Ayers Op-Ed
Find a Conversation
| Sun, 12-07-2008 - 4:53am |
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Real Bill Ayers
By WILLIAM AYERS
Published: December 5, 2008
Chicago
IN the recently concluded presidential race, I was unwillingly thrust upon the stage and asked to play a role in a profoundly dishonest drama. I refused, and here’s why.
Unable to challenge the content of Barack Obama’s campaign, his opponents invented a narrative about a young politician who emerged from nowhere, a man of charm, intelligence and skill, but with an exotic background and a strange name. The refrain was a question: “What do we really know about this man?”
Secondary characters in the narrative included an African-American preacher with a fiery style, a Palestinian scholar and an “unrepentant domestic terrorist.” Linking the candidate with these supposedly shadowy characters, and ferreting out every imagined secret tie and dark affiliation, became big news.
I was cast in the “unrepentant terrorist” role; I felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the “Two Minutes Hate” scene from George Orwell’s “1984,” when the faithful gathered in a frenzy of fear and loathing.
With the mainstream news media and the blogosphere caught in the pre-election excitement, I saw no viable path to a rational discussion. Rather than step clumsily into the sound-bite culture, I turned away whenever the microphones were thrust into my face. I sat it out.
Now that the election is over, I want to say as plainly as I can that the character invented to serve this drama wasn’t me, not even close. Here are the facts:
I never killed or injured anyone. I did join the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s, and later resisted the draft and was arrested in nonviolent demonstrations. I became a full-time antiwar organizer for Students for a Democratic Society. In 1970, I co-founded the Weather Underground, an organization that was created after an accidental explosion that claimed the lives of three of our comrades in Greenwich Village. The Weather Underground went on to take responsibility for placing several small bombs in empty offices — the ones at the Pentagon and the United States Capitol were the most notorious — as an illegal and unpopular war consumed the nation.
The Weather Underground crossed lines of legality, of propriety and perhaps even of common sense. Our effectiveness can be — and still is being — debated. We did carry out symbolic acts of extreme vandalism directed at monuments to war and racism, and the attacks on property, never on people, were meant to respect human life and convey outrage and determination to end the Vietnam war.
Peaceful protests had failed to stop the war. So we issued a screaming response. But it was not terrorism; we were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends.
I cannot imagine engaging in actions of that kind today. And for the past 40 years, I’ve been teaching and writing about the unique value and potential of every human life, and the need to realize that potential through education.
I have regrets, of course — including mistakes of excess and failures of imagination, posturing and posing, inflated and heated rhetoric, blind sectarianism and a lot else. No one can reach my age with their eyes even partly open and not have hundreds of regrets. The responsibility for the risks we posed to others in some of our most extreme actions in those underground years never leaves my thoughts for long.
The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.
We — the broad “we” — wrote letters, marched, talked to young men at induction centers, surrounded the Pentagon and lay down in front of troop trains. Yet we were inadequate to end the killing of three million Vietnamese and almost 60,000 Americans during a 10-year war.
The dishonesty of the narrative about Mr. Obama during the campaign went a step further with its assumption that if you can place two people in the same room at the same time, or if you can show that they held a conversation, shared a cup of coffee, took the bus downtown together or had any of a thousand other associations, then you have demonstrated that they share ideas, policies, outlook, influences and, especially, responsibility for each other’s behavior. There is a long and sad history of guilt by association in our political culture, and at crucial times we’ve been unable to rise above it.
President-elect Obama and I sat on a board together; we lived in the same diverse and yet close-knit community; we sometimes passed in the bookstore. We didn’t pal around, and I had nothing to do with his positions. I knew him as well as thousands of others did, and like millions of others, I wish I knew him better.
Demonization, guilt by association, and the politics of fear did not triumph, not this time. Let’s hope they never will again. And let’s hope we might now assert that in our wildly diverse society, talking and listening to the widest range of people is not a sin, but a virtue.
William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of “Fugitive Days” and a co-author of the forthcoming “Race Course.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/opinion/06ayers.html?_r=1&em

Pages
The anti war movement during the Vietnam War did NOT get more people killed than the war did. I can't believe you even think that!
Deaths
1956-1964 401
1965 1,863
1966 6,143
1967 11,153
1968 16,592
1969 11,616
1970 6,081
1971 2,357
1972 641
1973 168
1974-1998 1178
...............Served..........Killed...Wounded....Missing
Army..........4,368,000........38,218..96,802......617 {A}
Marines.........794,000........14,840..51,392......242{B}
Navy..........1,842,000.........2,565...4,178......401{C}
Air Force.....1,740,000.........2,587...1,021......649 {D}
Coast Guard.........................7......59........0 {E}
Civilians.............................................38 {F}
Total.........8,744,000.........58,217..153,452...1,947
To prevent the spread of communism.
The United States entered the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of a wider strategy called containment. Military advisors arrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s and combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet Offensive. Under a policy called Vietnamization, U.S. forces withdrew as South Vietnamese troops were trained and armed. Despite a peace treaty signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued. In response to the anti-war movement, the U.S. Congress passed the Case-Church Amendment in June 1973 prohibiting further U.S. military intervention. In April 1975, North Vietnam captured Saigon. North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.
The war had a major impact on U.S. politics, culture and foreign relations. Americans were deeply divided over the U.S. government’s justification for, and means of fighting, the war. Opposition to the war contributed to the counterculture youth movement of the 1960s.
The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities, including 3 to 4 million Vietnamese from both sides, 1.5 to 2 million Laotians and Cambodians, and 58,159 U.S. soldiers.
<>
Hope you don't mind me picking your brain, but it is nice to talk to a history buff.
When did Clinton say that he thought we should go into Iraq? I would REALLY like to see the link which quotes him saying any such thing! In fact, he was upbraided by the neocons of PNAC (Cheney, Rumsfeld, among others) for not being more aggressive.
See: http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
I strongly encourage you to read that link fully but here's the interesting part:
<>
Most politicians thought that Saddam still had the chemical weapons technology which was winked at by Reagan.
< become able to deploy and use CW and probably has built up large reserves of CW for further use. Given its desperation to end the war, Iraq may again use lethal or incapacitating CW, particularly if Iran threatens to break through Iraqi lines in a large-scale-attack">> http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index.htm
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq25.pdf
Do recall that Donald Rumsfeld met with SH in that timeframe. You'd think we'd learn eventually that meddling, whether it's arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets or selling lethal technology to tyrants, even if they're "on our side" in a conflict against another country (Iran), is a dicey proposition.
But Clinton was smart enough to not invade and occupy Iraq. You do remember that Clinton's involvement with SH was limited to tactical airstrikes and enforcement of a no-fly zone, right? http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html He wasn't credulous enough to buy the bellicose blustering and posturing of PNAC necons. And the U.N. sanctions while flawed, had a catastrophic effect on SH's ability to actually threaten any nation.<>
http://tinyurl.com/5dbmn
Also, you must be aware that not all the Congressional representatives (it's worth remembering that we have a bicameral system as opposed to focusing solely on the Senate) who voted to go to war, had the same access to information that BushCheneyRumsfeld had. PDB's don't go to everyone, nor are all senators/representatives on the committees which have greatest access to top secret level documents. Many of those Congressional representatives were dependent on the executive branch. In any event, they SHOULD have demanded rigorous vetting of intelligence (and most did not), debated the ramifications of invasion (and most did not), and asked critical worst-case scenario questions (and most did not). Interestingly enough, one of the most out-spoken Congressional figures was Representative Ron Paul. I don't give either Senate or House a pass for the far too passive role they played, though it should be noted that in the wake of 9/11, we were all far too susceptible to emotional manipulation--specifically anxiety about another attack and desire to punish someone for the 9/11 attacks. BushCo actively played on that fear and anger.
Later on when there were voices of dissent, reason or critical thinking, Republicans (who dominated both houses) were more anxious to maintain party loyalty and continue party dominance than actually put the nation or its armed forces at the top of their loyalty list. They finally got their just desserts last month--but look at where they took the nation in the interval since March 2003. Shameful.
Edited to clarify a link and remove an extraneous word.
Edited 12/10/2008 10:30 am ET by altered08ego
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2007/11/28/nbc-cbs-morning-shows-ignore-bill-clintons-flip-flop-iraq-war
>>> you mean tripe like referring to the president elect as Obamasiah LOL!!!!
Yeah...calling Obama the "Obamasiah" would be tripe. LOL!
>>> You are thinking in 11 September terms, not Vietnam terms, and not in terms of what actually happened. He would not have served more than 10-15 years.
I'm thinking terrorist in terrorist terms. It was only dumb luck that he didn't kill more people...and I'd be very happy if he started serving his 10-15 years today.
>>> So being governor is ok after being a drug addict, but doing what Ayers does now doesn't matter?
Aah...so if BIn Laden were to become a teacher you'd be all good with him just getting on with his life and living in an upscale US neighborhood and wouldn't bat an eye if he were good friends with a guy running for President?
>>> Excuse conservatives, not liberals? That is what this really is, isn't it?
Yes, that "what it really is"...it's partisanship, rather than the bombs Ayres set and his anti-American mentality. (where is my eyeroll icon when I need it?)
>>> The man's words paint a totally different picture than 'unrepentant.'
Saying he wasn't sorry and that he didn't do enough paints a pretty clear picture...BTW, scroll down a bit and take a peek at this picture...
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/06/obama-ayers-connection-big-lie.html
...bearing in mind, the picture of the scumbag stomping on the flag was taken in 2001...while he was friends with Obama.
Pages