Former '60s Radical Is Now Considered Mainstream in Chicago

[yardwork]

Source: Washington Post

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 18, 2008; Page A04

CHICAGO, April 17 -- In the 1960s, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn saw themselves as urban guerrillas who just might be able to overthrow the U.S. government and force an end to the Vietnam War. They were members of the Weather Underground, a radical offshoot of the antiwar movement, who went into hiding for a decade after a bomb accidentally exploded, killing three members of the group.

Nearly 30 years after surrendering to police, Ayers and Dohrn, both in their 60s, are tenured university professors whose work on school reform and juvenile justice have won them bipartisan respect.

Ayers is an informal adviser to Mayor Richard M. Daley and has been awarded more than $50 million in charitable grants for his promotion of small schools as a solution to a crisis in education. Dohrn lectures widely on children's law and serves on a variety of boards and committees. Together, they have raised three boys in the intellectual haven of Hyde Park, where Sen. Barack Obama is a neighbor.

....

"It's kind of laughable for people who have worked with Bernadine and Bill in the most boring and mundane settings and recognize that they're absolutely upstanding establishment citizens today," said Lawrence C. Marshall, a Stanford University law professor. He recalled a juvenile justice project: "Judges who were lifelong ardent conservatives had no trouble recognizing that the work that Bernadine and Bill are now doing is completely divorced from anything in their background."



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/17/AR2008041703910_2.html?wpisrc=newsletter

[AngryAmish]

1. No he is not

Those who consort with him are shameful. I like Daley and this is terrible.

[yardwork]

3. I guess that you know best. Do you even live in Chicago?

[AngryAmish]

6. All my life.

on edit: See that little grey thing called "My Profile" If mine is clicked one can see that I identify myself as living here, if my Chicago Bears picture did not give it away.

[yardwork]

8. I didn't know that there were urban Amish.

[snooper2]

28. oh, you got me laughing so hard...

my heart hurts...ouch :hi:

[yardwork]

33. I don't mean to be insensitive, but as I was being castigated for not having paid attention...

It's a puzzling set of descriptors.

[High Plains]

10. Well, you and Sean Hannity agree.

He can't shut up about Ayers, except to talk about the Rev. Wright.

Why do we let the Hannitys drive our politics?

[Dr.Phool]

2. So was Al Capone.

[yardwork]

4. Read the article and then make up your own mind.

[Dr.Phool]

12. Just being snarky, and Czechago, being Czechago.

I'm well acquainted with who Ayers was then and now. That was 40 years ago, in a very different climate. I'm a former SDSer myself. Just a different faction.

I was glad to see him pardoned, and he's doing good work now. Blowhards like Hannity, Limbaugh, and I'll throw Stephanopolos in with them now, Have never stood up and fought for anything in their lives.

While I didn't agree with Weather Underground tactics, I agreed with the goal of stopping the Vietnam war.

[yardwork]

32. Understand. I was a child during the 1960s, but I agree with your points.

As it happens, my family knew one of the Weathermen killed when the bomb went off. They didn't agree with his tactics either, but they were strongly against the war.

My son is studying this period of U.S. history now, and last night he asked me about it. I tried to explain how growing frustration with the war and ongoing oppression of many people led to a rise in violent approaches. What is sad, to me, is how so little came of the concerns - they were swept under the rug. Worker's rights are in worse shape now than then, but it's not as big an issue.

The whole country has tilted so far to the right it isn't funny.

[rurallib]

5. Didn't Prescott Bush consort with an enemy

and then later was elected to the senate? Just sayin'. And his child and grandchild became pResidents.

[Indydem]

9. Prescott associated with a foreign enemy and should have been tried for aiding the enemy...

Obama is associated with a domestic terrorist, but since he's YOUR candidate, well then, two wrongs make a right, right?

[Dr.Phool]

15. People, times, and situations change.

In recent history, old-time terrorists like Menachem Begin and Yasser Arafat were considered "mainstream.

[haymakeragain]

16. When your government is murdering millions, sometimes folks take

matters into their own hands. Sometimes it is violent. What did they expect? When the US was carpet bombing Vietnamese and Cambodians, did they expect everyone to sit back and cheer them. Did you know that we dropped more bombs on Viet Nam and Cambodia than all sides dropped in total during WW2? Have any idea how many civilians we killed?

Save the condescension for the people that really deserve it, your government. What did you do to stop the slaughter? Or did you cheer it?

[Dr.Phool]

18. I remember an ironic statement from J. Edgar Hoover back then.

"A bomb is the weapon of a coward".

This at the same time all of those bombs were falling out of those planes. I think of that statement every time I read about an air strike on "insurgents", who turn out to be women and kids.

[haymakeragain]

19. Can you believe the arrogance?

I can't. Whining about the weather underground, that takes the fucking cake.

[yardwork]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[ptolle]

41. liberty & extremism

As always there will be disagreements about tactics, which any of these superannuated arguments about Weather Underground, SDS, and like organizations are, but IMO they were all about liberty and it was the arch-conservative who made that observation about extremism and liberty. This basically is a desperate wingnut segment looking for anything to tarnish the opposition with and I'm of the opinion that the only proper response is to tell them one and all to go urinate up a rope( to use the vernacular).

[rurallib]

20. Good lord - can you tell me the affliation and history of every

person whom you deal with? I will be waiting.
I just found out yesterday a guy I have known for a while is a felon.

[Winterblues]

7. "Never Trust ANYONE Over Thirty"

:shrug: "The Times they are a Changing"

[asthmaticeog]

11. Wow, lesson learned from replies on this thread so far:

You may never change your mind. You may never evolve. If you were or represented something people disliked when you were young, you may as well just get used to always being a suspect no matter what you do. Redemption simply isn't possible in America.

[Indydem]

13. America is full of redemption and willingness to forgive, look at WJC...

But Ayers has said in the recent past: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."

If he wants to ask forgiveness or cast off the actions he took that killed innocent people, then we can talk about it, but he refuses to do so.

He needs to show regret. No regret, no redemption.

[asthmaticeog]

14. They DIDN'T do enough, obviously, as we're still getting fucked sideways by the same system.

So to change as a person you need to regret what you evolved from? You can't just change? You need everyone's permission?

[haymakeragain]

17. Killed innocent people, pot meet kettle.

Get a clue jingo.

[patrick t. cakes]

21. weather underground didnt

kill innocent people.

[haymakeragain]

26. That makes his statement

even worse. I was replying to the post above regarding him saying that WU killed innocent people and using the old pot meet kettle line to compare what they WU was fighting against, the killing of millions in SE Asia.

I don't know much about the WU, to be honest, but I really have no problem with their cause, they were trying to stop the war and used violence. So be it. Why is there such an uproar over them? Did they kill anyone? Did they kill people at the pentagon who some might consider to be far less than innocent?

I am not sure. My point was against the above poster who is whining about the WU.

[patrick t. cakes]

34. i see what your saying

[heliarc]

42. The only people who died as a result of the Weather underground's

actions were their own members in an accidental explosion at a house that they were operating in...

The weather underground were only interested in destroying property and avoided killing innocent people at all cost. Hillary Clinton characterized them with a marked dishonesty during the last debate, and Obama was exactly right to point out that Bill Clinton pardoned them.

[AZ Criminal JD]

44. Pardoning them is not the same as giving speeches with them.

Which is exactly what Obama and Ayers have done serving on the board of the Wood Fund in Chicago. How about the grad student that was killed in the math building at U of Wisconsin at Madison when then blew that up in 1970. Does he not count in your book?

[Hannah Bell]

23. they never killed a single person except themselves. n/t

[AZ Criminal JD]

47. False. Killed a student in math building explosion in 1970. UW-Madison

[RaleighNCDUer]

25. The Weather Underground killed nobody but themselves.

When their bomb factory blew up and killed three of their own. Every bombing they conducted was against unoccupied targets, which they carefully chose to avoid casualties.

Their 'terrorism' is more along the line of those who burn SUVs than Tim McVeigh.

[joeglow3]

27. Would you defend bombing of an abortion clinic

if it was carefully planned to be when no one was there? Of course not. People like John Kerry showed us that the desired outcome could be acheived without resorting to bombing government buildings.

[RaleighNCDUer]

29. No, and I don't defend the Weather Underground bombings,

or the burning of SUVs. I was answering the the charge they they murdered innocents - which is a flat out lie.

But I will say, whether you bomb ROTC offices or abortion clinics, there is a world of difference in doing it when it is empty or it is occupied.

[yardwork]

36. Nobody's defending bombing except the Bush White House. They defend it all the time.

Nobody's agreeing with the Weather Underground here. We're saying that it's pretty shallow to blame Obama for something that happened when he was eight years old and living in Hawaii.

[heliarc]

43. Bill Clinton pardoned Weather Underground members nt

[AZ Criminal JD]

45. Talking about his association with Ayers Now - not 40 years ago.

[AZ Criminal JD]

46. False. They blew up the math building at Madison in 1970

Killed a grad student who was there at night. Ayers "I don't regret setting bombs. We should have done more"

[yardwork]

35. It's obvious that you don't know anything about Ayers. Except what Hannity told you.

[Warpy]

31. Conservatives in both parties feel that way

because the one thing a conservative feels above all else is fear of the inconvenience that comes with change.

Conservatives will put up with the most remarkable hardships, just don't ask them to change anything voluntarily, even an opinion.

[yardwork]

37. I guess that's why they consider it a virtue to be like W - stone stupid and immoveable.

[MarinCoUSA]

22. All good stuff but so what? This is Am-Fascisti stab in the back trope & they NEVER GIVE IT UP!

Troll wingnut radio and you will hear a Viet Nam stab in the back reference at least once a week.

Revisionist books are published about how we were on verge of defeating the North Vietnamese.

The whole motif is being geared up to run with Iraq replacing Viet Nam.

If Ayers invented the cure to world hunger and cancer, the Hannity fascist cohort would be driving this trope.

Guaranteed they will do it. How to hammer back? Not really sure but we gotta.

[yardwork]

39. No disagreement. I saw the article and thought it contained some relevant facts.

[truthisfreedom]

24. I guess anyone who lives in Texas is implicated by association with bush.

And all of us our guilty, by implication, for not rioting in the streets until all of bushco is impeached, indicted and imprisoned.

[yardwork]

40. My ex-mother in law once met Rove. I guess that makes me unelectable.

What's pathetic is how so many people are willing to swallow this crap. Kool-aid indeed.

[AZ Criminal JD]

48. Did you sit on a board of directors with him?

Give speeches with him? Go to his house to be introduced to party activists by him? If so, then yes, you are unelectable.

[Warpy]

30. All of us old 60s radicals turned out respectable

and a shockingly high number of us went into professions that helped other people rather than going into professions that generated paper profits for the already rich.

It's why we are less likely to disparage the young of today as being flaky and irresponsible.

[mike_c]

38. got that right, sister....

And we STILL don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing! :hi: