[Peace-discuss] N-G Editorial on Ayers

[Jenifer Cartwright]

About what I'd expect from a NG editorial, Marti. We need to rebut this. I think most of us agree that the U of I did something right f(or a change) by hiring Ayers! 
 --Jenifer
 

--- On Wed, 10/29/08, Marti Wilkinson <martiwilki at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Marti Wilkinson <martiwilki at gmail.com>
Subject: [Peace-discuss] N-G Editorial on Ayers
To: "peace discuss" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>, "C-U Citzens for Peace and Justice" <discuss at lists.communitycourtwatch.org>
Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2008, 7:37 AM



Ayers ought to be UI embarrassment

Wednesday October 29, 2008
 A University of Illinois professor's history of criminality cannot be minimized.
The Associated Press reports that more than 3,200 people, identified as "mostly academics," have signed an online petition objecting to the "demonization" of University of Illinois-Chicago faculty member William Ayers.
Ayers is an admitted and unrepentant terrorist who, by his own admission, participated in more than 20 bombings in the early 1970s as part of a group of militant leftists known as the Weather Underground.
Ayers has come to national attention during the current presidential campaign because of a multiyear association with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Both live in the Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago. Until Obama's recent denunciations of Ayers for his "detestable" criminal conduct, the pair were longtime associates. Ayers was among Obama's active supporters for public office and Obama served as chairman of an education-related committee organized by Ayers.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain has challenged the wisdom of Obama's association with Ayers, but the public does not appear to be offended. Memories fade with time, so more people seem to accept Ayers' current persona as a professor than his former role as a political radical who engaged in serial criminal activities, urged the overthrow of the U.S. government, encouraged the poor and middle-class to "kill all the rich" and children to "kill your parents." 
Ayers' supporters are complaining bitterly about his "demonization," as the petition states. But any fair reading of Ayers' long history of criminality demonstrates that he has demonized himself.
In defense of his bombing spree, which he describes in detail in his memoir "Fugitive Days," Ayers downplays his conduct on the grounds that no one was injured. He's much too modest. There were numerous casualties left by Ayers and his Weather Underground associates, and he can't escape responsibility.
There was the 1970 bombing in Greenwich Village in New York, where Ayers' comrades, including his then-girlfriend Diana Oughton, were killed or injured. They were making bombs to use for an attack on Fort Dix, N.J., when an explosion occurred.
Let's not forget the Days of Rage in Chicago in 1969, when Ayers and his associates engaged in a vandalism spree in downtown Chicago and assaulted pedestrians. Richard J. Elrod, a former Cook County sheriff and current judge, was paralyzed in the melee.
In 1980, members of the Weather Underground, including Ayers' friend Kathy Boudin, robbed a Brink's truck. Two police officers and a security guard were murdered. Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, a law school graduate denied a law license in Illinois on character grounds, raised Boudin's son after she was arrested and imprisoned.
So don't get too carried away about what a swell fellow Ayers is. The son of a wealthy utility company executive, he's a moral reprobate who brags that not only does he not regret his criminal behavior but that he wishes he and his fellow revolutionaries had been more destructive.
His presence on the University of Illinois faculty should be a source of shame, not grounds to leap to the defense of an indefensible man. _______________________________________________
Peace-discuss mailing list
Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss



      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20081029/18e1e4ad/attachment.html