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Family ties proved Ayers' point (from May 2008 but timely info)
Chicago Tribune ^ | May 18, 2008 | Ron Grossman

Posted on 11/16/2008 9:19:11 AM PST by angkor

This is an older but now-timely article from the Trib, couldn't find it posted in the FR archives:

Family ties proved Ayers' point

By Ron Grossman May 18, 2008

A funny thing happened to Bill Ayers in the years between his first headline-grabbing activities and his cameo role in the 2008 presidential campaign. He became a pillar of the very establishment he had once conspired to bring down.

[snip]

Ayers' round trip—from a privileged childhood to the bomb-making wing of '60s radicalism and back up the social ladder—shows he got one thing right in his critique of America: Whom you know is as important as what you know.

Being to-the-manor born is all but a lifetime guarantee that doors will be opened.

Ayers' father, Thomas Ayers, was CEO of Commonwealth Edison as well as a trustee of Tribune Co. and chairman of the board of Northwestern University.

[snip]

Ayers' father moved in philanthropic circles with Howard Trienens, an attorney with the powerhouse firm of Sidley Austin. The two served together on Northwestern University's Board of Trustees. Ayers was chairman of that group, then handed the post off to Trienens in 1986.

Trienens headed Sidley Austin when the firm hired Dohrn in 1984. She had never practiced law and had been out of law school for 17 years.

When I asked Trienens if he had hired Dohrn, he replied: "Yes." Wasn't that a bit of nepotism, considering his relationship to her father-in-law? A lot of lawyers would love a first job with such a prestigious firm. "We often hire friends," replied Trienens, 84.

Yet Dohrn wasn't licensed to practice law. Though she passed the bar exam, the ethics committee turned her down because of her rap sheet.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Illinois
KEYWORDS: 2008; ayers; hypocrisy; obama; obamafamily; obamatransitionfile; obamatruthfile; terrorism; weathermen; weatherunderground
Watch committed communists, terrorists, and monumental hypocrites Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn as they cruise through the criminal, legal, and education systems of Chicago and the United States on the back of Ayers' rich, white, and upper-class influential father.

That Ayers never served a day in prison (and Dohrn only 6 month for contempt) illustrates their illusory "commitment" to leading the masses through battles with the evil imperialist pigs and to a bright collectivist future.

Others suffered, died, and went to jail. Ayers and Dohrn didn't get a scratch.

1 posted on 11/16/2008 9:19:11 AM PST by angkor
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To: angkor

Also illustrating the unbelievable solipsism and the mind-boggling self-centeredness of Ayers and Dohrn is their silence (and no apparent shame) about the 1.5 million refugees from post-1975 Vietnam; the millions crippled and killed by the VC and in “reeducation” camps; the other millions killed by Cambodia’s Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge (led by French-educated men of privelege); their silence about Ho Chi Minh’s role in the global Communist Party; and the many other murderous and genocidal associations in their past.


2 posted on 11/16/2008 9:26:29 AM PST by angkor (Conservatism is not a religious movement.)
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To: angkor

Dohrn’s daddy wasn’t exactly in the poor house himself. And look at Patty Hearst - she may have been kidnapped initially, but she sure adopted the cause enthusiastically and even though she was involved in an attack where someone was killed, she was treated with kid gloves.

All of the “radical” kids I knew in the 60s were the children of wealthy, powerful families. Nothing they did ever had any negative effect on them.

It didn’t even have to be violent. When they destroyed good public higher education by forcing open admissions at CCNY, for example, it wasn’t any problem to them because they just went on to the Ivies (they had only gone to City for old times’ sake, because their grandfathers had gone there). This was typical of their activities.


3 posted on 11/16/2008 9:45:24 AM PST by livius
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To: angkor

This story can be repeated a hundred times regarding these 60s “radicals”. Little rich kids who knew they would never be what DADDY was or accomplish what he did. With the hard work done, what’s a spoiled rich kid supposed to DO?

This is also a perfect example of the difference between HAVING a silver spoon and not- to repeat myself: Both Ayers and Manson are guilty of similar crimes, the only difference being that Manson doesn’t actually have blood on his hands- Ayers does. Both keep sounding off like crazies. BUT Manson is in prison for life (where he belongs) and Ayers isn’t (but SHOULD be).

This is a lesson for the idiots that follow these people- in the end, the elites won’t view YOU any differently than the rest of us. You are fodder and a means to THEIR end.

At the VERY least, Ayers and Dorhn should be anathema, they should be publically humiliated and shunned. The alumni should see to it that these two worthless human beings are fired and everyone they call “friends” should treat them as they deserve.


4 posted on 11/16/2008 9:56:47 AM PST by 13Sisters76 ("It is amazing how many people mistake a certain hip snideness for sophistication. " Thos. Sowell)
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To: angkor

The point is this man and his wife were never punished. I would say they were rewarded.

They are still getting away.


5 posted on 11/16/2008 10:41:06 AM PST by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote.)
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To: freekitty
I would say they were rewarded.

Ofcourse, they were. Look at their address and who they live among.

Academia needs an overhaul.

6 posted on 11/16/2008 10:43:04 AM PST by riri
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To: 13Sisters76
This is a lesson for the idiots that follow these people- in the end, the elites won’t view YOU any differently than the rest of us. You are fodder and a means to THEIR end.

Yep. Here's some Wikipedia stuff about the leadership of the murderous Khmer Rouge, with a few of my comments in brackets [...]. It's also worth noting that the French Communist Party was co-founded by - yes, the French CP - by Ho Chi Minh, a big hero of Ayers, Dohrn, and the Weathermen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#The_Paris_student_group

Pol Pot, who rose to the leadership of the communist movement in the 1960s, was born in 1928 (some sources say in 1925) in Kampong Thum Province, northeast of Phnom Penh. He attended a technical high school in the capital and then went to Paris in 1949 to study radio electronics (other sources say he attended a school for printers and typesetters and also studied civil engineering). Described by one source as a "determined, rather plodding organizer," he failed to obtain a degree, but, according to the Jesuit priest, Father François Ponchaud, he acquired a taste for the classics of French literature as well as for the writings of Marx.

Another member of the Paris student group was Ieng Sary. He was a Chinese-Khmer born in 1925 in South Vietnam. He attended the elite Lycée Sisowath in Phnom Penh before beginning courses in commerce and politics at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (more widely known as Sciences Po) in France. Khieu Samphan, considered "one of the most brilliant intellects of his generation," was born in 1931 and specialized in economics and politics during his time in Paris.[citation needed] In talent he was rivaled by Hou Yuon, born in 1930, who was described as being "of truly astounding physical and intellectual strength,"[citation needed] and who studied economics and law [in Paris/angkor]. Son Sen, born in 1930, studied education and literature [in Paris/angkor]; Hu Nim, born in 1932, studied law [in Paris/angkor].

These men were perhaps the most educated leaders in the history of Asian communism. Two of them, Khieu Samphan and Hou Yuon, earned doctorates from the University of Paris; Hu Nim obtained his degree from the University of Phnom Penh in 1965. In retrospect, it seems unlikely that these talented members of the elite, sent to France on government scholarships, could launch the bloodiest and most radical revolution in modern Asian history. Most came from landowner or civil servant families. Pol Pot and Hou Yuon may have been related to the royal family. An older sister of Pol Pot had been a concubine at the court of King Monivong. Three of the Paris group forged a bond that survived years of revolutionary struggle and intraparty strife, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary married Khieu Ponnary and Khieu Thirith (also known as Ieng Thirith), purportedly relatives of Khieu Samphan. These two well-educated women also played a central role in the regime of Democratic Kampuchea.

7 posted on 11/16/2008 11:06:58 AM PST by angkor (Conservatism is not a religious movement.)
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To: livius
>>>>>All of the “radical” kids I knew in the 60s were the children of wealthy, powerful families.<<<<<<

As noted in the above post, members of the upper echelon of the genocidal Khmer Rouge were all from wealthy and prominent Cambodian families. Most were university educated in Paris.

They were of exactly and precisely the same social template and belief system as Ayers and Dohrn.

8 posted on 11/16/2008 11:13:29 AM PST by angkor (Conservatism is not a religious movement.)
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To: riri

>>>>>Ofcourse, they were. Look at their address and who they live among. <<<<<<<

Dohrn was rejected by the New York Bar Assoc. for obvious character issues, namely being a terrorist.

Yet she is a professor at Northwestern Law, teaching upcoming attorneys her very special brand of affection for the rule of law.


9 posted on 11/16/2008 11:19:24 AM PST by angkor (Conservatism is not a religious movement.)
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To: All
"The FBI came to Thomas Ayers' office at ComEd every month or so for years, looking for Bill. . . . Then one day, Thomas Ayers [Bill's daddy] had had enough. There's only so much a father will take, even from his government. . . . The elder Ayers chuckles at the memory."

I am tired of the smirking and chuckling.

The more you learn about these steaming piles the more I want to see the San Francisco investigation into the female POS's role in the murder of the policeman. There's got to be some charge that can be brought against the male POS that even his rich and influential daddy can't save him nor can academia, Obama, the MSM. . . .

We cannot let it go unnoticed when President Obama orders the FBI off the case to prove that Dohrn murdered the San Francisco policeman and injured others.

BTW, I could find nothing in the Tribune about that case -- there may be but I could not find mention of it.

From a Chicago Tribune admiring account printed in 2001.

"Ayers is preparing to embark on a 20-city book tour and a slew of interviews to promote 'Fugitive Days.' Earlier in the summer, Ayers posed for a provocative photograph with the American flag crumbled in weeds around his feet.

"'I guess I didn't take my medication that day,' Ayers says. 'It was silly.'

"The photographer, Ayers says, brought the flag as a prop; 'I don't carry one around myself.'

"But when the photographer asked the veteran radical with the twinkle in his eye to take off his shirt and wrap the flag around his tattooed torso and back, Ayers declined.

"'Even I knew that was going too far,' he says. 'Now, Bernardine is in charge of what I stand on.'

"Ayers flashes a smile and he and Dohrn walk down the bluff, holding hands and laughing [smirking and chuckling]."

10 posted on 11/16/2008 11:31:46 AM PST by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: WilliamofCarmichael

The only medicine that could ever cure what ails Ayers is Jesus and something just tells me he is not going to take advantage of that.


11 posted on 11/16/2008 11:34:02 AM PST by Paved Paradise
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