Lawrence Grossberg is an ignorant fool.
Posted on 10/18/2008 11:36:19 AM PDT by XR7
Thousands of academics have signed an online petition in support of Bill Ayers, the 1960s-radical-turned-college professor whose ties to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama were a matter of hot dispute in Wednesday night's debate.
The petition, which has circulated through university faculties across the nation, says critics of Ayers, an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, are trying to "intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue."
More than 3,200 have signed the petition.
The petition represents a rare attempt to defend Ayers, whose name has become a political epithet. Republicans have called him a "domestic terrorist," and presidential candidate John McCain said Wednesday night that Obama's dealings with him raise questions of character.
Obama, for his part, has downplayed his connections with Ayers and disavowed Ayers' violent acts. But Ayers, his supporters say, has dimensions that are being ignored amid the election-year tumult.
Ayers "built an extraordinary life," said Lawrence Grossberg, a University of North Carolina Chapel Hill communications studies professor who signed the petition. "He has become one of the leading scholars in the field of education. (People are) excoriating him for things he did 40 years ago and misrepresenting what he has done since, in order to make someone else suffer. That doesn't seem very American to me."
But George Leef, director of research for the John William Pope Foundation for Education Policy, a conservative Raleigh, N.C., think tank, said the petition's signers are conveniently ignoring key facts. Ayers was never charged with killing anyone, but people were killed by bombs linked to his organization.
A 1970 pipe bomb in San Francisco attributed to the group killed a police officer and hurt another, and an accidental 1970 explosion in a Greenwich Village basement killed three radicals. In 1981, two police officers and a security guard were killed in the robbery of an armored truck in New York that involved two Weather Underground members.
"There is a lot of selective indignation in America, and the academic world is as prone to that as anyone else," Leef said. "If Ayers at one point had expressed a favorable opinion of the Ku Klux Klan, I don't think he would have ever lived that down."
In the late 1960s, Ayers helped form the Weather Underground, a group that launched a series of bombings targeting U.S. landmarks. Ayers was charged in 1970 with inciting to riot and conspiracy to bomb public buildings, but the charges were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct. He has since redefined himself -- in some circles -- as an education scholar, the author or editor of about 15 books. He advocates for school reform and helped win nearly $50 million in grants for Chicago schools.
Ayers and Obama live near each other in Chicago and worked with a charity and foundation board together. In addition, Ayers once hosted a political meeting for Obama in the mid-1990s as Obama prepared to run for the state Senate in Illinois.
At Wednesday night's debate, McCain said the scope of Ayers' ties to Obama have not been fully explored. "We need to know the full extent of that relationship," he said.
Obama said that Ayers "engaged in despicable acts. ... I have roundly denounced those acts." He said Ayers has had no involvement in his campaign and would have no role in an Obama administration.
Duke law professor Michael Tigar has known the couple for many years and respects their academic work. Tigar, who also signed the petition, criticized attempts to link Obama with Ayers' past indiscretions.
The petition's origin isn't clear. It is signed only "Friends and supporters of Bill Ayers," and it doesn't address the most destructive acts committed by Ayers and his group, such as bombs set off at the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon.
It reads in part, "The current characterizations of Professor Ayers -- 'unrepentant terrorist,' 'lunatic leftist' -- are unrecognizable to those who know or work with him. It's true that Professor Ayers participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans.
"His participation in political activity 40 years ago is history; what is most relevant now is his continued engagement in progressive causes, and his exemplary contribution -- including publishing 16 books -- to the field of education. The current attacks appear as part of a pattern of 'exposes' and assaults designed to intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue."
One more reason NOT to send your kids to college.
Education is a pool of group-think that is becoming ever-more concentrated as the the heat of socialism is added to it.
Ummmm....let’s look at this a little closer. 3200 signatures is quite a bit. 300+ million is a little more. That’s 300+ million that don’t want this guy around. Guess they loose huh?
Lawrence Grossberg is an ignorant fool.
Evidently it didn’t work in Nebraska..he got “uninvited” to the University. Good on them!
Does anyone know why Bill Ayers isn’t in jail for setting off bombs in federal buildings?
If I recall correctly he was a fugitive from justice, in hiding for many years. Was there not enough evidence against him? He never went on trial, did he? Did some flunkie of his actually set off the bombs, so his fingerprints weren’t on the actual bombs???
And how does such a person get to be appointed to be a college professor in a public university? Don’t they do background checks in colleges when they hire people? Are the college administrators so liberal that they don’t give a blank who they hire to teach our young people? Or do they only screen for conservative views in colleges anymore? Since Ayers opposed the Vietnam War, he is forever forgiven for whatever he may have done, because his heart was in the right place?????
He gets his paycheck from a unit of the government which he would have wanted to violently overthrow. What kind of %*%*% is this.
It’s their version of the Bill of Rights.
Only applies to them and their ilk. They are the true suppressors of freedom, just like Ayers.
They are sick and this is what America will get with their boy in the WhiteHouse.
Wake up, America.
3200 that need a good beating...
Good we will need a list......he he he
LOL! So he is being unfairly excoriated for doing “things” 40 years ago. I guess then we should let Charles Manson out of jail because all he did was “things” that don’t matter now 40 years later.
And these so called academics believe that they are smart? Sheesh they have sh*t for brains.
This is really an indictment against the ‘academics’. Now it should be obvious to any open-minded individual they are nothing but indoctrinating.
That's actually one of the very best, most accurate, and succinct depictions of the current state of academics that I've ever seen. It really is ‘group think’, and it's worse in the Ivies. It's kind of tragically laughable that people automatically think a person must be exceptionally bright because they attended an Ivy. Ironically, acceptance of that stereotype is just another example of the ‘group think’ you've pointed out.
This picture singes my guts.
It needs to be in McCain’s ads.
If he doesn’t have the rocks to use it,get a big poster-sized version of it to Sarah and she can display it at her rallies. It would be a nice backdrop since the media have their cameras trained on her every second waiting for that golden gaffe moment that will not come.
This gargantuan piece of trash needs to be eliminated once and for all.
Forgettable? Maybe yes. I remind the reader that Ms (Prof?) DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN was one of the attestees. She has been a regular 'constitutional scholar' that has been trotted out on PBS, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN etc. anytime they need someone with a degree and bullshit Democratic opinion to make themselves sound legitimate.
3200 more who ought to be summarily dismissed from their government jobs for support of terrorism.
Since when does “Free Thinking”= Terrorist?
Is Osama Bin Laden a “Free Thinker” too?
Can you imagine what might have happened if “I’m sorry I didn’t do more” Ayres had met and collaborated with Atta?
And educational “colleagues” sympathize with Ayres?
If they hate America so much, they ought to go live somewhere else.
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