Reading Bill Ayers' Blog (April 2006)

Doing the job Obama won't do --- due diligence:

Bill Ayers on post 9-11 patriotism:

The civil-rhetorical patriotism evident everywhere—the flags and signs proliferating, the elaborate story and the stock slogans, the giving of blood and the trips to “Ground Zero”—allows, perhaps, a shared grief and a shared incredulity at the start. Given the narrow American palette reaching for the flag might have meant sympathy and unity at the start. But from the start powerful forces were busy using the moment to promote a narrow, repressive patriotism—dissent is unpatriotic, un-American—in the service of horrifying goals and purposes.

On who did not execute the 9-11 attacks:

How many Afghans were involved in the September 11 attacks?

On joining Cindy Sheehan at Camp Casey:

Toward the end of the summer of 2005, outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, I joined the encampment known as Camp Casey. Crawford is a town divided: the brightly decorated Peace House faces banners reading, “All the way Mr. President” and “Smoke ‘Em Out, 43”; one side of the road has lawn signs with the iconic image of Marines planting the flag on Iwo Jima and the slogan “Support Our Troops,”—somewhat desperate, I thought, to have to reach so far back for a picture of putative pride in war—the other side answers “Bring Them Home.”

On how volunteering for the Armed Services is like joining a gang:

Military recruiting in high schools has been a mainstay of the so-called all-volunteer armed forces from the start. High school kids are at an age when being a member of an identifiable group with a grand mission and a shared spirit—and never underestimate a distinctive uniform—is of exaggerated importance, something gang recruiters in big cities also note with interest and exploit with skill.

On being labeled a terrorist:

I thought of myself immodestly as a freedom fighter, but I knew that “terrorist” was tattooed over every inch of me—it was an electrifying label, even then. I imagined a pale figure dressed in an oily overcoat, feverish, eyes blazing, beard and hair wild and unkempt, sitting in the back of a theater with a black bomb in his pocket. Nothing at all like me. No, I said to myself at the time, I’m no terrorist.

On apologies:

Still I’m disinclined to apologize because I hear the demand for a general apology as a howling mob with an impossibly broad demand, and on top of that I’m not sure what exactly I’d apologize for. The ’68 Convention? The Days of Rage? Bombing the Pentagon? Every one of these can be unpacked and found to be a complicated mix of good and bad choices, noble and low motives.

Even when true, the words are mortifying. They are the end not only of a dream, but of a life. The apology in general is uttered, and suddenly you die.

More to come...

UPDATE: Welcome, AOSHQ and Ed Driscoll. Be sure to read all the other Ayers gems (left sidebar) and go over to Doubleplusundead's for even more. DPUD valiantly picked up the shovel when I stopped digging through Ayers' crap last night. Besides America hatred, it appears Obama may have picked up something else from Ayers.

Comments

[baboy]

It should all be a moot point. He should have been executed for treason and armed insurrection against the US. We offed McVeigh, why not this douchenozzle?

[Tonya]

I pity this person but at the same time feel a sense of gratitude because between him and Reverend Wright, they've made Obama a no win ticket.