|
To the Editor, New York Times
October 2008 Re: Ayers and Obama: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04ayers.html?hp Please stop calling Bill Ayers a radical. He demeans the term. We are former members of the Students for a Democratic Society, the largest student movement in US history (which Ayers helped to destroy) and radicals yet today. There was never anything radical about born-to-wealth Bill Ayers. He 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 sect was the Mussolini-like"action-faction,"celebrating irrationalism, drugs, and exploitative sex, pandering to the 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. Those of us who opposed the Weathermen in SDS, and who did not abandon grassroots struggles for worldwide justice, know him for what he is. Ayers supporting liberal Obama, who promises wider wars and is poised to oversee national socialism, is no surprise. Dr Rich Gibson Emeritus Professor San Diego State University Alan Spector Professor of Sociology Purdue University Calumet |