POLJUNK

AAAUGH!! The video isn't coming up; what was the gist of it? Any "we got yer William Ayers right here" type smoking gun turnarounds in it?

Lots of damning quotes from leadership of the Alaskan Independence party bashing America worse than Rev. Wright ever did. And then showing how and when the Palins have associated themselves with the party. If they want to try to link Obama with Bill Ayers they might have to explain their own association with an entire party that hates America so much they want to break from it.

what is the opinion here on Ayers? I don't even understand how a guy like that can get a job in the education system. But I don't understand chicago politics at all.

You can't blame righties for bringing him up. I can imagine that if John McCain served on the board with a David Duke like character or maybe a guy who used to bomb abortion clinics, the left would be all over it day in and day out.

Tim,

Fact: Willie Ayers, love him or hate him, was never tried or convicted of the crimes that the Right accuses him of. Depending on who you listen to, he may or may not have benefited from a legal technicality that resulted in charges (I'd have to research exactly what charges, if any) being dropped. Therefore, there is no impediment to him finding work - that is he doesn't have a felony conviction for conspiring to commit murder/terrorism/bomb,etc. following him around.

Also, Ayers teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago. That's not a political job, so I don't think Chicago politics (as in the famed "Demcoratic Machine") has anything to do with Ayers's employment.

Ayers lives in the same neighborhood as Obama and the both served on a board to promote local school development projects. That, by and large, is the extent of the "association" that the Right decries.

Ayers is an avowed communist and is still so today. While most of us might not endores his ideology of choice, being a communist in and of itself is not a crime.

Strategically, bringing Ayers up will play well to low-information voters who now form the GOP base, but scratch the surface of this "scandal" and there isn't much there. To that end, I don't "blame" the Right for bringing it up, but after raising a fuss about Ayers, the Right went and rallied behind Her Mooseness, Caribou Barbie, who has much more intimate (literally) dealings with a man who was active for many years in a political party dedicated to having Alaska secede from the United States. That, my friend, is rank hypocrisy. To quote Mike Huckabee, "Americans will forgive a sinner. They will not forgive a hypocrite."

Since you brought up the David Duke point, it turns out that McCain did have close ties (served on the board?) early in his political career to the US Council for World Freedom. Among other things, that group supported Right-wing death squads in Central America in the 1980's. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/07/politics/main4505539.shtml

Now you've got me interested in the US Council for World Freedom. Maybe it's time for an investigative piece...

Thanks, Tim

I'm personally a big fan of SDS, Black Panthers, Weather Underground, and all the radical groups in the late 60s/early 70s. Like Thomas Jefferson, I believe that when any Form of Government becomes destructive to the ends of securing Life, Liberty, and the pusuit of Happiness, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.

It could certainly be argued that in 1969, the time was ripe for revolution. "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

I just now viewed the video. Oh boy...

The music - is that from the 28 Days Later soundtrack?

You seem to imply there is something wrong if a babykilling abortion mill is burned or bomb. Which do you prefer, a pile of bricks or a pile of dead babies? Innocent unborn babies deserve to be protected just as born children deserve to be protected. You would have no problem protecting born children if they were about to be murdered.
SAY THIS PRAYER: Dear Jesus, I am a sinner and am headed to eternal hell because of my sins. I believe you died on the cross to take away my sins and to take me to heaven. Jesus, I ask you now to come into my heart and take away my sins and give me eternal life.

Can either of you suggest some good books that are fairly objective about these groups from the '60s? I find it interesting and while I have read several on the civil rights movement, I have never read anything on the radical militant side of it.

I don't care for guys like Ayers (who feels they didn't do enough). When you result to cowardly measures such as bomb planting to force your political views on people, it just amounts to a leftist form of fascism and it does more damage to the credibility of the left. (and I realize his role in all this isn't conclusive and that he wasn't convicted... I just mean the idea of it all).

I can understand, though, how these groups rose up in response to the racism that was going on at the time. I just think there is a lot of lies and misinformation about Obama and his connection to Ayers. Thats why I asked your opinions.

Thanks for your response though, I don't agree with you guys sometimes (I'm a moderate -I lean right on some things and left on others). I just bring a different perspective thats all. but I do appreciate you all taking the time to write out your thoughts and opinions to my comments.

and Jude, I'd like to read that piece you are talking about writing. If McCain or Palin are connected to radical right groups...that should be exposed as well. Why doesn't the media cover the Palin connection to that group anyway (or maybe they have and I haven't seen anything?

Tim, I recommend a collection of primary documents called The Sixties Papers. It reprints a ton of fascinating articles and speeches from the time: the anti-war movement, SDS, Weathermen, Yippies, etc.

It's interesting to read it in their own words as opposed to looking back on it in retrospect.

Tim,

Okay, I'll make it my mission in the next few days to write that piece.

I don't really care for Ayers either, but there he is... While my politics are actually fairly moderate too, I think that the Right has gone off the deep end in recent years. There is no analogue on today's Left for this phenomenon. The Right has been very effective at branding anybody who isn't one of them as "Leftist." Thus, at present, I consider myself more of an "anti-Republican" than a Democrat.

Oh, and I'd love to abolish the 2-party system and open things up to more parties.

Thanks for your thoughts. Let's keep the dialogue going.

Reverend Spitz,

Who the hell said anyting about abortion?

1) Nothing fails like prayer.

2) Why is it that the "pro-life" folks are really only concerned with fetuses? How may people have been aborted since we invaded Iraq? How many people have we aborted via capital punishment? How many people have we aborted by allowing insurers and HMOs to deny critical care? We abort people all the time, so why is it such a big deal when we abort a fetus? I never hear a word from the goodly pro-lifers about any of this.

I'd have a lot more respect for the "pro-life" movement if it were, in fact, pro-life.

3) Unborn "babies" aren't babies until they're born. People are issued birth certificates, not conception certificates.

4) None of this is to suggest that I "like" abortion. What makes you think that if the government files away a piece of paper that declare abortion illegal, we will see an end to abortion? Abortion will just go underground. Wealthy women will pay doctors for "services" or fly out of the state/country and poor women will turn to the coat-hanger in the back-alley, courtesy of your local organized crime ring. Given this scenario, keeping abortion safe and legal is the lesser of two evils.