Bill Ayers - Domestic Terrorist or American Hero?

With all the recent controversy regarding Barack Obama's association with former Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers, I decided to do a little research on Mr. Ayers, something the media seems reluctant to do.

Who was and who is Mr. William Ayers now?

If you go back to the 1960s, you will discover that Bill Ayers was one of the people who restarted the FREE SCHOOL movement, a revolutionary concept in education. (We have revived the Free School movement right here on HipForums!) Bill was very concerned about our education system and how it was turning out people to become corporate robots and ideal consumers.

So Bill started the Children's Community, a Free School project in Michigan to offer an alternative to the state required public education.



Bill Ayers at the Children's Community School in Michigan just before he went underground

Here is an article I just posted to the Hippyland Archives about Bill Ayer's contribution to the Children's Community.
http://www.hippy.com/php/article.php?sid=361

So as you can see as far back as 1968, Bill Ayers was an Education activist, focused on the education of minority students. Obviously he shares this interest with Barack Obama, and that is why they know each other.

Right after this article was published, Bill Ayers had to go underground. This was because the group he founded, the Weather Underground, had just blown themselves up in a Greenwich Village townhouse while manufacturing bombs.

Bill himself has revealed in his autobiography, Fugitive Days: A Memoir published on Sept 10th, 2001 (the day before the WTC attack on 9/11), that he had indeed participated in bombing the Pentagon, the US Capitol building and NYC Police Headquarters! Yet Bill had all charges dismissed because he was under investigation by COINTELPRO, an illegal spying operation run by the US government. (Today the gov't can do exactly the same sort of spying, but it's now legal under President Bush).

Ayers was also active in the Weatherman's 1969 "Days of Rage" riots in Chicago, where 300 weathermen protested the war in Vietnam via violent acts. It was only the most violent protests such as this that got media attention.

You can find out more about Bill Ayers here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers

Bill Ayers is currently a DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR at the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago! (is that where all terrorists go?)

So my question is this: IS Bill Ayers a Domestic terrorist or an American Hero and freedom fighter?

 

If you wonder what could be considered heroic about bombing government buildings, consider the following...

The most radical elements during the 1960s showed the American public that the government had crossed the line during the Vietnam War. The line being the point at which Americans would no longer tolerate government sponsored VIOLENCE against human beings (wherever they lived).

To drive that point home, these radicals used violence themselves. In other words until Americans witnessed violence in their own country, they would not understand the impact that squadrons of B-52s carpet bombing Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos had upon the innocent people in those countries.

It was about bringing the war HOME to those who supported it.

This was an important issue, especially for "liberals" and "hippies" to understand. Most were peace-loving, non-violent types who could not condone the violent actions of the Weathermen and others.

But as today's new cycle proves, unless you do something so radical as bomb gov't buildings you won't get the media's attention to your cause. It was true then and it is even more so now.

The thing that all the peaceful protests seemed to be unable to do was end the war itself. But the threat of domestic violence by those who wished to end the war really brought home the fact that Americans would no longer stand idly by while the US gov't pursued it's inhumane imperialist policies.

And finally all the ruckus drummed up by the 60s activists is the main reason why YOU and following generations were never drafted into the armed services. Even conservatives now acknowledge that the American public won't stand for a draft for an imperialist war. That is something that these radicals from the 60s impressed upon the nation.

And yet we still let them have their wars, just so long as WE don't have to go... What a fucking cop-out of the succeeding generations! Where are the protests? (peaceful please!)

So in conclusion, the actions of Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground and others helped turn the tide against the war in Vietnam, helped rid the US of the draft, and probably saved thousands if not hundreds of thousands of lives, American and foreign.

Is that not the definition of a hero?

Watch this Video Documentary on the Weather Underground!

 

This is correct. They were after symbolic targets, not human beings.

Let's also remember that it was the Weathermen (not sure if it was Bill Ayers personally), who orchestrated the escape from prison of Timothy Leary who was in jail for a long time on trumped up cannabis charges. They helped Leary leave the country with a fake passport.

Anyone wanting to judge the weathermen must put their actions in context of what was going on at the time. How Nixon came to power, how people were taking to the streets in hundreds of thousands to protest the Vietnam War, how they were met with police violence against peaceful protests.

At the time our gov't had no qualms against using violence against its own citizens. Witness the Kent State massacre! So gov't violence was fine, killing innocent students was FINE! But REACTING to that violence by attacking the symbols of gov't was not.

 

Wanna see the REAL Domestic Terrorists?

Here they are:


You are looking at the terrorists who massacred students at Kent State University on May 4th, 1970. The students were peacefully protesting the war, when these government sponsored terrorists opened fire on them. They were ordered to do this from the highest levels of gov't.

The idea behind this attack on students was to INSTILL FEAR in them, so they would stop protesting the war in Vietnam. Similar, but not as deadly tactics are still being used to instill fear in those who would openly protest the policies of this current gov't.

Fear and intimidation are the tactics of terrorists, and in the 1960s and early 70s our gov't used terror tactics against its own citizens. These are the facts.

And the fact is it came down to just a few passionate groups who saw this and fought against it.

In my book they are heroes because the US doesn't KILL STUDENTS anymore for protests, they just beat the shit out of them, lock them up, spy on them, keep secret records of their activities, threaten and intimidate them now.

 

According to Bill Ayers, there was an argument that day and the previous one over whether to use anti-personnel bombs. He even speculates that that was the reason for the explosion in the townhouse. Someone didn't want the bomb to be used on innocent people (likely Diana Oughton).

 

LMAO!

Read this posting by Bill Ayers from the site mentioned above...

Dear American:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.


I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.


I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.


This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.


Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.


Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

 

Actually I believe there's a lot more to Obama and Ayers. They have a LOT in common, too much to have just met casually. They are both focused on education of minority groups. They both live in the same area of Chicago. Both men are activists and organizers.

It doesn't matter whether Ayers supports Obama or not. The question is whether Obama supports Ayers' educational philosophy, which apparently he does, and whether Obama would consider radical solutions to our society, along the lines Ayers did back in the 1960s.

Since Ayers is NOT CURRENTLY bombing anything, and hasn't in like 40 years, he's obviously not a terrorist today, and so anything he and Obama are up to together shouldn't SCARE people. Instead Ayers should be UPFRONT, discussing his ideas and Obama should EMBRACE HIM publicly, if he believes in the same ideas.

In any case this is the PERFECT time for America to RELIVE the events of the 1960s and discuss the role of government in our lives just as Ayers did then.

Unfortunately the whole Ayers things is something the Obama campaign doesn't want to bring up and the media is not wanting to go there either.

The plain fact that he bombed the Pentagon, Capitol and NYC police headquarters and GOT AWAY WITH IT, doesn't reflect well on the US gov't. Indeed it would also bring up the entire COINTELPRO debacle, which would then bring up GOVERNMENT DOMESTIC SPYING an issue that seems to have evaporated in this campaign...