Bill Ayres: Self-righteous, self-absorbed, intellectually dishonest and a miserable human being

20 Apr, 2008 by McQ

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And still as radical a lefty as you’ll ever find.

I’m sometimes asked if I regret anything I did to oppose the war in Viet Nam, and I say “no, I don’t regret anything I did to try to stop the slaughter of millions of human beings by my own government.” Sometimes I add, “I don’t think I did enough.” This is then elided: he has no regrets for setting bombs and thinks there should be more bombings.

The illegal, murderous, imperial war against Viet Nam was a catastrophe for the Vietnamese, a disaster for Americans, and a world tragedy. Many of us understood this, and many tried to stop the war. Those of us who tried recognize that our efforts were inadequate: the war dragged on for a decade, thousands were slaughtered every week, and we couldn’t stop it. In the end the U.S. military was defeated and the war ended, but we surely didn’t do enough.

For the few who may not know, what he did, and apparently didn’t feel he did enough of, was bomb places. And, in fact, the organization he was with, the Weather Underground, was responsible for killing 2 police officers and a Brinks guard, when, acting as common criminals, they robbed an armored car.

Thankfully, in 1969, 3 of the Weather Underground blew themselves up building a bomb they planned to plant at Ft. Dix, NJ, a US Army base. The bomb was packed with nails to inflict maximum casualties upon detonation. One of the three killed was Bill Ayers’ girlfriend at the time.

Between October of 1969 and Sept. 1975 (when the participation of the US in the war in Vietnam was well over), the organization Bill Ayers was an integral part of was responsible for 24 bombings to include bombings at Harvard and MIT.

But, like most of the self-righteous and self-absorbed, he’s good for a bit of rationalization and intellectual dishonesty to excuse his conduct:

2. Terror. Terrorism–according to both official U.S. policy and the U.N.–is the use or threat of random violence to intimidate, frighten, or coerce a population toward some political end. This means, of course, that terrorism is not the exclusive province of a cult, a religious sect, or a group of fanatics. It can be any of these, but it can also be–and often is–executed by governments and states. A bombing in a café in Israel is terrorism, and an Israeli assault on a neighborhood in Gaza is terrorism; the September 11 attacks were acts of terrorism, and the U.S. bombings in Viet Nam for a decade were acts of terrorism. Terrorism is never justifiable, even in a just cause–the Union fight in the 1860’s was just, for example, but Shernan’s [sic] March to the Sea was indefensible terror. I’ve never advocated terrorism, never participated in it, never defended it. The U.S. government, by contrast, does it routinely and defends the use of it in its own cause consistently.

Good lord, what a complete and obvious load of horseapples.

Back to his previous remarks about Vietnam:

“Many of us understood this, and many tried to stop the war.”

So what was the purpose of Ayers’ bombings? To try “to stop the war”, right? A “political end”, wouldn’t you say? And how did he try to accomplish that political end? By using and threatening “random violence to intimidate, frighten, or coerce a population” toward that end.

Yet this pompous ass hasn’t the intellectual honesty to admit he is what he decries and condemns.

In the entry below, he reveals two things – why he’s a professor of ~~English~~ Education and that he’s still a self-righteous and self-absorbed nincompoop who has no problem enjoying the benefits of a system he obviously doesn’t understand in the least but has no problem condemning:

Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution–a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good–must win.

Is Barack Obama as clueless about Ayers as he claims to be about what Jeremiah Wright has been up to for 23 years?

And to top it off, Bill Ayers is a pig. Not the type he would define from days of yore, but a simple, ugly, miserable human pig as Donna Ron, who unfortunately got to know him better than she wanted too, attests.

This is the guy the left, Obama and Daily want to defend? The guy whose “exploits” 40 years ago are now excusable simply because of the passage of time and because he’s now settled in to a “normal” life?

As they continue to defend Ayres, or wave off any significance concerning their relationship with him (imagine the same leeway being given to someone who had even a casual relationship with David Duke), they should understand that those who learn the story aren’t going to be as accepting of their defense of him. And whether the left likes it or not, choosing to defend this man will count against “judgment” and “character”, whether they like it or not.
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First published at QandO.