Bill Ayers the world would be a better place.
http://billayers.wordpress.com/biography-history/

[RichardRay]

7. Clap, clap, clap, clap,

All I can say is 'Me Too'.

:applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause:

(I knew I'd need that little applause dude at some point.)

[ecdab]

9. Thanks, listening to these folks try and throw Bill Ayers under the bus

with pure right wing lies and bull shit really tics me off.

[Yurovsky]

11. Nope, not a shred ...

which is why she'll say or do anything to win, and if she can't win this time, to ensure that Senator Obama does not. She's thinking ahead to 2012, and running against her "good friend" John McCain. She will not sit around and wait for Senator Obama do complete 2 terms before she gets what she feels is her "due" (the White House).

Sickening. Like you said, I expect this from the GOP. Witnessing it from alleged "Democrats" is enough to make me want to vomit.

[splat]

14. You think bombings are right-wing propaganda? Read some history!

Bill Ayers: ""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."

[ecdab]

21. The GOP thanks you for smearing a fine man doing great work for the poor

in Chicago.

[splat]

28. He should work for the poor for the rest of his life to atone; screw the RW, this is LW talking

[ecdab]

29. Yeah - people should just passively submit to being sent off to kill

- that's the LW talking, my ass.

You have repeated multiple falsehoods regarding Ayers. Let me ask you - do agree with the Hillary camps spreading lies about what Ayers said? Do you?

[stillcool]

34. So quick to judge...

a human being. Condemnation prior to Investigation. Is that willful ignorance?

[ecdab]

35. The BS meter from camp Hillary on this one is off the chart - but going after activists is what they

do - it would seem.

[stillcool]

36. Man..I have to seriously update..

my Ignore list. I am so pissed at myself for playing in the dirt. Fuck that noise!

[bcoylepa]

8. so right

thanks for taking the time to try to explain to those who don't remember

[splat]

10. The Weather Underground killed the nonviolent movement that had been carefully built

by civil rights and antiwar coalitions. When they started bombing, it was easy to tar the entire movement. The war went on longer than it had to because the momentum stopped. He scared away the WW2 vets and other older people who had started joing the marches.

His actions prolonged the war and, most important, he doesn't regret the lives lost in the bombings. \

He's a f*ckup.

[AX10]

12. But this thread is very telling.

It seems the left wing does have some sort of sympathy towards those who would harm innocent people.
The far right has similar feelings. Extremists on both sides are dangerous.

There is nothing honorable about Bill Ayers. :puke:

[ecdab]

13. Please stop with the RW BS - the weather underground didn't kill

anybody - they did property damage. The only connection to a fatality was 2/16/70, and that was never actually connected to the weather underground.

It's great that you folks can make shit up about Ayers and then castigate people for pointing out your BS.

[splat]

15. He bombed the Pentagon, and then there was the bomb-making explosion...

Bill Ayers:

(On the 1970 Greenwich Village fatal explosion): "I lost my best friend and my girlfriend. I was twenty-four years old. Diana was twenty-seven. I was numb for a long time…disoriented…and I had a lot of grief. I felt a sense of responsibility for their deaths. It was our own craziness that led to that. It wasn’t an act of God."

[splat]

16. I was part of that antiwar movement: This is real, not grist for abstract dismissal as RW

You think you can wave history away. Not this one. Weather Underground let Nixon call us all terrorists. Assholes.

[ecdab]

19. 3 members of the weather underground blew themselves up

that is very different than blowing somebody else up. Nobody that wasn't building bombs to inflict property damage died. You play with matches - sometimes you get burned.

And HE didn't bomb the pentagon - the weather underground bombed the pentagon in response to the U.S. bombing raid in Hanoi.

[splat]

25. HE bombed the pentagon, and wrote about it. You can't spin this -- he's talked too much

Blll Ayers:

Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon.

The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.

[all that jazz]

37. I disagree with your analysis

But those bombs were meant for service members at a dance. The only reason innocents weren't killed was because they screwed up. I'm all for what the valid anti-war movement was trying to do. I'm not for what the weathermen and Bill Ayers and others were trying to do. They were no better than Timothy McVeigh...just less successful.

[ecdab]

38. I'm glad you believe the RW talking points on Ayers because

the bombs they did set where placed to kill nobody - just cause property damage. Of course the RW is going to say the bombs they didn't set were meant to kill - regardless of what the fact that they could have killed many people if that was their goal, which it wasn't.

[all that jazz]

39. They wanted to...

and why do you forgive their property damage?

[ecdab]

40. As if you know what they wanted - the evidence suggests they

did not want to, and some right wing assholes say they did - you believe the right wing assholes - go figure.

I forgive the property damage because people their age were being forced to kill Innocent people in an immoral war - or be thrown in prison for not doing so. They hit back against a corrupt government and they did so without killing anybody (except for a few of their own in an accident).

Maybe if your ass was about to be hauled off to some jungle to kill people for corporate america you might have some tiny amount of empathy. Children that think they know what it was like back then can not even begin to understand. Iraq is nothing compared to Nam - and that is because there is no draft today.

[all that jazz]

41. What evidence are you talking about?

And why are you so angry?

[ecdab]

42. The evidence is the fact they never killed anybody

- you are make blind accusations of people trying to commit murder - and you have no proof what so ever.

And listening to people that have no clue about something cast judgments around like they are going out of of style is annoying. Watching Democrats assassinate the character of an anti-war protester that now work tirelessly to help improve the lives of others - and doing so using word for word copies of what the Republicans used - that makes me angry.

[joeglow3]

48. I hate cliched responses to quiet people

Many of these are NOT RW talking points. You just use that to try and shut people up.

Real heroes like John Kerry showed us what could be accomplished with nonviolent means. An above poster was correct is stating that their tactics drove away many nonviolent that would have given much more strength to the movement than these people ever did.

And I don't care about how many people they did not kill. Just like the anti-abortion nut who bombs a PP clinic at night when no one is there, this was flat out wrong and his inability to even now see the error of his ways scares me.

[ecdab]

50. Many are RW talking points - including some of yours.

[PurityOfEssence]

22. No, they also killed two police officers

On Oct. 20, 1981, in Nyack New York, the group attempted to rob a Brinks armored truck containing more than $1 million. The robbery turned violent, resulting in the murder of two police officers.<31> David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin were found guilty and sentenced to lengthy terms in prison, considered the “last gasps” of the Weather Underground.<32>

This was pulled from Wikipedia.

Just because people don't die like flies doesn't mean damage isn't done; this is like talking to a Libertarian: unless people literally DIE, there's no real problem...

This turn to violence did have at least some impact on the growing anti-war movement, and the fact that they were also literally Communists didn't help much either.

Refocus on the original thrust of postings here on this subject and you'll see a fair consistency that affiliation or friendship with Ayers is a serious blot on the escutcheon of Mr. Obama, and even with disavowal (or repudiation, denunciation or whatever) it just tags Obama as a friend of those who dislike and/or attack the country. The reactionaries will seize on this, and it's legitimate subject matter when determining who our standard-bearer should be.

[ecdab]

24. The weather underground didn't exist in 1981 - 2 former members

of the weather underground really screwed up on 10/20/81 - but that had nothing - nothing - to do with Bill Ayers or the weather underground. Again - the GOP thanks you for the smear.

[EFerrari]

18. Some people are too stupid to understand his journey.

That's their problem.

[ecdab]

20. His girlfriend accidentally blew herself up along with two other members

of the weather underground - and Ayers has said how much he regretted that. NOBODY else died. You have no clue what you are talking about, none.

[John Kerry VonErich]

45. One error

There were no lives lost in any of the bombings.

[EFerrari]

17. I watched an interview he did about a year ago.

He spoke at length about the war and about his present work.

I agree. She has no decency to attack this man.

[beachmom]

23. Um, no. The guy was a terrorist. The means count just as much as the ends.

He has paid his debt to society, yes. He is a normal citizen now. But what he did back then was despicable and against everything I believe in.

[ecdab]

26. He was never convict of anything. Ever. He never paid any debts

to society and he was always a "normal" citizen. Normal citizens can get really angry when they are being drafted to kill people in an immoral war.

[beachmom]

31. The Weather Underground is well known as a radical group that resorted to terrorism.

Don't spin this; it won't work. The Weather Underground and groups like it really hurt the anti-war movement. When I lived in WI, the folks I talked to had nothing but contempt for the anti-war movement because of the bomb that went off in UW - Madison that killed one person.

[ecdab]

32. You know - the only reason Ayers is being discussed here is because

Hillary supporters were claiming he said "I only wish we did more damage with our bombs" - which is complete bull shit and a lie. So don't lecture me about spin - the OP was a response to the unmitigated bull shit being typed by some Hillary supports.

It's also worth noting that one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. And what did Bill Ayers have to do with the UW bombing?

They were young people that were pissed off for a very good reason. Their grievances were real, their response wasn't always the best and like Bill Ayers said - I wish they could have done more, because what they did do didn't accomplish much other than to show how outraged people were at being drafted to fight in an immoral war. But that outrage did need to be expressed.

[stillcool]

33. Remember the year they closed the colleges?

My husband is old enough to remember those times, but I am not. The McCarthy hearings? Civil Rights, Women's Rights. Sometimes it seems people are not happy with any of the small gains that were made through those times. So odd. Blaming people and excusing government. What were you doing at the time? Were you involved in any of the social movements of the time?

[Upton]

27. Agree with you completely

many of the naysayers weren't even alive then, they have no idea what a desperate time it was. To me, their comments count for nothing.

[ecdab]

30. Their comments may carry no weight, but the lies are very telling.

[Bake]

43. There's a difference between civil disobedience

and bombing buildings. But you can't see that, huh.

I was old enough for Vietnam too. It made me sick too. I lost friends there, and their names are on The Wall.

But bombing buildings is wrong, just like McVeigh was wrong. The only difference is the Weathermen (AFAIK) didn't kill anybody, at least Ayers didn't. But he was still responsible. He stayed in the organization and approved of its methods. I don't give a fuck how many times you people call him "distinguished" or "respected." He's not, at least not by me.

Bake

[ecdab]

44. Good for you - so do support the RW lie about Ayers saying that he

wished he could have bombed more people - you know, the one that many Hillary supports picked up and ran with because they thought telling a lie about a guy that worked on an anti-poverty charity with Obama might hurt Obama.

It's funny - when I started this thread - how many people just assumed he had killed people, that he had been convicted of a crime - many didn't even appear to know that he was an anti-war protester - they were just happy to spill his guts to get to Obama.

Your opinion of Ayers is what it is - that's fine, but do you support smearing him with lies?

[Bake]

46. Was he, or was he not a member of the Weather Underground?

Did they, or did they not, bomb buildings?

Did he, or did he not, participate in any bombings? I'm actually asking for info purposes here, because I don't know if he PERSONALLY participated or not.

If he did personally participate, or hell, even if he approved (or especially if he aided/abetted in some way), then I don't give a shit how "distinguished" or "respected" you claim he is. He was WRONG in the 60s, and he's never disavowed that or expressed remorse in any way. That will be my opinion (and the opinion of many others) and if Obama and his followers cannot understand that, then I feel very sorry for you. And I feel very sorry for the country that will have to suffer four more years of a Repuke White House.

And frankly, if you approve of bombing buildings, I have little use for you.

Bake

[ecdab]

49. You can not even make it through your post without telling yet another lie about Ayers.

Hillary and her supporters are telling some lies about Ayers. I was just checking if you had a problem with that. It would appear you don't. You also have no problem dragging a man through the mud that was never convicted of anything - justice for all, right?

You also don't know the first thing about Ayers if you think he hasn't expressed any remorse - that's yet another GOP talking point (and I'm sure they thank you for repeating it - because it's always good to tell lies about war protesters - right?) he has expressed a ton of remorse about their tactic - he hasn't expressed even a tiny bit of remorse for siding against the war though (which appears to be what you - and the GOP - want). Let's chalk that up as another piece of GOP BS being spread by Hillary supporters - shall we? Lets.

The weather underground was an anti-war group - they opposed the government forcing people to go kill in an immoral, corporate drive conflict. You may disagree with them using destruction of public property to make their point - that's fine - but do you at least agree with their point that forcing young people to go kill for corporate America was wrong? Or are you against all the dirty little anti-war protesters, you know - sort of like Hillary appears to be.

So to sum it - you are supporting the spread of a right wing smear by justifying it with another right wing smear. You really need to check yourself.

[Bake]

51. I didn't tell a single lie in my previous post. NOT ONE. Point one out to me, if you can.

I asked several questions. So far, you've answered NONE of them. I even said I was asking for information.

You're obviously not interested in dialogue here. You just want to paint me as a right-winger, which is bullshit. I am anti-war, and have always been anti-war. I was anti-war back in the 60s (probably before you were born). I said there's a difference between war protesters and bombers. If you can't see that, I'm sorry for you. Violence is seldom if ever the solution to anything.

Lumping the Weathermen in with the anti-war movement in general is simply trying to hide the criminals among the innocent. (And if they weren't criminals, there would have been no need for a presidential pardon, right? Since I know that's going to be your next "argument."). Maybe Ayers never committed a crime. Or maybe he did, in fact, commit a crime but was never charged. We're not talking about a court of law here, we're talking about presidential politics, and your guy Ayers is political kryptonite. There are enough facts out there about Ayers to make him radioactive to a presidential candidate, but Obama was too stupid to see that one coming.

So keep defending him. If you have to defend, you've already lost the issue.

Bake

[ecdab]

52. You lied when you said - and I quote

he hasn't "expressed remorse in any way" - which is flat wrong, that factual breakdown was started by the RW after his statement that he wished he could have done more. He has repeatedly stated his regret in many ways. Taking responsibility for being foolish and blaming the death of his girl friend on his own stupidity.

You clearly do not know what you are talking about - and yes - yes you are repeating RW talking points. Yes you are repeating lies.

Ayers never received a Presidential Pardon - Ayers was never convicted - of anything.

And what is Obama's connection to Ayers anyhow - they both served on the board of a charity that helps the poor. That's the connection some people are trying to beat Obama over the head with - because he didn't leave a charity that helps the poor. That says a heck of lot about the people going after Obama on that one - and none of it is good.

As for questions of the morality of destroying public property - I'll tell you this, there were a lot of young people back then that felt like the US government had declared war on them - they were shipping kids off to die for nothing or throwing them in prison if they refused to go. Some decided to hit back. I remember it like yesterday, and I understand that younger people can not relate in any way shape or form - and I don't expect them to be able to. I harbor no ill will toward those that hit back - none at all. It wasn't the best way - but the government was throwing away their lives, they had the right to fight back against such tyranny. You are free to your opinion that the government can expend the lives of its citizens as it sees fit with no reprisal from those citizens. I disagree, though I think there were better tactics than those used by the weather underground.