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Ayers comes above ground
William Ayers, former member of the 1960s terrorist group the Weather Underground, has been silent throughout the presidential campaign where his name was almost as common as the candidates’.
But last night at a church in Washington, he publicly aired his thoughts, drawing both admirers and protesters. The Washington Post described his tone as “professorial” – which is his current profession – with a helping of zeal. He said his acts in the 1960s and 1970s did not constitute terrorism, and that they never injured or killed anyone. Reports of certain Weather Underground activities indicate otherwise.
Verbatim:
We did something that was extreme. Some of you would call it not only extreme but kind of nuts. You might call it off the track. You might call it crazy. You might call it defying of common sense. It was certainly illegal. To call it terrorism stretches the definition of terrorism to everything you don’t approve of.
No apologies! No hanging of the head!
back to top72 Comments to “Ayers comes above ground”
There is no decent justification for the violence and killing of the Weather Underground of which Ayers was a major leader. Ayers has been consistenty unrepentant for his role as a leader in this lethally vicious organization.
Nor can Obama claim that Ayers was just a guy in the neighborhood. He was a friend who supported Obama politically and who worked closely with him in an organization that dispensed with a multi-million dollar Annenberg Foundation grant.
Had McCain or Palin an association with someone similar to Ayer, they would have been mince meat politically by the mainstream media that was in the tank for Obama.
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The Left does not believe in facts or morality; just in the ‘righteousness’ of their cause.
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Your link confirms only that they killed themselves by inept bomb making. Ayers was not involved in this incident. None of his illegal activities resulted in the loss of life.
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I am waiting for Ayers to get a position in Obama’s cabinet. As Ivan and Machiavelli point out, it is impossible for the left to ever do anything wrong, since the ends justify the means.
Ayers can say they never injured or killed anyone, because they were fighting evil. The fact that innocent people and police officers were actually killed is immaterial.
Ayers can say they never committed terror when they bombed American people and buildings, because America deserved it. That makes it OK.
The fact that killing and bombing resulted in his own wealth and an academic career proves to Ayers that he is on the right track.
The fact that he helped to install his friend and compatriot to be the next President only serves to strengthen his resolve to CHANGE America to look more like the regimes of his other friends Castro and Chavez.
The fact that his name was used daily to besmirch Obama, yet only strengthened him proves to Ayers that America is on his side.
When terror strikes America again, no one should ask “why?”. It is the change Americans voted for.
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The fact that innocent people and police officers were actually killed is immaterial.
links??
And the police shootout in the mid 70s botched Brinks robbery by remnants of the Weather Undergound have nothing to do with Ayers who had long left the group by then.
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I am waiting for Ayers to get a position in Obama’s cabinet.
My superficial impression of Ayers is that he is a jerk.
If he gets a position in Obama’s cabinet, I will become very suspicious of Obama and wonder if he has any common sense. I will say so here.
Xion, if he does not get a position in Obama’s cabinet, will you state that you were incorrect? I don’t have time to keep track of many silly statements made here by many posters then conveniently forgotten); so I will ask you to keep track of this one and then follow up appropriately, either by crowing “I warned you,” or by admitting, “I was wrong.”
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Nor can Obama claim that Ayers was just a guy in the neighborhood.
He didn’t, and PETER can’t furnish a quote.
Obama didn’t say Ayers was just a guy in the neighborhood he didn’t just say that Ayers was a guy in the neighborhood.
Further, it’s true that for years their relationship has not been more than neighbors. Obama has fully described the history of their relationship, which was formal and mostly public and on the record.
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Well we know he is a liar. He said in his speech:
“Not only did I never kill or injure another person, but the Weather Underground in its six-year existence never killed or injured another person,”
However; “Though the October 8, 1969 rally in Chicago had failed to draw as many as the Weathermen had anticipated, the two or three hundred who did attend shocked police by rioting through the affluent Gold Coast neighborhood. … The rioting lasted approximately half an hour, during which 28 policemen were injured.
and
The Days of Rage cost Chicago and the state of Illinois approximately $183,000 ($100,000 for National Guard expenses, $35,000 in damages, and $20,000 for one injured citizen’s medical expenses).
Note two things: “28 policemen were injured” and “$20,000 for one injured citizen’s medical expenses”.
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I am waiting for Ayers to get a position in Obama’s cabinet.
Gen. Powell gets Secretary of Education. Obama is surrounding himself with a team of moderates.
But Xion, give Ayers a break. At least he makes statements that withstand falsification:
Not only did I never kill or injure another person, but the Weather Underground in its six-year existence never killed or injured another person.
His own words, Emily. Why not include them?
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Hi KBells! It sounds like you admit they didn’t kill. Pls. name the members of the Weather Underground who injured policemen.
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#3 HRW – I would simply point out that, even if the police deaths aren’t definitively tied to the Weather Underground, the organization’s bomb making at least took the lives of several of its own members.
#9 Scroop – “He said his acts in the 1960s and 1970s did not constitute terrorism, and that they never injured or killed anyone.”
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I think folks too easily conflate the SLA and the Weather Underground. Ayers’ acceptance by Democrats despite his kook-fringe activism can only mean one thing: Ex(?)KKK Kingpin David Duke (who protested in the 60s in Nazi brownshirt uniform) can presumably come forward as a 21st century conservative. Perhaps Ayers should contact Duke and the two men go on a nationwide “Hey folks we were idiots in the 60s” lecture speaking rally.
For their own reasons they could even give their interpretations of 9/11 events.
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Sawgunner,
The hypocrisy of the left in this instance is just staggering.
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10. A Weathermen run riot resulted in 28 policeman being injured plus at least one citizen whose medical expense added up to $20,000. The leaders are responsible for the actions of their followers.
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I imagine we’ll see a lot of hypocrisy from the left for the next four years. Who’s keeping track of all the promises BHO made that he won’t be keeping?
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But Xion, give Ayers a break.
Name one thing that a liberal might do that you could possibly not defend. Is there no crime, no atrocity, no ideology of hate, no act of terror on the left where you might say, “OK, that was a bit much.”?
In 1969, Ayers participated in planting a bomb at a statue dedicated to riot police casualties in the 1886 Haymarket Riot.
Ayers participated in the Days of Rage riot in Chicago in October 1969 during which 28 policemen were injured.
Ayers and several associates evaded pursuit by U.S. law enforcement officials after the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion in 1970, in which Weatherman member Ted Gold, Ayers’ close friend Terry Robbins, and Ayers’ girlfriend, Diana Oughton were killed when a nail bomb they were assembling exploded.
Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970.
On February 21, 1970, gasoline-filled molotov cocktails were thrown at the home of New York State Supreme Court Justice Murtagh, who was presiding over the trial of the so-called “Panther 21,” members of the Black Panther Party over a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores.
Ayers wife, Bernardine Dohrn, built and planted the bomb that killed a San Francisco police officer in 1970, according to an FBI report.
An FBI informant, Larry Grathwohl, who successfully penetrated the organization from the late summer of 1969 until April 1970, later testified to a U.S. Senate subcommittee that Ayers, then a high-ranking leader of the organization and a member of its Central Committee (but not then Dohrn’s husband), told him Dohrn constructed and planted the bomb that killed Sgt. Brian V. McDonnell of the San Francisco Police Department on Feb. 16, 1970.
Ayers participated in the bombing of the United States Capitol building in 1971.
Ayers wrote in his 2001 book Fugitive Days about the Pentagon bombing he did in 1972, that it caused “tens of thousands of dollars” of damage.
In 1973 Ayers authored the book Prairie Fire which he dedicated to various people including Sirhan Sirhan, convicted assassin of Robert F. Kennedy.
But none of this matters to liberals who will defend Ayers to their dying breath. I have never heard a liberal on WMB condemn even a single act, no matter how outrageous, committed by another liberal.
In 2001 Obama claimed that his favorite book was written by William Ayers. To which you all say, “Yeay! We’re burnin’ down the house!”
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In 2001 Obama claimed that his favorite book was written by William Ayers.
This is false. He reported that he was reading an Ayers book, he didn’t say it was his “favorite book.” You know this, so I must conclude that you rely on falsehoods to make your points.
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Ayers was a vandal. His cause was as great as John Brown’s. Whereas Brown was the catalyst that ignited war, Ayers was a catalyst to end war. Your hero John Greenleaf Whittier would have approved of Ayers.
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Scroop, by calling Ayers a hero you’ve proved my point.
One correction is that Obama’s praise for Ayers book was on December 21, 1997. The review was part of a column in tghe Chicago Tribune called “Mark My Word,” in which Chicago notables praise their favorite current books. This was a few weeks after Ayers and Obama appeared together on a panel about juvenile justice organized by Michelle Obama on November 20, 1997.
Ayers probably will not get a cabinet post. But you can sure he will be using his money and influence to manipulate the senator with the missing spine.
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Spray painting a wall or breaking a window is a vandal. Setting bombs is terrorism!
I guesss all those road side bombs that killed thousands of people in Iraqa are just vandal to you?
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I called Whittier your hero, Xion . . .
I didn’t call Ayers a hero. Not yet, anyway. Though I’m pretty sure he’s a wonderful person who has made a better effort at overcoming his youthful arrogance and narcissism than some other former radicals of the era — including ones who became Christian editors and polemicists.
That’s another correction, buddy.
And you still need to fix your falsehood about “favorite” books. #19 isn’t good enough. You say “favorite” again, but you can’t dredge up the word in quotes. So it’s a characterization, and you may not pin it on Obama. “Mark My Word” reports “What They’re Reading”, not what their favorite book is. “Favorite” is a word that you people thought up to make Obama sound schwul over Ayers. We’ve been over this.
You are getting to be as bad a propagandist as Joel Mark. What happened to you?
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Lloyd,
Ayers’ actions weren’t terrorism because he didn’t attempt to kill people in order to terrorize civilians. The government didn’t classify his actions as terrorism. Ayers blew up a statue and an unoccupied part of the Pentagon at night with an itsy bitsy bomb. On purpose, he did nothing that could survive the statue of limitations. And don’t forget that the government dropped his prosecution, so he’s innocent.
McVeigh by contrast killed by intent.
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Xion — I just clicked your link. Your source claims to show “how the review appeared in the Chicago Tribune.” Your source is lying, because the pictures crop out the subheading, “Here’s What People are Reading.” Your source never references this subheading in its commentary, because it wants to characterize the feature as a declaration of “favorite” books rather than a report of current reading. There’s a difference. Admit it, Xion, you are the kind of person who likes a hatchet job, aren’t you?
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Moth: Ayers’ actions weren’t terrorism because he didn’t attempt to kill people in order to terrorize civilians.
The classic Oxford definition of a terrorist is a person who uses violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community.
Ayers was undoubtedly a terrorist; the fact that he dedicated one of his books in part to Sirhan merely adds gravy to his terrorist credential.
The pathetic liberals on this thread in their blind devotion to Obama have placed themselves in the risible position of favoring a rank, brazen terrorist.
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#21-23 You called Ayers someone whom a hero would call great. In other words “a heroes hero”. As for the book, I’m merely quoting sources. News sources are rarely accurate. So does giving a glowing review of a book constitute it as a favorite? Maybe not. Who cares? He loves a book written by a domestic terrorist and promotes it!!
All of this is a diversion from the main point which is that you consider bombing buildings and killing innocent people to be not only good, but noble as long as it is for a worthy cause. To you Ayers is a “wonderful person” and a great man. It is no big deal to bomb buildings and kill police officers as long as it is for the right reasons. And yes, setting off bombs in populated cities for political reasons is terror.
So far you have refused to admit a single thing a liberal, Marxist anarchist might do which you would consider going to far. There is no crime too great if it is done in the name of left wing ideology. Is that not your position? Am I mischaracterizing what you are saying?
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Given that I tend to the po-mo at times, I would point out how perhaps definitions of terrorism have shifted over time. This allows the opprobrium of one era to fall on another. I’d say to each, its own definition.
At the time, Bill Ayers believed in meshing violence with politics. And yes, at the time — being old enough, here — we would have broadly considered this as something like terrorist, or wannabe urban guerrillas. At the time we didn’t have the models of terrorism that we have now. Yes, there were Puerto Ricans (they seemed serious), and the Red Brigade (very serious), but both were dealt with as matters of civil law, not with the military twinge we have. Of course, if we are to punish thought crimes, then in their minds the Weather People probably imagined themselves as something like urban warriors, politics by any means. Ah, “chairman mao, mao mao, chairman mao-tse tung” as the SF Mime Troupe had it.
So in the context of the time, there is some truth that Bill Ayers was engaged in something like political violence.
This form of terrorism — even of the Red Brigade, a far more dangerous group, funded in part by East Germany — seems much different than the mass-casualty violence of the present. The former comes across as more insurrectionary in import (even with the bad example of the ETA), it remains violence harnassed to political ends. It is not violence aimed at populations, much more our definition.
When we consider the mass casualty attack (McVeigh, 9/11, London, Madrid), we can see that the grievances are different, the intent of the actors are different. Blather aside, AQ is not intending to establish a Caliphate in Washington DC, no matter what they think in Witchita.
Different times, different levels of violence, different goals, different ways of enforcement/protection: to say that the Ayers then is a “terrorist” is anachronistic, an abuse of the definition. Like calling him a liberal, or worse, a Democrat (terms in his youth he would have despised).
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It is truly fascinating that we continue to rehash the past election rather than looking forward to policies as this administration looks forward.
But as I have been saying to a number of people including Peter leavitt for a while:
- what is your evidence that Ayers is more than someone who lives in Obama’s neighborhood
When challenged on this point, the conservatives are either strangely quiet OR provide irrelevant materials.
Obama is president elect.
Trying to reuse material which did not stand scrutiny during the election is probably not going to have any impact moving forward, especially since no one can dmeonstrate that the charge is true.
Perhaps, however, we are seeing concrete examples of the true meaning of a conservative.
Other maxims also come to mind.
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Is there a statute of limitations on people who willfully kill cops and bomb national buildings just because they are ANTI-AMERICAN ?
I was wondering why it’s taken so long to prosecute this pantywaste, gum-sucking, liberal commie, then dispose of his corpse
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[#28] tell me you’re a liberal troll, please. But then again, Ayers did no willfully kill (did not kill at all) — the only crime for which there would be no statute of limitations. And as to being Anti-American? This is truly troll-worthy.
I think the place to go is the US Constitution, you know, the First Amendment? That’s what allows people to pen lines like “what’s take so long to dispose of his corpse…”
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JUSTUS331 post 28,
I believe Ayers was prosecuted and there was no conviction:
Ayers information
“3. Were they ever convicted of “terrorism” charges?
No. Ayers faced federal riot and bombing-conspiracy charges, but those charges were dropped because of illegal wiretaps, break-ins and mail interceptions by authorities. Dohrn served less than a year behind bars for non-bombing activities tied to the group. ”
My sense is that the opporutnity for a valid prosecution no longer exists.
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#30,
So Ayers is innocent of crimes he actually committed? Yes?
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MIM post 31,
I believe guilty requires conviction. You have not demonstrated a conviction.
Now if you are saying that some of the efforts at opposing certain acts appear to violate U.S. constitutional processes and hence make prosecution infeasible, this is indeed an interesting question.
I sense that we will see this situation in spades as Guantanemo is decommissioned.
It is usually best to stay within the confines of the constitution if you actually want to prove criminal guilt.
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MIM post 31,
and I believe the legal standard is innocent until proven guilty.
But perhaps you would prefer the Napoleanic code which apparently considers one guilty until proven innocent.
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I just want to check on terminology here. Peter L, Sawgunner, MiM, Justus:
Please affirm for me that you consider abortion clinic bombers, abortion doctor killers, and those who support them, to be terrorists.
Incidentally, the terminology used back in the day for Ayers and his friends was most commonly “radical”.
Like Harris above I think that “terrorist” and “terrorism” have come to be overused, and that the reason for that is political. And that ultimately the label is a tool of totalitarianism.
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EMILY . . . the organization’s bomb making at least took the lives of several of its own members . . .
Another way of saying this is that a Weatherman sacrificed his life in order to stop other Weathermen from targeting persons in violation of Weatherman philosophy.
HARRIS When we consider the mass casualty attack (McVeigh, 9/11, London, Madrid), we can see that the grievances are different, the intent of the actors are different. . . to say that the Ayers then is a “terrorist” is anachronistic, an abuse of the definition
This seems too obvious, but conservatives get caught in their literalisms and their tendency to avoid difference.
XION: #21-23 You called Ayers someone whom a hero would call great. In other words “a heroes hero”.
No, XION.
XION: . . . a glowing review of a book . . .
It was not a review. It was not even one complete sentence. It was a blurb. The attention of which was focused more upon the subject of the book, “the juvenile court system and the brave individuals who rescue hope from despair,” than upon analysis of the treatment. Calling a book “a searing and timely account” is not even an explicit recommendation, let alone a “glowing review.”
You might make more satisfying points without overstatement, XION.
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“Please affirm for me that you consider abortion clinic bombers, abortion doctor killers, and those who support them, to be terrorists.”
I know I wasn’t on the list, but yes. Along with being killers they hurt the cause more than our opposition.
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“Your link confirms only that they killed themselves by inept bomb making. Ayers was not involved in this incident. None of his illegal activities resulted in the loss of life.”
Only if not being present constitutes no involvement. The bombs that detonated prematurely were being prepared according to Ayer’s design and under his orders. The bombs were being packed with nails that were intended to maim and likely kill soldiers and their dates at a dance at an NCO club in Ft. Dix, NJ.
“Ayers’ actions weren’t terrorism because he didn’t attempt to kill people in order to terrorize civilians.”
See above. The planting of explosive devices in public areas carries with it the possibility of death or serious injury. Ayers didn’t plant bombs because he liked the loud sounds. They were clearly meant to terrorize. The soldiers at Ft. Dix who were Ayers’s intended vicitms were not at war with Ayers. They were de facto civilians. If that seems like casuistry, their dates were civillians in all aspects.
“what is your evidence that Ayers is more than someone who lives in Obama’s neighborhood”
Years of collaboration on projects and millions of dollars funneled toward Ayer’s projects by Obama. If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound? If hundreds of pages of documentation on the Gamaliel project, the Anneberg Papers and the Woods Foundation, mutual friendships and Ayer’s claim to be Obama’s friend (post election)seem “strangely quiet” it’s because you are willfully deaf.
“It is usually best to stay within the confines of the constitution if you actually want to prove criminal guilt.”
True, but “proving criminal guilt” is a matter for courts and trials. To establish guilt in the popular sense of meaning someone actually committed an offense we can simply accept William Ayers’s own admission, “guilty as hell and free as a bird! What a country!”
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One might consider that at the time Ayers was active, the US government was drafting millions of young men and sending them off to prosecute an increasingly unpopular war. The carnage was pretty dreadful and progress non-existant.
In that light, Ayers and others might even be considered “freedom fighters” or “revolutionaries”. At the very least they were less deserving of the label of “terrorist” than those Iraqis opposing the military occupation of their country. Yet the Bush administration has insisted that anybody who bombs US troops over there is no more than a “terrorist”.
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HRW is trying to run interference for an evil murderous terrorist on par with Timothy McVeigh. I have heard it reported that William Ayers founded the Weather Underground and modeled terrorism for the rest of them. He participated in terrorists acts and planned some terrorist acts of which he did not participate.
If William Ayers had acted as a terrorist from motives on the Right, I think people like HRW asnd Scroop Moth would be outraged and demanding full accountability. But he is a leftist so its okay and we should revere professor Ayers. nonsense.
This is not just hypocrisy. It’s called a moral coma.
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Ayers didn’t design bombs, he copied designs. The purpose of bombing a police statue and the pentagon at night when people aren’t present is to make symbolic statements, not to kill innocents. It was its own kind of transgression, not a different kind of transgression.
To paraphrase Tolstoy, “every unhappy underground cell is unhappy in its own way.” Happy citizens may be alike, but Ayers was his own species, even if conservatives want to ignore his particularities.
The government would not have abandoned prosecution if the Weathermen in its six-year existence actually had killed or injured another person.
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Joel Mark is exactly right that this pathetic justification of Ayers by the liberal radicals on this thread is indicative of a moral coma not your ordinary hypocrisy. This thread is wonderfully revealing of leftist group-think that proves Jonah Goldberg’s thesis that the hard left is essentially involved in liberal fascism.
Underneath it all we see what happens when people turn to politics for their religion and try to usher in some sort of secular millennium, as Ayers tried to do with the Weather Underground.
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Peter leavitt post 41,
I believe that I have been trying to remain reasonably strictly on the data as given:
1) Ayers has been convicted of no crimes
2) in the U.S., one is innocent until proven guilty
3) the link between Ayers and Obama is at best remains tenuous
4) this has been reviewed and rejected as germane by the electorate
And hence this is primarily an academic discussion among partisans rather than a substantive disucssion of issues.
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Poor Obama’s getting it from both ends now. Republicans say he’s morally equivalent to the terrorists he palls around with, while al-Zawahri says Obama is a house slave and “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans.”
I realize that conservatives will agree with al-Qaeda on this point, but the world truly is coming to an end if Americans won’t stand up for their own Negroes, honorable or not.
LEAVITT: is a person who uses violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community.
“Violent” in this context means personal violence, not destruction of property. Take an example. The suicide bombings by Palestinians are terrorist acts but the bulldozing of the unoccupied houses of the relatives of terrorists are not terrorist acts, though intimidating, coercive, and violently destructive.
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Musing, don’t kid yourself. Ayers was a founder and leading member of the Weather Underground, which was a radical terrorist organization that grew out of SDS. For a listing of the terrorist activities of the Weather Underground see the Wiki List of Weatherman actions. Given the classic definition of a terrorist as a person who uses violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community, Ayers was most certainly a terrorist. The FBI had the Weather Underground formally categorized as a domestic terrorist orginization; Ayers was at one point on the FBI’s Ten Most Most Wanted List. He got off on some technical grounds of FBI procedures.
As to Obama’s relation to Ayers, we know that Ayer’s was a key supporter of Obama during his rise in Illinois politics. We, also, know that Obama was the executive director of an organization that Ayers chaired to dispense with a hundred million dollar Annenberg Foundation Grant.
Ros Douthat nicely sums up Obama’s attempt to cover-up his association with Ayers:
Obama’s obfuscation regarding Ayers is, in a sense, the homage that vice pays to virtue – a tacit acknowledgment of the fact that the political culture of Chicago, and especially of Hyde Park, is more accommodating than perhaps it should be to a morally dubious figure like Ayers, and that having accommodated himself to those accommodations Obama now recognizes the need to behave as if he didn’t.
Had McCain or Palin been connected to such a dubious figure as Ayers, the mainstream media would have made political mincemeat of them.
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Excuse me the link above is Here.
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Moth: Violence, from the Latin, violentia has to do with the aggressive use of physical force and is not in any context limited to violence against persons. When one blows up a building to intimidate or coerce a government, he is involved in violent terrorism You in your leftist illusion of reality may have abridged the definition of violence to aggression against persons, though that is a patent stretch.
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The purpose of bombing a police statue and the pentagon at night when people aren’t present is to make symbolic statements, not to kill innocents.
Either that, or the motive is cowardice, in not having the guts to commit your crime in broad daylight. We really don’t know which, do we? Regardless, neither the Pentagon nor your typical police precinct is locked up with the lights off every night. Night shift workers, cleaning crews, and passersby can be affected 24/7.
The several attempts in this thread to explain away his actions and involvements would almost be funny if they weren’t first pathetic.
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I think the “liberal fascists” on this thread who are defending Ayers (while accusing and indicting the USA) are doing so because they actually know that Ayers is indeed allied with Prez-elect Obama in common causes and ideas. how sad for the USA!
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#42, Musing wrote: “Ayers has been convicted of no crimes.”
He fully admitted them and rubbed our noses in his proud admissions, and he is expressly unrepentant.
Truth trumps ‘legalisms’ for those who are not actually in a moral coma.
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Peter leavitt post 44,
I don’t believe I am kidding myself.
It seems salient to note that you neither refuted my facts nor my logical chain of evidence.
When you have data which is substantive, perhaps it may again be of interest. Rigth now you are bringing nothing to the table which has not alreayd been rehashed many many times.
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Joel Mark post 49,
I see that you do not refute any of my statements.
This is a legalisms problem.
Anything else is a subjective interpretation.
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You’re wrong again, Peter LEAVITT. Word meanings have nothing to do with liberals. The DOJ Bureau of Justice Statistics counts five categories of crime as violent crimes: murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault.
This has nothing to do with Latin, either. We’re not talking about the physics of mass and acceleration, but human behavior, intention, and sensation. Except in the rarest cases, violent behavior involves personal injury or the fear of personal injury.
If you cared to be scrupulous, you’d admit that Ayers might owe lots of damages but has done nothing for which he could be punished by the law of personal injury.
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Musing your “facts” and “logical” chain of evidence don’t come close to explaining the culpability of Ayers and Obama’s close relationship to him. You, as usual, avoid issues by throwing up logic chopping absurdities that have little to do with the issue at hand. I raised several points at #44 that you totally ignored.
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Moth, We’re talking about the definition of terrorist, not about the law of personal injury. Can you cite any authoritative dictionary that contradicts the Oxford definition of a terrorist as a person who uses violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community? Violence, again, meaning the aggressive use of physical force against property and not just humans.
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Peter Leavitt post 53,
then propvide supported and referenced facts and the logical connections required to support your assertions.
I suggest you have not done so despite repeated requests on this point.
In particular you have provided no evidence to demonstrate a close association between Ayers and Obama.
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Peter leavitt post 54,
so if your definiton is of terrorist is:
“a terrorist as a person who uses violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community”
then it would seem that all aggressive use of armed forces is by your definition terrorism and indeed it would seem that Bush is a terrorist.
We can for example demonstrate the coersive efforts of the American military in Iraq against a group (say for grins Al Qaeda).
I suggest that your argument as posed would appear to be seriously flawed.
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Musing, you miss the crucial distinction between civilian terrorists, like Ayers, who violently seek to coerce legitimate governments and communities and governments who on rational and legitimately authoritative grounds attempt to fight just wars. One can debate the justice of some government wars, though that doesn’t negate their legitimate authority to pursue wars. St. Augustine understood this distinction with his doctrine of tranquilitas ordinis [just peace] about sixteen hundred years ago.
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In Ayer’s Communist Manifesto called Prairie Fire Ayers declares himself “guilty as hell, free as a bird”.
Note that while Bill Ayers calls himself guilty, not a single Kool-Aid drinker on this blog will ever admit it. They will defend him even though he refuses to defend himself!
“In this manifesto, Ayers and his co-authors freely brag about their bombings and other violent and illegal acts, and even provide a detailed list, most likely typed up by Ayers himself, of the crimes they had committed up to that point. Ayers’ list, scanned directly from Prairie Fire, is shown below. He may have escaped conviction due to a legal technicality (the prosecutors failed to get a warrant during some of their surveillance of the Weather Underground), but this in no way means that Ayers was factually innocent of the crimes. As has been widely reported, after the case against him was dropped, Ayers described himself as “guilty as hell, free as a bird.”
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#51, Musing wrote; “Joel Mark… I see that you do not refute any of my statements.”
Then you don’t “see” at all.
In any case, I think my comments and others have refuted your statements thoroughly.
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I thought this Ayers guy was an intellectual. He claims a definition is being brutalized without describing what the definition is. That is an F on any paper I would have written. You don’t need to kill innocent people to be a terrorist you just need to use terror as a means of coercion. There is a big difference between tea dumping and blowing up the Capitol.
I reckon he was only a vandal in his mind like a common street thug only more sophisticated in his targeting. Or,perhaps he styled his group as a small mob, similar to the big McDonald’s-smashing mobs of Seattle fame only smaller and, once again, more sophisticated.
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Well,
I have good sources that say lefties like Islamofascist terrorists, Irish republicAN Army terrorists and FARC terrorists way more than they like home grown ones. It’s a status thing on the elite intellectual Marxist front.
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Peter Leavitt post 57,
actually it was the definiton you provided which had the error. I was merely pointing it out.
Now to continue further, why should nation states exercising violent coersion not be terrorist and individuals exercising violent coercion are?
Further, it would seem that George Washington by your definition was a terrorist.
I am sensing that there are some deep problems with the definitions as you are trying to employ them.
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xion post 58,
Ayers can use any word he wants.
Within the context of the objectivity of civilian legal codes, it would appear that, unless you can show an error in my data, Ayers is innocent.
There still is the pesky issue of tieing Ayers to Obama, a point we have discussed before and for which it seemed you were able to marshall perilously little data.
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Joel Mark post 59,
what an interesting position. Has anyone shown that:
1) Ayers was convicted of any crime?
2) that in the U.S. one is innocent until proven guilty?
3) that there is no evidence of any significant tie between Ayers and Obama?
4) that the electorate reviewed this prior to the election and appeared to consider it immaterial?
I thought not. It would seem then that your post is in error.
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All through the Clinton years we had to hear yammer about State Troopers and Whitewater, and even Vince Foster’s alleged murder. We won’t hear the end of William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright until Obama ends his tenure.
The wingnut fringe has a hard time letting go of a smear, even if it’s a completely ineffective one.
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SteveG post 65,
of course not.
but they have already been raised, reviewed, and by the majority considered closed.
Without major new information, there is nothing of interest to either the electorate or the law here.
As such, it is perhaps a useful exercise to keep certain conservatives from causing serious difficulties elsewhere in the present political environment.
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The difference between Ayers’ bombings of government property and the Boston Tea Party which destroyed millions of dollars worth of tea in today’s dollars, is probably not so huge in monetary terms. (The Sons of Liberty or their imitators burned ships, too.) The real difference is ethical. Arguably, stopping war has greater moral justification than avoiding taxes.
Nobody denies Ayers was guilty of the crimes against property about which he brags. That’s unsatisfactory for this crowd here, though. Leavitt, Joel, and Xion are so desperate to find Ayers guilty of crimes against persons that they seem annoyed he didn’t kill or injure someone, just to make himself worthy of the inextinguishable hatred of future generations.
Yet these obsessive bloggers never truly cared what Ayers did until they discovered current political ramifications.
A terrorist is a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims. Terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. Violence in this context is a behavior involving physical force intended to hurt or kill someone.
Leavitt points out that the Oxford dictionary says violence can involve force against property. The Oxford dictionary also says violence can involve the mistreatment of language, or vehemence of feeling and expression, or natural events of great force. Arguing from definition, Peter says that vandalism is terrorism because the destruction of property is a form of violence. By Peter’s reasoning, my transgressions against language are terrorism because it does violence to reason. Screaming and yelling are terrorism because of violent emotions. Hurricanes are terrorism. Etc.
However, the kind of violence that terrorists use is linked to intimidation (”violence and intimidation”), which requires a threat of personal injury. Ayers’ destruction of monuments and unoccupied portions of federal buildings at night caused a lot of anger and embarrassment but not intimidation. In law, violence always personal injury and its threat. Therefore, the US government considered Ayers not to be a terrorist. He didn’t assault or threaten assault.
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Xion: Ayers probably will not get a cabinet post.
This is like arguing with Nick Peters. When I ask him about his statements, he reframes them in more moderate ways. However, the next time he is back on the same tracks he ran on again.
I don’t have time to keep a log of the absurd statements that many people make here and then conveniently forget about. Xion is by no means the worst in this regard.
I don’t think there is a “team” atheism as I used to say to Ed.
I don’t know if Obama will be a wonderful President or an awful President. Most people here seem to have already made up their minds before the guy has even been in office for a single day.
It’s a very difficult job in a world of turmoil and crisis.
I don’t think George Bush is a stupid person or an evil person, but I think he and his team went way off the tracks in a lot of ways and there are a lot of people here who even now can hardly bring themselves to admit how many problems the Bush administration has saddled us with and are constantly searching for scapegoats and excuses.
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random name post 68,
I do think that perhaps there is a team “data driven and logically structured”.
Arguing that Ayers will get a cabinet appointment would seem to deonstrater disqualification for the team.
Your point that Obama has only recently become President-elect is well posed. In fact, since he is not yet president, he has no direct power and the furor is in the main an attempt to read the tea leaves before his administration begins. In fact given the challenges he is facing, one can argue that it is unlikely any president facing these challenges could be a good president.
But as you note, we will have to wait and see.
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#63 Ayers can use any word he wants. Within the context of the objectivity of civilian legal codes, it would appear that, unless you can show an error in my data, Ayers is innocent.
Being guilty of crimes but getting off on a technicality does not make one innocent.
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xion post 70,
actyually from a civil context and from a libel context I suggest it does.
If Ayers was indeed guilty of a serious crime, and that is a debate in and of itself, failures by the government to properly follow the law appear to have made prosecution untenable.
As such, from a civil context Ayers is indeed innocent unless you can provide alternate data. that you have not done so despite repeated requests, I suggest, indicates that you don’t have such data.
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xion post 70,
looking this over it seems that perhaps we are sufferring from the classic definition overload problem which often crops up.
I muse that there are perhaps 3 different meanings for guilt:
1) one is guilty of a crime: this requires conviction
2) one feels guilty: no indication that Ayers feels guilty
3) religious guilt: my sense is God will determine that
I am, however, having trouble establishing a definition of guilty for which it would appear applies to Ayers. He may have or may not have committed certain acts, but guilt requires a finding beyond the mere assertion that the act occurred.
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