Fri, 14 Nov 2008
Re: Former radical distances himself from Obama

 Stop calling Bill Ayers a radical. He demeans the term. I am former member of the Students for a Democratic Society, the largest student movement in US history (which Ayers helped to destroy) and radical yet today. There was never anything radical about born-to-wealth Bill Ayers. He always opposed the radical, “going to the root,” of social problems. In 1969, Ayers’ “Weathermen” sought to replace a movement of people organizing for freedom, equality, and peace with authoritarian mis-leadership and bombs. Then, he was a liberal with explosives. Today, he is a foundation-funded liberal as Mayor Richard Dailey’s endorsement demonstrates. His tiny Weatherman sect was the Mussolini-like “action-faction,”celebrating irrationalism, drugs, and exploitative sex, pandering to the various nationalisms of the day. They held most people in the world in utter contempt. Before the biggest outpouring of student activism in the last century, the Weathermen destroyed the SDS mailing list, leaving the movement with no center. Then, cops rained down on the movement, demonstrating that terrorists typically bring repression, not on themselves, but on the people they falsely claim to represent. I note nothing of any significance happened to Ayers and the cops never made much of an effort to find him when he was on the run, but living very well.

There is no "new" Bill Ayers. He dishonestly opposed a mass based class-conscious movement for equality and freedom then, and opposes it now.  Today he claims nobody knew any better than to follow his hysterics in the Weathermen. Well, about two thirds of the people voting against the Weathermen in the famous split meeting knew better then, and we know better than to trust him now.  His “Small Schools” movement is sheer hucksterism, based on the same hubris that moved the Weathermen­though it is considerably more lucrative. Those of us who fought the Weathermen in SDS, and who did not abandon the grassroots struggle for worldwide justice, know Ayers for what he is. That Ayers clearly backed the liberal Obama, who promises wider wars, and bailouts to the rich, is no surprise.
http://www.freep.com/article/20081114/NEWS07/81114056


Dr Rich Gibson
Emeritus Professor
San Diego State University