Okay, I had promised myself: No more posts about Bill Ayers. But then I learned (thanks, Texas Hill Country) about his book Prairie Fire, published in 1974. He dedicates the book to all sort of people he considers fighters for freedom...among them Sirhan Sirhan.Previously, I had read that the Weatherassholes were chanting "Sirhan power!" at various anti-war events in 1968 and '69. (They also applauded the murder of Sharon Tate, for God-knows-what reason.) Apologists have argued that the creeps chanting that shit soon saw the error of their ways.
Well, 1974 was a long way from 1968.
No, I don't think that Ayers was making a statement about any possible conspiracy in the RFK assassination case. I think he was doing the familiar Alex Cockburn good-riddance-to-capitalist-trash dance. What's more, I betcha that he'd still do that dance if given the forum.
If you want to see the full dedication page, go here.
And I promise that I'll try not to talk about Ayers again. God, though -- what an asshole.
7 comments:
On Nov. 18 at a book signing, Ayers was asked about the dedication to Sirhan. At first, he tries to pretend that it isn't true!
PICKET: Professor Ayers you had an unusual dedication to Sirhan Sirhan in your previous book. Do you regret that?
AYERS: Absolutely, but that wasn’t a dedication…show me. You heard it somewhere. The dedication in Prairie Fire in 1974…It was a manifesto was to all prisoners, and if I were writing a book like that today, I would dedicate it to 2.1 million people in prison. I think it was a stupid thing to single him out, but I also think that we have created a monster in the prison system. We ought to abolish the prison system. That’s what I believe.
Evidently Ayers wouldn't have Sirhan in prison... but sunning on a beach or teaching at university.
Do watch the one minute video where he acts like a kid saying, "What? There can't be cookies missing from the cookie jar!" http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kerry-picket/2008/11/18/eyeblast-tv-asks-ayers-about-sirhan-sirhan-book-dedication-where-was-m
What a scumbag.
James Taylor? Richard Harris?
The singer? The actor?
Aside from his ass-holery, what a bunch of verbal diarrhea. What a freak.
Keep posting about the turds Joe. Com'on. We can't forget, we can't forgive. If the Weatherturds hadn't started their crap, the US would have permanently shifted a bit to the left and we would all be immensely better off today. They REALLY hurt the country and they should only be forgiven if they have paid for their crimes. Ayers has not.
I wonder if Obama got his looking- down-the-nose-thing from Ayers? Or did they each develop it independently?
Joseph:
Please don't stop posting about Ayers and Dohrn.
Personally, I'm reading everything I can get my hands on about Weatherman/Weather Underground. I can't stop thinking about it. And why on earth was Reagan fan Obama attracted to them--just the elitism or something else?
Boston Boomer
Ayers also belongs to the largest group of homophones in the language, along with heirs, airs, errs, eres, eyres, aires, and sometimes e'ers.
I stopped flying after RFK's murder b/c of its implications of international terrorism (I was precocious) and b/c the planes were getting old and starting to come apart in the air. I've flown maybe 6 RT times since. One of those, in 1983, my plane landed at DeGaulle, while at Orly (the other Paris airport) a suitcase blew up, killing 6 Americans, something about Armenians vs. Turks.
Didn't you like Julie Taymor's "Across The Universe"? I thought the WU thread was well-articulated as a major/minor element of late-1960s culture's interplay of pop and seriousness. Oh, and back in 1975, the Socialist E.L. Doctorow was developing his Coalhouse Walker, Jr character - a murderous terrorist in his Ragtime novel (the movie sucks) - and well, it's cool to use fiction b/c you can never know a real person unless you sleep with them or do business with them.
On the topic of Ayers – the appointment of Linda Darling-Hammond (from Stanford) to head the Presidential transition policy team on Education is of interest.
See blog entry by Steve Diamond:
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/11/bill-ayers-first-appointment-to-obama.html
Steve Diamond supposedly has a source within the Obama campaign who claims that Ayers played a role in the appointment of Darling-Hammond. But Diamond also notes (elsewhere) that he has not been able to obtain independent confirmation of the source's accounts.
But entirely separate from any potential direct involvement of Ayers - quite a few of Darling-Hammond's education policy positions (e.g. the so-called "small schools" agenda, "social justice" teaching, etc.) are congruent with Ayers.
In a sense, the following question is overly simplistic and somewhat unfair, but....
Chicago Annenberg Challenge writ large?
On the Weatherarseholes applauding Sharon Tate. I'm not wholly surprised. In England, 'Oz' magazine praised the Moors murderers, and I'm told King Mob praised the murderer Mary Bell. Part of it in the latter case goes to sophomore wanna-be-nasty-and-cool liking for Lautréamont. Jack the Ripper was also praised by some of the hippy-freak 'radicals'. It's the sort of thing that makes working class people (whose experiences, in my opinion, are the only place where properly radical social critique can come from) cross the street - and rightly so. Anyone who has any time for the murder of Sharon Tate (who, let us recall, was eight months pregnant) is scum.
b
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