Reply #74: You miss the point of the Ayers comment you quoted ...

[krkaufman]

Ayers: "Terrorism is never justifiable, even in a just cause. I’ve never advocated terrorism, never participated in it, never defended it."

Could Ayers be lying about the fact that he never participated in terrorism? The Weather Underground, which he belonged to, was on the FBI’s ten most-wanted list in the Hoover days. But Ayers and his wife turned themselves in during the 1980s, and all charges against them were dropped. Shouldn’t a journalist with integrity and a sense of fairness refer to Ayers as an alleged terrorist when he or she feels the need to bring up the subject?

Ayers isn't denying his advocacy and involvement in bombing. Ayers just doesn't view the WU's bombings as terrorism, because they weren't intended to terrorize -- or to cause any harm to people -- but to bring attention to America's policies. (Sort of like the WU was using the bombings as slaps to the face of the American consciousness, trying to wake-up the public to the actions the US government was taking supposedly on behalf of its citizens.) Though the WU was certainly more extreme, they were no more terrorists than extreme environmentalists who light Hummer dealerships afire. Both are destruction of property, alone, and pretty serious criminal activity, but in neither case is anyone being terrorized.

And it's almost never noted during these "discussions" that no one died as a result of the WU bombings -- aside from three members of the group, itself, when they still called themselves The Weathermen. When one of the bombs they were building blew-up in their faces, sending the rest of the group on the lamb, they changed their name to The Weather Underground. Again, the Weather Underground planned its bombing to avoid any casualties or injuries; which stands in stark contrast to the works of Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph, murderers and true domestic terrorists, and people like John McCain's close personal friend, G. Gordon Liddy, who advocated the murder of federal agents.

Finally, was WU made-up of extreme radicals, or were they patriots? If one were to listen to G. Gordon Liddy types, they proclaim their patriotic right to forcefully resist government overreaching and illegality; which is just what drove the Weathermen to turn away from strictly pacifist civil disobedience. Without know there was a name for it, COINTELPRO, the SDS members who became The Weathermen were reacting to the violence they saw being perpetrated by the government against its own citizens, in the form of violence against and political assassinations of members of the black activist movement. Research the times, and one will quickly see that the Weather Underground was a reaction to the illegal, violent, state-sponsored murder and terrorism conducted as part of COINTELPRO. *THIS* is why charges were never brought against members of the Weather Underground; it would be impossible to get convictions once COINTELPRO had been exposed.


p.s. As for the source of the Ayers quotes, the most-often cited is the New York Times interview of Ayers, coincidentally published the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, where his book is discussed. The article starts with the now infamous quote -- though we'll never know if the article's author didn't splice Ayers' phrases together.

No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen

By DINITIA SMITH
Published: September 11, 2001

''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.''