William Ayers: What's the Real Story?

[LowlyPion]

So what's the big deal with William Ayers?

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6252793

Why is it such a big deal, other than of course to resurrect the politics of Joe McCarthy and demonize those that we don't agree with.

I don't know exactly who the ABC nabob is that was pressing him so artlessly or whether he is looking to interview at Fox, but the presumption that knowing people in the neighborhood constitutes sharing ideological beliefs is on a par with that of the excuse for the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

 

[edward]

It is a bit odd that ABC gave no credit to the interviewer.

Edit; It was Chris Cuomo

 

[russ_watters]

Why is it such a big deal, other than of course to resurrect the politics of Joe McCarthy and demonize those that we don't agree with.

McCarthyism was about demonizing people for their ideas. Ayers was a member of an acutal terrorist group that did real bombings and as he said, he is unrepentant and thinks they should have done more. That's pretty disturbing.

 

[LowlyPion]

McCarthyism was about demonizing people for their ideas. Ayers was a member of an acutal terrorist group that did real bombings and as they said in the intro to the interview, he is unrepentant and thinks they should have done more. That's pretty disturbing.

As he says it was a two way street.

40K American lives slaughtered for what exactly? That was OK because that was US policy?

And the students shot at Kent State? Those weren't terror acts? Those weren't the repressive acts of a Government against its citizens?

I don't agree with his tactics in the least. But in the end the US Government didn't jail him for whatever his activities. His wife has paid her debt to society. They are citizens now in good standing.

In the end there is no other way to see it than that trying to link Obama to Ayers is anything but an attempt to demonize Obama for the same thing that many were blacklisted after McCarthy - for doing little more than attending a meeting, or sitting on a community board directed toward inner city service.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

The attempt to connect him with Obama by saying "Obama has some connection with this guy... we can't tell you exactly what, but he's got a connection with this guy... and oh by the way his middle name is Hussein" was clearly invalid and was a completely despicable move by pathetically desperate Republicans who clearly demonstrated that any interest in morality spinelessly evaporates when their own interests get in the way.

But there isn't any way to get around the fact that Ayers advocated violence to achieve his political objectives. Sure, he didn't mean for anyone to get hurt but obviously if anyone had they'd have been acceptable casualties.

This is of course the same justification Bush used for the invasion of Iraq, that the people who would get killed - more than five thousand Americans, many Coalition troops, and tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis at this point - were acceptable casualties to achieve his objectives. Since Bush actually killed immense numbers of people, I would expect that anyone who has forgiven him for that would also forgive any of the Weather Undergrounders who never killed anyone except themselves.

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[LowlyPion]

But there isn't any way to get around the fact that Ayers advocated violence to achieve his political objectives. Sure, he didn't mean for anyone to get hurt but obviously if anyone had they'd have been acceptable casualties.

Violence? ... Property crimes. A statue? Some steam pipes? Let's be careful to put them in perspective. Dangerous? Apparently only to them as they managed to destroy a townhouse in New York and wipe one group out.

Within the context of the times it was far more symbolic than effective. And I can certainly sympathize without agreeing with their immature tactics given the fear that gripped many at the thought of being drafted to serve, only to be killed, in a war that so many felt was misguided, and ultimately was proven to have been.

Should he have done more? Perhaps, though certainly not as far as bombing any more. Perhaps, if more people had done more in non-violent ways, then more would have been returned home, and fewer names would be carved in the Wall in DC and the world could have been a better place sooner than it became.

But as to calling Ayers a terrorist, I'd say he was only a terrorist to an administration that was pursuing a foreign policy that tolerated no dissent, that was prepared to suspend the Bill of Rights, to order the people rather than lead them, to shoot them rather than tolerate dissent.

What I find an interesting contrast is that those times also gave us Woodstock.

 

[Proton Soup]

McCarthyism was about demonizing people for their ideas. Ayers was a member of an acutal terrorist group that did real bombings and as he said, he is unrepentant and thinks they should have done more. That's pretty disturbing.

the only thing I'm aware of that Ayers bombed was a statue. anything else?

McCain, OTOH, actually participated in a genocide. and he can't ask for a pass on this because he was an officer. he even expressed regret for what he'd done after seeing the effects of the Forrestal incident, but kept on doing it anyway. i think that counts as unrepentant.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Dangerous?

Of course, since as you point out yourself...

Apparently only to them as they managed to destroy a townhouse in New York and wipe one group out.

Three people got killed. I don't even get why you just tried to pretend it wasn't dangerous.

Blowing things up to threaten people to achieve your political objectives. The logical gymnastics you'd have to go through to pretend that can't be called terrorism would not impress anybody nor persuade anyone of anything.

The basic American mentality and values endorse a revolution against a tyrannical government, but there's no point in pretending it's not a revolution. Playing the mad bomber, even for the best of reasons, can always be called terrorism. Many acts taken by Americans during the Revolutionary War could validly be called terrorism.

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[CaptainQuasar]

McCain, OTOH, actually participated in a genocide.

Okay, man, I think the Vietnam war was unjust and horrendous but it was by no means a genocide. You dishonor the victims of actual genocide to pull crap like this to try to win arguments on the internet. (Or IRL for that matter.)

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[Proton Soup]

Okay, man, I think the Vietnam war was unjust and horrendous but it was by no means a genocide. You dishonor the victims of actual genocide to pull crap like this to try to win arguments on the internet. (Or IRL for that matter.)

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it was one of McNamara's quotes that defined it as such. i'll have to see if i can find it.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

it was one of McNamara's quotes that defined it as such. i'll have to see if i can find it.

Even if he said it that doesn't make any sense. There were a sizeable number of Vietnamese on both sides. It was essentially a civil war despite also being a proxy war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

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[Proton Soup]

Even if he said it that doesn't make any sense. There were a sizeable number of Vietnamese on both sides.

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oh, you're saying the north don't qualify as an ethnic group.

 

[WarPhalange]

Three people got killed. I don't even get why you just tried to pretend it wasn't dangerous.

Yes... 3 of them got killed. Those were bombs, you know. But it's more dangerous to put a bomb in a crowded street than under some statue. Their goals clearly were to not harm anybody.

Okay, man, I think the Vietnam war was unjust and horrendous but it was by no means a genocide. You dishonor the victims of actual genocide to pull crap like this to try to win arguments on the internet. (Or IRL for that matter.)

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Tell that to the people who were slaughtered in Vietnam.

 

[LowlyPion]

Three people got killed. I don't even get why you just tried to pretend it wasn't dangerous.

Blowing things up to threaten people to achieve your political objectives. The logical gymnastics you'd have to go through to pretend that can't be called terrorism would not impress anybody nor persuade anyone of anything.

I didn't say it was anything but an immature tactic. But to call it terrorism? It certainly doesn't meet my idea of terrorism. That term is overly broad and doesn't allow I think of the kinds of symbolic acts like blowing up a statute that is more an issue of expression of a political dissent than it was any attempt to terrorize. Because no one was scared by that.

And so they killed 3 of themselves accidentally for their efforts. Hardly an act of terror.

The whole attempt to characterize Ayers as a terrorist then as opposed to a radical dissenter - who resorted to inappropriate action as his expressions - I think has really been way overblown, and it has apparently been exaggerated wholly to concoct a more scandalous mud for slinging at Obama, who was neither ever involved nor has ever condoned any of it to begin with.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

oh, you're saying the north don't qualify as an ethnic group.

I've never read anything claiming that the Communist revolutionaries were composed of a different ethnic group than Diệm's government, no. Have you?

As far as I know it was a struggle between the existing government and a nominally Communist revolution funded by the Soviet Union who wanted to replace that government. Before widespread hostilities broke out they'd been calling for elections, among various other political activities.

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[CaptainQuasar]

Their goals clearly were to not harm anybody.

Like I said, neither were the the goals of invading Iraq to harm anybody. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Tell that to the people who were slaughtered in Vietnam.

You know what genocide is, don't you? Twenty to thirty million Soviet citizens were killed during the Nazi invasion of Russia. Six million Ashkenazi Jews were killed in the Holocaust. One of them is a genocide and the other is not. Bloody slaughter of people is terrible and wrong but it does not make a genocide by itself.

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[CaptainQuasar]

I didn't say it was anything but an immature tactic. But to call it terrorism? It certainly doesn't meet my idea of terrorism. That term is overly broad and doesn't allow I think of the kinds of symbolic acts like blowing up a statute that is more an issue of expression of a political dissent than it was any attempt to terrorize. Because no one was scared by that.

And so they killed 3 of themselves accidentally for their efforts. Hardly an act of terror.

The whole attempt to characterize Ayers as a terrorist then as opposed to a radical dissenter - who resorted to inappropriate action as his expressions - I think has really been way overblown, and it has apparently been exaggerated wholly to concoct a more scandalous mud for slinging at Obama, who was neither ever involved nor has ever condoned any of it to begin with.

I think it's exaggerated too. However, call it symbolic terrorism if you must but I see no point in trying to pretend that bombing public buildings for political reasons can't be called terrorism. It certainly wasn't just a prank or something and I wouldn't say it was immature; carrying out bombing campaigns like that can certainly achieve political goals.

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[Proton Soup]

I've never read anything claiming that the Communist revolutionaries were composed of a different ethnic group than Diệm's government, no. Have you?

As far as I know it was a struggle between the existing government and a nominally Communist revolution funded by the Soviet Union who wanted to replace that government. Before widespread hostilities broke out they'd been calling for elections, among various other political activities.

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i'm not sure genocide only applies to ethnic groups, it also applies to cultures and belief systems. either way, whether the technical requirements of the term are met, the effect is the same. perhaps we can just agree to call it Terrorism.

as for McNamara, he let the cat out of the bag
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder#Opposition

On 9 August 1967 the Senate Armed Services Committee opened hearings on the bombing campaign. Complaints from the armed services had sparked the interest of some of the most vocal hawks on Capitol Hill.[94] The military chiefs testified before the committee, complaining about the gradual nature of the air war and its civilian-imposed restrictions. It was obvious that McNamara, the only civilian subpoenaed and the last to testify before the committee, was to be the scapegoat.[95] The Secretary of Defense marshaled his objections to an indiscriminate air war and adeptly rebutted the charges of the military chiefs.[96] He bluntly admitted that there was "no basis to believe that any bombing campaign...would by itself force Ho Chi Minh's regime into submission, short, that is, of the virtual annihilation of North Vietnam and its people."[97]

McCain had himself been a part of Rolling Thunder, and he and other pilots criticized it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mccain#Naval_training.2C_first_marriage.2C_and_Vietnam_assignment

McCain requested a combat assignment,[23] and was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal flying A-4 Skyhawks.[24] His combat duty began when he was 30 years old, in summer 1967, when Forrestal was assigned to a bombing campaign, Operation Rolling Thunder, during the Vietnam War.[19][25] McCain and his fellow pilots became frustrated by micromanagement from Washington, and he would later write that "In all candor, we thought our civilian commanders were complete idiots who didn't have the least notion of what it took to win the war."[25][26]

in fact, there was no attempt to take out hard targets for fear of provoking too strong a response. it all devolved into a tit-for-tat scenario designed to terrorize the people. in fact, it drove them all underground. this war on the civilians carried on for some time, with the government lying about the rumors of what was being done. not until this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Th%E1%BB%8B_Kim_Ph%C3%BAc" was published were they no longer able to deny it. now, the barbecued girl didn't happen until years after McCain was shot down, but he knew back at the Forrestal incident, just a few months before he was captured, that scenes like the above were what he was doing. in fact, his words:

i think McCain genuinely felt bad about it all. i don't think he's evil at heart. but he must also have felt trapped and couldn't resign because of the dishonor it would bring to his family. but I'm convinced he realized what was going on.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

i'm not sure genocide only applies to ethnic groups, it also applies to cultures and belief systems. either way, whether the technical requirements of the term are met, the effect is the same.

I don't think it is. I really think it dishonors (as in, the opposite of honoring someone - I'm not saying you're dishonorable) the memory of peoples that have been eliminated from existence out of hate to dilute the meaning of the term that way.

Via Wikipedia, a quote from the guy who coined the term:

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/AxisRule1944-1.htm" ​

Taking it to simply mean "really really bloody", which is then going to be used pejoratively all over the place, dilutes the meaning of it.

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[russ_watters]

As he says it was a two way street.

40K American lives slaughtered for what exactly? That was OK because that was US policy?

And the students shot at Kent State? Those weren't terror acts? Those weren't the repressive acts of a Government against its citizens?

Irrelevant, because:

I don't agree with his tactics in the least.

Exactly. Two wrongs don't make a right.

But in the end the US Government didn't jail him for whatever his activities. His wife has paid her debt to society. They are citizens now in good standing.

He is a citizen who supported and probably got away with crimes and wishes he had had the stones to do more. That makes him a bad person.

 

[Proton Soup]

I don't think it is. I really think it dishonors (as in, the opposite of honoring someone - I'm not saying you're dishonorable) the memory of peoples that have been eliminated from existence out of hate to dilute the meaning of the term that way.

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i think McCain dishonored himself quite a bit during the election. not only with trying to equate Obama with Terrorism via Ayers, but by allowing the crap to run in the background by his promoters right up to the incident where that woman in Wisconsin embarrassed him and he was forced to correct her.

as for the definition of genocide, it's maybe a little broader than i thought. again, from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide" :

While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2, of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."[1]

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Unless you do something, like, say, falsify a bunch of intelligence and invade a country while killing tens or hundreds of thousands of people in the process based on that intelligence. They have to be the correct type of wrongs, y'see.

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[russ_watters]

the only thing I'm aware of that Ayers bombed was a statue. anything else?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization )

McCain, OTOH, actually participated in a genocide.

C'mon. That's not even worthy of a response, it's so absurd.

This is what annoys me most about this forum - people throw around words without any regard at all to their actual meaning. Ayers wasn't a terrorist because you agree with his political stance. McCain committed genocide because you don't. That's not the way it works. These words have definitions and you can't escape that by misusing the words. If you would like the definition described instead of using the words, fine. Here it is:

Ayers was a member of an organization that advocated the violent overthrow of the US government and committed acts of physical violence not just against property but against people. And the fact that they were "merely" failed mass murderers does not let them off the hook for attempting to be mass murderers. And Ayers feels he should have done more.

 

[russ_watters]

Unless you do something, like, say, falsify a bunch of intelligence and invade a country while killing tens or hundreds of thousands of people in the process based on that intelligence. They have to be the correct type of wrongs, y'see.

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C'mon, out with it: are you saying you advocate terrorism?

 

[russ_watters]

But there isn't any way to get around the fact that Ayers advocated violence to achieve his political objectives. Sure, he didn't mean for anyone to get hurt but obviously if anyone had they'd have been acceptable casualties.

The first sentence is true, the second is not. The WU did hurt people and they did it on purpose. In addition, the accident that killed 3 members and effectively ended the overt actions of the group was preparation for a planned act of mass murder. So they were a relatively incompetent terrorist group, but a terrorist group nonetheless.

 

[Proton Soup]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization ) C'mon. That's not even worthy of a response, it's so absurd.

This is what annoys me most about this forum - people throw around words without any regard at all to their actual meaning. Ayers wasn't a terrorist because you agree with his political stance. McCain committed genocide because you don't. That's not the way it works. These words have definitions and you can't escape that by misusing the words. If you would like the definition described instead of using the words, fine. Here it is:

Ayers was a member of an organization that advocated the violent overthrow of the US government and committed acts of physical violence not just against property but against people. And the fact that they were "merely" failed mass murderers does not let them off the hook for attempting to be mass murderers. And Ayers feels he should have done more.

fine, call it terrorism if genocide is too strong. still, McCain's actions were far worse than Ayers'. there was nothing just about the way that war was waged. if you want to excuse the enlisted, that's fine, but the officers hold responsibility for it.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

i think McCain dishonored himself quite a bit during the election. not only with trying to equate Obama with Terrorism via Ayers, but by allowing the crap to run in the background by his promoters right up to the incident where that woman in Wisconsin embarrassed him and he was forced to correct her.

as for the definition of genocide, it's maybe a little broader than i thought. again, from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide" :

Hey, if you want to make an analogy between vigorously and effectively attacking the military forces of a particular political party of a country, and the complete elimination of an entire race of people from history, go ahead of course and fish around until you find a definition of genocide that technically agrees with what you said. But it still seems to me that you were primarily doing it for pejorative and hyperbolic effect and for my part it reflects poorly upon you.

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[russ_watters]

I didn't say it was anything but an immature tactic. But to call it terrorism? It certainly doesn't meet my idea of terrorism. That term is overly broad and doesn't allow I think of the kinds of symbolic acts like blowing up a statute that is more an issue of expression of a political dissent than it was any attempt to terrorize. Because no one was scared by that.

That wasn't their only act. They also firebombed the house of a NY State Supreme Court justice.

The whole attempt to characterize Ayers as a terrorist then as opposed to a radical dissenter - who resorted to inappropriate action as his expressions - I think has really been way overblown...

By mischaracterizing the acts of his group, you make your objection pretty transparent.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

C'mon, out with it: are you saying you advocate terrorism?

? Don't you get it, Obama won the election. It doesn't work to claim that criticizing the Iraq war is terrorism.

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[russ_watters]

fine, call it terrorism if genocide is too strong.

Huh? You really need to grab a dictionary, because you clearly have no clue what those words mean. You are making a fool of yourself by saying such things.

 

[russ_watters]

? Don't you get it, Obama won the election. It doesn't work to claim that criticizing the Iraq war is terrorism.

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That quote of yours appeared to advocate violence in opposition of the Iraq war. did I misunderstand you intent?

 

[Proton Soup]

Huh? You really need to grab a dictionary, because you clearly have no clue what those words mean. You are making a fool of yourself by saying such things.

i've actually read quite a bit about Raphael Lemkin. as for terrorism, it's pretty much lost it's meaning since the "War on Terror" began. a kid spitting in his teacher's coffee is a terrorist, now.

as for the whole McCain/Ayers thing, i know you think I'm siding with Ayers, but I'm not. i just think McCain is a hypocrite. and i don't think he showed much of the honor or courage he was campaigning on except during the times he was backpeddling. the rest of the time he was happy to let people go around thinking his opponent was an islamic terrorist. i think his actions were despicable, and if something like http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/wantedfortreason.htm" happens again, he's going to have to shoulder a huge chunk of the guilt of it.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

That quote of yours appeared to advocate violence in opposition of the Iraq war. did I misunderstand you intent?

I think so. You said that two wrongs do not make a right and I was pointing out that falsifying intelligence and invading Iraq constitute two wrongs.

So, I have to agree with Russ that the Weathermen were out to hurt people. Multiple sources agree that at the townhouse in Greenwich Village multiple bombs packed with nails were found and the bodies of Ted Gold and Diana Oughton were riddled with nails. And of course a nail bomb is an anti-personnel weapon, it's not just designed for property damage.

Three Weathermen were killed, including Ted Gold; his body was ripped to shreds when the bomb he was working on, filled with one-and-a-half-inch roofing nails, exploded.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Up...nd-a-half-inch+roofing+nails,+exploded."&lr="​

Also mentioned in http://books.google.com/books?id=6KC36MHH3j8C&pg=PA143&dq="Diana+Oughton"+roofing+nails" in the local paper The Villager.

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[WarPhalange]

You know what genocide is, don't you? Twenty to thirty million Soviet citizens were killed during the Nazi invasion of Russia. Six million Ashkenazi Jews were killed in the Holocaust. One of them is a genocide and the other is not. Bloody slaughter of people is terrible and wrong but it does not make a genocide by itself.

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"You dishonor the victims of real genocides" is what I was referring to. Yeah, I'm sure being told that you don't have the honor in death that someone else does because not everybody of your race died is no big deal.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

...Much of the controversy about Ayers during the decade since 2000 stems from an interview he gave to The New York Times on the occasion of the memoir's publication.[25] The reporter quoted him as saying "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough", and, when asked if he would "do it all again," as saying "I don't want to discount the possibility."[20] Ayers has not denied the quotes, but he protested the interviewer's characterizations in a Letter to the Editor published September 15, 2001: "This is not a question of being misunderstood or 'taken out of context', but of deliberate distortion."[26] In a November 2008 interview with The New Yorker, Ayers said that he had not meant to imply that he wished he and the Weathermen had committed further acts of violence. Instead, he said, “I wish I had done more, but it doesn’t mean I wish we’d bombed more ****.” Ayers said that he had never been responsible for violence against other people and was acting to end a war in Vietnam in which “thousands of people were being killed every week.” He also stated, "While we did claim several extreme acts, they were acts of extreme radicalism against property,” and “We killed no one and hurt no one. Three of our people killed themselves.”[27]

In the ensuing years, Ayers has repeatedly avowed that when he said he had "no regrets" and that "we didn't do enough" he was speaking only in reference to his efforts to stop the United States from waging the Vietnam War, efforts which he has described as ". . . inadequate [as] the war dragged on for a decade."[28] Ayers has maintained that the two statements were not intended to imply a wish they had set more bombs.[28][29]...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers#cite_note-25

Here is the radical organization that claims both Ayers and Obama as former members.
http://www.woodsfund.org/site/epage/61430_735.htm