Getting Passionate
As I was saying yesterday, I think the conservative effort to demonize Bill Ayers as somehow the greatest monster of American history is absurd. He was involved in violent extremism amidst an era of extremism in American politics and plenty of his contemporaries did worse stuff in the name of upholding white supremacy or prosecuting the Vietnam War than anything Ayers did in opposition to it. That said, my former boss Mike Tomasky is sure right to call BS on this statement in support of Ayers:
The current characterizations of Professor Ayers—”unrepentant terrorist,” “lunatic leftist”—are unrecognizable to those who know or work with him. It’s true that Professor Ayers participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Martin Luther King, Jr. participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements. And yet he never set bombs anywhere, nor advocated that anyone else set bombs anywhere. Ayers did. Was Ayers more passionate than King? No. Was Ayers more violent than King? Yes. And King was right and Ayers was wrong — that’s really all there is to it. Now and again you do see a strand of thought on the left that equates willingness to engage in violence with one’s level of passion and commitment. That was the Weather Underground in its day, and it also I think represents the thinking of some of the so-called “liberal hawks” of the 21st century. But the notion that passionate commitment to the cause of justice is best exemplified by killing people — and especially by a “tough-minded” willingness to contemplate killing innocent people — is ludicrous.
The “unrepentant terrorist” thing is a bit complicated. One thing you can say in Ayers’ defense is that it’s perfectly clear from his present-day conduct that he, in fact, realizes that unleashing a podunk domestic terrorism campaign would be a stupid and immoral thing to do. He could be going around setting off bombs. Instead, he’s a professor and a community activist. On the other hand, he seems sufficiently entrenched in egomania and self-righteousness that he can’t bring himself to actually admit that. And until he does admit that he was wrong, he’s hard to defend.
84 Responses to “Getting Passionate”
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October 8th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
And he looks like a complete douchebag. Please stop posting his picture. It makes me wish someone would give him the Dick Fuld treatement.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Kudos. I’m glad that those on the left have the huevos to shun characters like Ayers. As opposed to those feckless righties that never call out the shady characters in their midsts
also,
Instead, he’s a professor and a community activist.
man, what are you doing? Don’t call him a community activist! that is way to close to community organizer. and since they were both Profs, they’ll totally say that Obama and Ayers are like the same thing.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Ayers is just another example of the Chicago Way, like Tony Rezko. Rezko was, from 1984 onward, the brains behind the Black Muslims financial operations, even though he is a white Christian. But he rose up to be the power behind the throne in the state government because that’s how Chicago works — nothing disqualifies you from being a power player as long as you have clout. This is the environment that Obama chose for himself and one that he has done nothing to clean up.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
A few short months ago, I was blissfully unaware that Bill Ayers was alive. He has no relevance to this presidential election. He’s not running for office. Obama met him, like, six or seven times. They were not friends.
No reason to talk about this guy– except the right-wing wants us to.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
It’s a disgrace that the University of Chicago hired him.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I’ll defend him, with the caveat that I was either not born, or an infant when his pipe bomb killed one or more people.
The political and military leadership of this country comitted war crimes (i.e. use of napalm) against innocent Vietnamese civilians. They also continued to sacrifice lives the lives of American soldiers even after being informed that the war was unwinnable.
So why is everybody so upset that Ayers pulled a tragic, stupid stunt in protest, while our leadership gets a free pass?
“A single death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.”
Uncle Joe Stalin
October 8th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
If you read the list of signers of this statement, you’ll notice that #1250 is Rich Lowry of NRO … National Review Online. This is what Rich Lowry said in his column at NRO:
“The press will howl — already a writer for The Associated Press has deemed the Ayers attack “racially tinged” — but a relationship with a terrorist is obviously legitimate campaign fodder. ”
Curious …
I agree with your take on the statement as a whole. But seeing Lowry’s name there makes a little voice inside my head wonder if a “Support Bill Ayers” Web site doesn’t help the McCain folks by keeping this guy’s actions from 40 years ago in the spotlight.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
When thinking about Bill Ayers, it’s probably also worth remembering that while the Weathermen didn’t manage to kill anyone (other than some of their own members), they were planning to and he was aware of this.
On the other hand, the association between Obama and Ayers seems to be very very weak so while Ayers seems to be a fairly unpleasant guy, there’s no reason to hold this against Obama.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
What Scott said. John McCain, UNLIKE AYERS, actually did kill innocent civilians. At least he did apologize for it, though as he did so under duress the sincerity of the apology may be doubted.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
“Now and again you do see a strand of thought on the left that equates willingness to engage in violence with one’s level of passion and commitment. That was the Weather Underground in its day, and it also I think represents the thinking of some of the so-called “liberal hawks” of the 21st century. ”
That is an utterly ludicrous comparison. Where to start? If the point is equating violence with commitment, that is not a notion that is confined in any way, shape, or form to the left. In fact, it far better characterizes the right.
If the point is to make some sort of comparison between the liberal hawks and the weather underground, trust me, there are none. The lib hawks were opportunists and careerists smack dab in the center of American politics 2002. The weather underground were, even in their time, a lunatic fringe, respected by virtually no one.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
To be fair, Matt, I don’t think that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s tactics would have worked everywhere. The U.S. didn’t leave Vietnam because of Ayers’ tactics, but nor did it leave Vietnam because of King’s. The United States left Vietnam because it no longer wanted to deal with violent resistance by the Vietnamese people. Which shows that violent resistance can be, sometimes, legitimate- just not in Ayers’ case.
Ayers was a stupid idiot for thinking that the tactics that might be legitimate, and to some extent successful, in a place like Saigon, Buenos Aires, or Algiers were either legitimate or had a chance of success in the United States. But it was a time in which violent resistance was winning victories all over the globe, and in which it was perhaps less culpable than it might have otherwise been for thinking they might work in the United States too. Ayers was wrong, but he was far less wrong than the people that sent John McCain into war, especially given that the Weathermen killed three people in their entire career, as opposed to three million.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
P.S. There are times when I really can understand the contempt 60s radicals had for liberals.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
It’s a disgrace that the University of Chicago hired him.
The University of Chicago didn’t hire him.
On the other hand, he seems sufficiently entrenched in egomania and self-righteousness that he can’t bring himself to actually admit that. And until he does admit that he was wrong, he’s hard to defend.
Although I don’t disagree with Matt’s words, I wonder if there are legal reasons Ayers doesn’t want to make a public apology. Not that that, of course, would necessarily justify the (im)morality of not admitting wrong-doing…
October 8th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Honestly, that Ayers is even the topic of discussion is absurd. He. Is. Irrelevant.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
You know, Matt, I’d love it if someone like yourself in the punditocracy/wonkosphere could comment on the fact that, without violent revolution, there would be no United States. Am I analogizing Ayers and the Founding Fathers? No. Do I support Ayers and the Weather Underground in their violence? Not at all. Do I think it was tactically, morally and politically a terrible thing to do? Of course. But far too many bloggers and pundits are speaking as if there is never a time when violence in the pursuit of justice or emancipation is called for. And the simple fact is that this nation was literally founded on the opposite notion.
And lest you think that you can escape the question by asserting that the American Revolutionaries didn’t attack civilians, let me disabuse you of that misconception. Tories and British loyalists were terrorized during the war for independence. Their homes and businesses were burned. They were heckled, stoned, and tortured. (Despite what you see on cartoons, tarring and feathering wasn’t just humiliating, but was physically agonizing to go through.) And, indeed, many were outright murdered in the course of throwing off British rule.
Were those things justified? Difficult question. I’m inclined to say no. But stop pretending that there are never situations where violence is justified, or even responsible.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Well done, Matt. This is exactly right.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
“Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye”:
“Now and again you do see a strand of thought on the left that equates willingness to engage in violence with one’s level of passion and [seriousness]”
Is that right? Really, your passing reference to “liberal hawks” is laughably self-serving.
So, make the case. How can you have been right (as you have said, the arguments made against the war were stupid–remember those Harvard days?) and Ayers wrong (not as if it matters, but I think you’re both full of shit)? If all you can offer is your squeamishness, you have no moral position worthy of the name.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
John M. Murtaugh– the son of the NY Supreme Court justice whose home was firebombed by Ayers and Co. — has a prety strong statement out this morning asking wny Obama continued to associate with the guy for 12 years without ever denouncing his past activities ( http://thepage.time.com/mccain-release-on-ayers/ ). Fair enough; but then by the same token I’dlike to know why McCain is currenty gushing ovr G. Gordon Liddy.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
So, like, after this year it’s done, right? No more talk about Vietnam or 60’s radicals? Or if I run in 2040 will I have to be careful not to mention that I own a cd version of Kick Out the Jams?
October 8th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Just in case Jasper’s comment was unclear to Peter, Ayers is a professor at the University of Illinois- Chicago. An entirely different institution.
On Tristero’s point: the fact that there are a whole bunch of obvious differences between the Weathermen and the liberal hawks does not obviate Matt’s point that there are some similarities. Both had a tendency to equate a willingness to use violence to achieve one’s goals with the seriousness of commitment to those goals. That’s the wrong way to think about things, and its worthwhile pointing out that its wrong, even if its a wrong more frequently committed on the right.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Oh, and Brian? Yglesias, during his “Harvard days”, initially supported the Iraq War because (like quite a lot of us) he lacked the imagination to think that Cheney and Rumsfeld could possibly be stupid enough to deliberately get us into a war with a country which they were aware had no significant nuclear weapons program.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Matt: Take a look through this thread. You want to continue to get stroked by the likes of Steve Sailer? (Ewwww!) Or do you want to focus on the evident absurdity of l’affaire Ayers, as so many smart people here implore you to do? The days of Vietnam were days of rage. Justifiable rage–even if everything done in its name was not justifiable. But you’re trying to boil it all down to some Kantian maxim. Dude–it’s a waste of time, energy, and focus. The good works of Bill Ayers and the life he has lived since his complex, compromised youth speak for themselves. Don’t go and lay a David Broder turd on the whole thing.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Ignore it and let the right keep talking about it – that way we win the demographics.
I became politically aware in the mid 60’s and WWII was ancient history to me – and it was almost 20 years closer than Vietnam is now. The kids don’t want to hear about it any more.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Ayers needs no defence. He’s a despicable guy who did very despicable stuff. I don’t understand why MY says he’s hard to defend.
The bottomline is that Ayers is a bad guy but Barack Obama is not Ayers and Ayers is not Barack Obama.
I think wingnuts might latch on to Ayers’ association with BO, but they way overestimate its importance as a political fact that should sway an election. Most politicians have been associated in several ways with fairly despicable people.
The remarkable thing about Obama is that he has rather few of these types even though the media coverage pushed by wingnuttery will make it seem the other way.
If we started with McCain’s associations that are often much more substantively troubling, it’d be clear the Ayers meme is nonsense.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I will also confess that I’m a bit puzzled by Yglesias’ statement that “you do see a strand of thought on the left that equates willingness to engage in violence with one’s level of passion and commitment… [which] also I think represents the thinking of some of the so-called ‘liberal hawks’ of the 21st century.” Remove “[specifically] on the left” and “liberal” from that statement, and it’s quite accurate — by far most of the enthusiasm for militarily slugging it out brainlessly during our current conflict with Islamism is coming from right-wing hawks, not liberal ones. (See “McCain, John” as just one of a multitude of examples.)
October 8th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Just in case Jasper’s comment was unclear to Peter, Ayers is a professor at the University of Illinois- Chicago. An entirely different institution.
Thanks for the clarification.
It actually makes matters worse, as the University of Illinois-Chicago is a taxpayer-funded university.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
While agreeing with those who say Ayers is utterly irrelevant to the presidential campaign and tells us nothing of interest about Obama, in view of the fact that we’ve been hearing about Ayers non-stop for what seems like years, I wonder if someone could–er um–actually find out a little about him. It’s the kind of job that one might once have expected journalists to do, but these days that is probably too much to hope for. But perhaps a more journalistic blog could try to get some facts straight.
Did or did the Weather Underground kill anyone? The comments above and on the Guardian web site make confident claims but conflicting claims about this.
If they didn’t (kill anyone) was this by accident? I.e., were there plans afoot to kill (or which would likely have had the effect of killing) people? Again there seems to be conflicting reports about this.
How unrepentant is Ayers? There seems to be a(n unpublished?) letter from the man to the NY Times that mentions regrets of some kind. He wrote a book. What does he say in it? There were, perhaps, some interviews? There was a documentary film about the Weathermen a few years ago with interviews
Has anyone tried to talk to Ayers recently? to people he’s worked with (on some of those famous boards say)?
Though slightly older than Obama (and thus to young to have paid any attention to the events as they were taking place), I have long sympathized with the remark about the Weather underground attributed to people involved in radical politics at the time ‘we don’t need a rectal thermometer to tell who the assholes are’. (I think I get this from the peerless Stuart Klawans). Nevertheless I can sympathize with at least one motive that I would guess holds him and others back from a ‘full recantation’ (along quite possibly with others that are less creditable), namely an unwillingness to vindicate or appear to vindicate the lazy right wing view, which has now become received wisdom, that the Weather Underground and other (to my way of thinking vastly better) efforts to oppose the war were as a completely context-less bit of crazy anti-Americanism. It may well be self-serving, but there is also something right and vitally important about old Weather Underground people’s efforts to place what they did in the context of the times, in particular a criminal war waged by our government by exceptionally barbarous means responsible for human suffering on an unimaginable scale. I think it must be a bit like some ex-communists unwillingness to testify before HUAC and that sort of thing. ‘I was wrong, but not because you were right’
October 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Freddie: “You know, Matt, I’d love it if someone like yourself in the punditocracy/wonkosphere could comment on the fact that, without violent revolution, there would be no United States.”
easy to resolve, the American Revolution (the violent rebellion by the colonies against Britian) was itself not really justified. We would have/should have gotten independence anyway without having to start wars over petty shit.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Actually, as Michael Scherer pointed out ( http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/10/is_john_mccain_supported_by_te.html ): “Ambassador William Annenberg [was] the founder of the Annenberg Institute of Reform, which funded the Annenberg Challenge, which once had two famous board members: former ‘domestic terrorist’ William Ayers and Sen. Barack Obama.” So, yeah; it’s also a disgrace that an organization created by one of Richard Nixon’s closest and most unrepentant lifetime friends and supporters hired Ayers and kept him on.
Now, about Liddy…
October 8th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Y’all should just shut the fuck up about this guy. This bullshit happened 40 YEARS BEFORE I WAS BORN, and there are people ten years my junior who are voting in these elections. It is irrelevant. Fuck Vietnam. Okay? FUCK VIETNAM. I cannot wait till all the goddam Babyboomers are too old to be viable candidates and we can focus on what really matters, like what kind of lettuce someone buys at the supermarket or how he prefers his tunafish sandwiches.
What’s more, this “scandal” originates in pretend outrage from the right, and it only highlights how little conservatives understand that America has changed, largely in reaction to conservative rule. If, as some have suggested, they run with this tactic, they will die by their own sword, and ruin conservatism for at least a generation.
I hope they run with it.
But the correct response from Democrats is mockery, not a reasoned defense. They are political clowns now. It’s better to call attention to how silly their attacks are, rather than legitimizing them by getting into a back-and-forth over the appropriateness of 40 year old violent protest.
“What does that have to do with the price of gas? Nothing? Okay then. Let’s talk about something the American people actually care about.”
October 8th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
“nothing disqualifies you from being a power player as long as you have clout.”
In other words, nothing disqualifies you from being a power player as long as you have power. Top flight analysis, that.
Also: Power Politics Unique to Chicago!
October 8th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Rich C:
” Both [weathermen and liberal hawks] had a tendency to equate a willingness to use violence to achieve one’s goals with the seriousness of commitment to those goals.”
Weathermen personally engaged in violence against the police and the government. The liberal hawks wanted others to kill mass quantities of people on their behalf.
The only thing they have in common is that they are wrong. There is no tendency on the American left to equate violence with passion. There is a tendency, period, across the political spectrum to equate violence with passion. Thus the support for Eric Rudolph on the right and other clinic bombers.
Matt’s point was ludicrous.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
“If the point is equating violence with commitment, that is not a notion that is confined in any way, shape, or form to the left. In fact, it far better characterizes the right.”
Oh, Tristero, learn to think. Matt said “Now and again you do see a strand on the left” that feels this way. He didn’t say “The American Left is constantly advocating violence.”
October 8th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous.
from an Obama press release on Ayers from months ago.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Oh, okay. But UC-Berkeley employing John Woo is all-righty then?
My dad was a professor at Madison and I was a kid when radicals bombed the Army Math Research Center there. It was not only tragic (for the person killed, which apparently was not intentional) but stupid – most of the tacit support and sympathy the anti-war protesters had had from the faculty evaporated then and there.
The pious disgust with one person’s failed attempt at criminal protest four decades ago is laughable. Most of you weren’t a gleam in your parents’ eye at the time and have no clue. Here I thought Republicans and the punditocracy were the only ones still obsessed with the 60s.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Tristero: “Weathermen personally engaged in violence against the police and the government. The liberal hawks wanted others to kill mass quantities of people on their behalf. The only thing they have in common is that they are wrong.”
And not that they thought violence was a valuable tactic and a proof of seriousness, without considering its consequence? No connection to Christopher Hitchens’ excitement at 9/11? No?
Seriously, why do you blog?
October 8th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
That was the Weather Underground in its day, and it also I think represents the thinking of some of the so-called “liberal hawks” of the 21st century.
What about Afghanistan? What about Obama going into Pakistan to get OBL? Will he be doing peaceably, I wonder? This righteous talk of violence is nonsense.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Only the Shakers and their backers in Big Oatmeal are consitent. People who talk about bad Iraq and good Afghanistan are being hypocritical.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
This bullshit happened 40 YEARS BEFORE I WAS BORN, and there are people ten years my junior who are voting in these elections.
The Weather Underground was founded, I beleive in 1969. Certainly not much earlier.
So, remind us to wish you a happy birth next year.
And are there really people who vote at age -10? Maybe the R’s have a point about voter fraud after all . . .
October 8th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I think “Kick out the Jams” would be fine. The 60’s/DFH thing should burn itself out by 2036 but to be on the safe side, destroy all copies of “Barbarella”.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
And now for more on that McCain-Liddy connection – first via Wikipedia:
“In 1980, Liddy published an autobiography, titled ‘Will’, which sold more than a million copies and was made into a television movie. In it he states that he once made plans with Hunt to kill journalist Jack Anderson, based on a literal interpretation of a Nixon White House statement ‘we need to get rid of this Anderson guy’…
“Some of his [radio talk-show comments shortly after the Branch Davidian raid] led to condemnation by then President Bill Clinton…
“August 26, 1994 – ‘Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they’re going to be wearing bulletproof vests … They’ve got a big target on there, ATF. Don’t shoot at that, because they’ve got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots…. Kill the sons of bitches.’
“September 15, 1994 – ‘If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they’re wearing flak jackets and you’re better off shooting for the head.’ ”
Now, via Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune last May ( http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0504chapmanmay04,0,6238795.column ):
“In 1998, Liddy’s home was the site of a McCain fundraiser. Over the years, he has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to the senator’s campaigns — including $1,000 this year.
“Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as ‘an old friend,’ and McCain sounded like one. ‘I’m proud of you, I’m proud of your family,’ he gushed. ‘It’s always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.’
“…[Regarding Liddy's Branch Davidian advice], he mentioned labeling targets ‘Bill’ and ‘Hillary’ when he [himself] practiced shooting…
“I made repeated inquiries [on the subject of Liddy] to [McCain's] campaign aides, which they refused to acknowledge, much less answer. On this topic, the pilot of the Straight Talk Express would rather stay parked in the garage.”
October 8th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Matt is engaging in typical “liberalism” here- “We must condemn violence on our side as thoroughly as we condemn violence on their side- and if we have only one violent person to 100,000 of theirs, our violent person must be condemned 100,000 times as strongly”.
That kind of talk has nothing to do with Gandhi or Martin Luther King. It’s just hopeless mushy-headedness well illustrated by the idea of the “liberal hawk”. Anyone who actually believes that Gandhi or King would have supported a military effort to establish freedom or justice should donate their brain to science.
This current thinking is well-suited for a life in Franco’s Spain, and I would be perfectly happy if it resulted in a Socialist government, as did eventually emerge from Franco’s dictatorship.
Gandhi and King evolved doctrines suited to total powerlessness. Ayers did not come from a background of powerlessness. None of that matters anymore, and if you want to be involved with something of ongoing significance, you’d be better off joining the Bahaii faith and going to an eight-sided church- they’ll probably still be around 50 years from now.
But as for the idea that Ayers should participate in some Stalinesque show trial and renounce his own crimes, I will just say what my father said to me- “Vas you dar, Sharlie? Vas you dar?”
October 8th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I just want to say that Jane Fonda was smoking hot back in the day. Well, there goes my chances at elected office. Here is the pretty link. href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak1227_mOqU”>
October 8th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
fixed link I hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak1227_mOqU
October 8th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Ayers killed no one.
His contemporary, Henry Kissinger murdered hundreds of thousands for political advantage.
And Matthew Yglesias endorsed the invasion of Iraq.
Who should be shunned?
PS Violence was and IS wrong (even in March 2003 Matt)
BUT – 1970 was a violent time, and violence begets violence. Any discussion of the Weather Underground without noting the constant political assasinations (always of leftists or people of color)and the evil of COINTELPRO is just one sided propaganda and revisionism.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
I’ll buy that Ayers sees that terrorism would be stupid. I don’t buy that he views it as immoral. As recently as 2001, he said he had no regrets, other than believing that “they hadn’t done enough”.
You know, if Obama merely accepted the reality of this: Ayers is a despicable, evil man who he never should have given the time of day to – it would go away. The fact that he won’t do that is disturbing.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Well, it seems to me that Ayers’ history over at least the past 30 years has been a history of peaceful and peaceable participation in American society. Not only has he been a “law-abiding citizen” during that time, but he has extended himself as a valued and valuable member of his community.
I wonder how many of his critics could make the same statement about their own lives. It’s one thing to spend two years as a “community organizer” between stints at expensive universities and another to spend nearly your entire adult life doing the same kind of work.
AFAICS, nobody in this discussion or in the others has actually talked to the subject or communicated any factual detail. Every discussion, including this one, has been entirely speculative.
God offers a path to repentance and from there to forgiveness. It’s a path few Americans seem willing to tread, nor an option they’re willing to put on offer. “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment that you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”
Thanks.
mp
October 8th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Whatever tool they use to associate Obama with “terrorism”, it’s ridiculous to paint him as being radical. As far as I can tell, he’s not even particularly liberal.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
In 1969, Ayers was 25; MLK, Jr. was 40. Do you think perhaps that King’s age (and the wisdom that really does come with it) might have had something to do with his ability to judge correctly in those days of rage?
October 8th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
First off…You initially supported the Iraq war? Dude! What? Huh!?
Second…Ayers is important, insofar as he represents what Obama rejected with his entrance into public life. Obama at some point early on figured that radical activism was not the answer to changing the system. Instead, he focused his energy on gaining power and relevance for his ideas within the system. And that comes with a fair share of compromises, but the result is much more good than bad. And it has been much more effective than Ayers’ long-ago violence. So that’s the relationship. Not that they are similar, but that they are dissimilar.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
In the early 1970’s I was a student at UCLA. Somebody set fire to one of the ramshackle plywood parking kiosks on campus. When I heard some wannabe revolutionaries excitedly discussing this “revolutionary act”, I could only roll my eyes and predict that Nixon would be overwhelmingly re-elected.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
MLK was part of a broad grassroots movement that networked among many congregations and political organizations for years before they started marching. Non-violent resistance was the bedrock of the civil-rights movement led by MLK and others. Dr. King studied Christ, Ghandi,and Thoreau. He was surrounded by other brilliant and passionate leaders who mentored him.
Civil disobedience is a discipline, and the Freedom Marchers were trained in the tactics of non-violent resistance. People of all ages participated in the sit-ins, boycotts, and marches. Many were killed by police and lynch mobs, but they persisted. MLK inspired them not to lose heart. It took decades of work to build the civil rights movement. It only appears to have sprung up spontaneously in the media. A lot of other groups thought that just making the news was making progress.
Maybe the reason everyone wonders who Ayers and the Weathermen were, is because they didn’t do the work that a transformative movement requires.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
“You know, Matt, I’d love it if someone like yourself in the punditocracy/wonkosphere could comment on the fact that, without violent revolution, there would be no United States.”
Come on now. MATT HAS SPECIFICALLY POSTED THAT THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED and that without the Revolution we would have followed the more peaceful independence path of other English colonial entities.
Additionally, Marxism has been the biggest scar within liberalism for the past 100 years. And Marxist thought legitimizes violent actions within a country.
So I think it’s smart for Yglesias and other liberals to distance themselves from intra-national violence, regardless of the atmosphere of the 60’s or how well intentioned the violence was.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Just finished watching the documentary “The Weather Underground” last night. I can’t believe this film hasn’t been mentioned yet (unless I’ve missed it) because it prominently features Ayers and gives the strange and disturbing history of the Weathermen.
In the film, Todd Gitlin delivers a really stirring condemnation of the weathermen and their tactics.
Really fascinating film. And, needless to say, totally irrelevant to either Barack Obama or his campaign.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
You know, I think at least one reason to bring up Ayers is to bring up this rehashing of old wounds, essentially the question, “are you now or have you ever been a member of one of those infantile leftist groups that set off bombs in the late 60 and early 70s”? and to call quote, bs, unquote on a petition in support Ayers is simply more of the fragging liberals first became known for in Chicago. Some people have made whole careers out of saying their colleagues were idiots in this time and this place. (Cf. Gitlin, Berman) it leads one to start quoting Foucault on the need to identify the fascist in oneself, but of course such nuances are often read by the liberal press as trivialities of academia. In any case, the ritual trotting out of this meme makes me think of a shared psychiatric disorder, liberal and conservative, of the american cultural mainstream.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
I know Bill Ayers somewhat and I like and respect him. I have even been to his infamous living room. I think the Weathermen may have been crazy – but they were driven to their madness by the genocidal war in Vietnam.
Their crimes pales in comparison to the murderous designs of the Best and the Brightest that supported war in Indochina, many of whom are still respectable personalities in D.C. and beyond – may the ghosts of millions of dead Vietnamese swarm their bedchambers and drag them screaming to Hell.
Incidentally, Dohrn seemed dismissive and even contemptuous of the Obama campaign last I heard her speak. These people still believe in revolutionary politics, they are not “Democrats.”
October 8th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
#
Spare the Phil Ochs rant, please. Trust me, the feelings were mutual. Ninety-nine plus percent of those of us who opposed the war in Indochina had nothing but contempt–your word–for the violent, immoral, not to mention counterproductive acts and statements of the Weatherman. This is no attack on Obama, whom I have fervently supported from the beginning. It would be nice if Ayers and Dohrn had publicly disavowed the nutso behavior of their privileged youth, but so be it. This case should have been closed last spring, when the subject came up in the primary race and was dealt with effectively by Obama.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Violence per se is neither right nor wrong. What matters is when it is engaged in, by whom, against whom, and for what purpose.
Ayers and the Weathermen were correct to use violence to oppose greater violence. They were stupid and incompetent at it, of course, but correct.
Matt’s support of the invasion of Iraq – and his current support for enhanced military action in Afghanistan (and probably Pakistan, although he hasn’t made any clear statement about that) – which WILL result in the deaths of thousands of civilians in those countries – was incorrect, stupid, and incompetent.
Of course, Matt personally hasn’t hurt anybody, so he’s responsible only for being incorrect, stupid and incompetent.
Neither did Ayers.
Ayers wins.
It’s that simple.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
raft:
the American Revolution (the violent rebellion by the colonies against Britian) was itself not really justified. We would have/should have gotten independence anyway without having to start wars over petty shit.
Yeah, about the same time as India, maybe.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
“Terrorists terrorize, they kill innocent civilians, while we organized and agitated. Terrorists destroy randomly, while our actions bore, we hoped, the precise stamp of a cut diamond. Terrorists intimidate, while we aimed only to educate. No, we’re not terrorists.” Those are Bill Ayres’
words. Why should he apologize.
The notion that Bill Ayres is an evil man and Henry Kissinger is a respected member of society is ludicrous.
We were an idealistic group of people trying to confront the injustices of the world. We didn’t get it right all the time.
To the best of my knowledge the weatherman never purposefully tried to hurt anyone. You can’t say the same of the people who were dropping the naplam all over Vietnam or murdering Fred Hampton while he slept.
Mostly I would say you were there and you don’t understand
October 8th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Make that:
you weren’t there and you don’t understand
October 8th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Raenelle,
MLK Jr. was the front person for the non-violent Montgomery bus boycott in 1956 when he was around 27. He did not live to see his 40th birthday. Before then he was consistently an apostle of non-violence.
I despise Ayers and the whole Ramparts and Weather Underground crowd because they helped destroy liberal politics in America for a great long time. With a little luck some of this damage will be undone in the next few weeks.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Well it’s clear the founders of this nation wanted the people to topple a tyrannical government, by force if necessary, rather than be subjugated. Guess he thought it was bad enough to follow up on that sentiment.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
One thing you can say in Ayers’ defense is that it’s perfectly clear from his present-day conduct that he, in fact, realizes that unleashing a podunk domestic terrorism campaign would be a stupid and immoral thing to do. He could be going around setting off bombs. Instead, he’s a professor and a community activist.
I’m not trying to criticize your mind-reading skills but it’s not really clear what you’re basing this on. Ayers seems to realize that setting off bombs would be pointless today (or maybe he just got old and tired) but I don’t see any evidence that he thinks what he did 30 years ago was stupid and immoral, which is what’s actually at issue in terms of “repentance”
October 8th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Ayers is a self-important horse’s ass.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
TheHova,
Marxism, and socialism in general, aren’t movements ‘within liberalism’. They are anti-liberal movements of the left, and quite rightly (for all their other flaws, they do realize that liberalism is a sham.)
Violent acts against the power structure in a country are neither right nor wrong, per se. In order for them to justified, the cause needs to be sufficiently grave, the victims need to be in some way part of the oppressive government or military structure, it needs to be a last resort, and the violence needs to be waged on behalf of some kind of legitimate authority- i.e. the insurgency or shadow government needs to speak for a reasonable segment of the population. Quite clearly, Ayers and the Weatherman didn’t quite use violence as a ‘last resort’, and they represented no one by themselves. America in the 1960s was not ready for a revolution, and the subsequent history of the country proved it.
None of that goes to prove that political violence , _per se_ is either good or bad. Considerable bloodshed was needed in order to get rid of slavery in this country, and to get rid of oppressive power structures in many other countries.
Lastly, I would not cite Gandhi as some sort of proof that nonviolence is always the answer. Gandhi’s tactics worked because he was fighting against an imperialist power with a bad conscience, which had (at least for the past hundred years or so) not had much of a stomach for mass bloodshed, and moreover one that had been left weak and impoverished by fighting the Nazis. Gandhi’s tactics would not have worked for Serbs fighting the Nazi occupation, or even for the Vietnamese fighting the French occupation.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
In 1969, Ayers was 25; MLK, Jr. was 40. Do you think perhaps that King’s age (and the wisdom that really does come with it) might have had something to do with his ability to judge correctly
In 1955, King led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, practicing nonviolence even though his own home was bombed.. He was 26 years old.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Not to beat a dead horse, but MLK was a part of a greater movement. He was a leader among leaders, and he had a disciplined “following” (can’t think of a better word, right now—they weren’t a bunch of sycophants).
There were more FBI posing as Weathermen than there were Weathermen. It is highly likely that the FBI inspired the bomb-making and provided instruction. It was easy for the government to discredit a lot of social movements in the 60s by having them infiltrated and co-opted. That was hardly necessary, but the Nixon administration was very paranoid. Since the groups were small, not particularly well organized, and insular, it wasn’t difficult for the government to make straw men out of them and knock them down in the public eye.
It’s hard to tell what to believe about a lot of these groups now, for many reasons—one being that they have a tendency to mythologize themselves.
If a time comes when violent opposition is sensible, I think that it will clearly be in self-defense, and not the result of a committee meeting that thought an act of violence would be the proper symbolic act that would play well on television.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Unfortunately, in 1969, MLK, Jr. was no longer alive.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Unfortunately. And I don’t like to elevate martyrdom, but there is something to be said for his influence being so powerful that he truly threatened the status quo when he began to speak out passionately against the Viet Nam war.
Sorry to those who are tired of hearing about Viet Nam, but there are many parallels between that war and Iraq. I suspect that if someone doesn’t pull American troops out of Iraq soon, there will be a “Saigon moment”, and our troops will be forced out in a way that will be difficult to spin. Of course, they’ll try to spin it anyway.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Hector, you make some valid points.
The bottom line is that Obama should make every effort to disassociate himself from late 1960’s/early 1970’s. Obama has done a terrific job of doing this (which is part of the reason of Obama’s success of capturing the youth vote who can’t stand hearing baby boomers talk about the 60’s).
October 9th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Matt, I think your denunciation here is basically facile and meaningless. I actually have a hard time denouncing Ayers on moral grounds. Hell, your denunciation here basically goes beyond the formal administration of justice in his case. When it comes down to it, the only reason we’re hearing about Ayers today is because the justice system couldn’t do anything with him twenty-eight years ago. I mean when it comes down to it, the only reason you get to denounce Ayers today is because law enforcement was so corrupt and inept. If anything, any denunciation of Ayers today should be accompanied with harsher denunciation of the FBI.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:37 am
Obama should not have to defend himself from the 60s and 70s, because he was a minor during the 60s and 70s. And, thehova, in all likelihood, if you’re still alive forty years from now, you will find yourself talking with your peers about things that are happening now, and the fact that your children don’t give a shit about it won’t make it any less meaningful to you.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:56 am
I am totally opposed to Bill Ayers and Barack Obama blowing up the Pentagon.
Surely, as President, Obama can simply order it closed down or turned into a giant patchouli production center.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Malcolm X
October 9th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Don Quijote,
Indeed. People tend to forget that King was but one side of the African-American liberation movement.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:25 am
I like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn a lot. Their work since they came out from the underground has been exemplary. I think it’s worth noting, whenever the topic arises, the craziness of the times and the moral urgency that fueled their folly, along with the fact that after blowing up some of their own, they made a conscious decision to engage in only symbolic violence, being careful not to bomb people but buildings (toilets, mostly).
But his stubborn refusal to recognize that his actions then were not only immoral but wildly counter-effective is shocking and, yes, egomaniacal. The Weathermen, more than most expressions of the New Left after it had disassociated itself with reality amidst the madness of the late ’60s/early ’70s, did tremendous damage to their cause and ours.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:25 am
If Ayers wasn’t convicted it’s quite possibly because he didn’t commit a crime. There were grand juries all over the country and IIRC not one of them returned a true bill of indictment after considering the evidence.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:11 am
If Ayers is such a dangerous terrorist, why is he still walking around? Why isn’t he in prison? Why don’t they throw him in Guantanamo?
October 9th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
hehe, the timid face of liberal hawkishness, the kind which led you to support the travesty that is the Iraq war in the first place, reveals itself a bit here.
run as fast as you can to denounce the Republican’s boogeyman du jour!!! denounce! denounce!
you imply, seriously, that Ayers killed people. provide some eivdence of this, or shut up about it. he did not kill people, and was never convicted of any crime. he used inane methods to try to stop the war in Vietnam, yes, which involved causing ‘terror’ to innocent people at times. but your implications beyond this are sad to see, and fundamentally wrong.
too ready to take these criticisms too far, it seems.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
for real, if this were the 1960’s, Yglesias would be one of those ’sensible liberals’ denouncing MLK for speaking out against Vietnam, as many many liberals at the time did.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Professor Ayers should read ‘Nixonland’ to see how much easier he made life for Republican campaigns. They would help these guys out so they could run against their childish & violent antics.
I would like to see have a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment before the election. I’m not counting on it, he seems very enamoured of his cachet among the marxist clique at his university.
I bet he thinks it helps him score some pussy.
I’m not against protesting, but you have to be savvy enough to anticipate how your enemies (who owned newspapers, etc.) might try & twist your protests & thus tailor your visuals, etc. to not make it so easy for them to paint you as a DFH.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Paul in KY,
Actually, most serious Marxist intellectuals in the United States and Europe opposed efforts by people like the Weathermen to re-enact third world insurgencies in places like Rome, Berlin or Chicago. See Eric Hobsbawm’s withering dismissal of ‘radicals’ like Ayers and his crew.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Network is such a relevant movie right now.
“Is that the group that kidnapped Patty Hearst?”
“No. That was the Symbionese Liberation Army. This is the Ecumenical Liberation Army. They kidnapped Mary Anne Gifford.”