Rick Astley, '80s pop two hit wonder.
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."
“Sorry to be so glum but I think America as I knew it is over.
It does not even matter who wins the election, Hussein will only expedite the demise. The Marxist criminals will still have the congress.
Academia, from kindergarten to University is under full control of the Marxist.
The media is under full control of the Marxist.
State governments are falling every year.
I will be sitting under a palm tree in the Philippines, sipping a gin and tonic.”
There are those of us who will stay and defend our country against domestic terrorists.
only to be forced at bayonet point to recite the Shahada or have your head sawed off.
Thanks for the info.
Wow. Project much, communists?
They sent this same petition around when everyone was critizing Timothy McVeigh. Right?? Bueler...Anyone...Hello?
Rick Astley, '80s pop two hit wonder.
What is surprising is that there is not more.
Where has been their outrage at intimidation by obama in missouri? etc. rhetorical question
There, that's better.
Pity your kids. With an attitude like that they are in big trouble.
That's all very nice and patriotic. It sounds admirable.
I would be right with you if we were being invaded from an outside force.
The problem is that the US is not under attack from
the outside, but from its own population.
Are you willing to invade the US House and Senate.
Are you going to rout Bawney and Paluzie?
The idea that Hussein could even be the mayor of some blue state town is insane, but he may damn well be the POTUS.
The population has been dumbed down to the level of moron.
If this is what the US population wants, then they get what they ask for.
I prefer to take the rout of the original founders of America.
They ALL left their home countries.
Joe Mcarthy where are you??
We need to root out these dirtbags of society and put them behind bars!
One of the best ways to fight this male bovine defecation (that is BS) is to quit contributing to the alumni funds. I have done so and have made no secret that until my Alma Mater begins to get off is socialistic high horse I will donate my money to other causes.
I get at least two requests a month now from them which I return in the self addressed and stamped envelope with the same message, GO TO HELL and zero money.
I do the same with requests for donations to Democrats. I don't know if it does any good but it makes me feel good.
save the list for the next revolution.
Wasn’t Chappel Hill, N.C. the university which had about 100 professors sign a letter of indictment of the 4 Lacross Players. These people didn’t learn then and the people of the United States need to show them now that Ayers-sympathy is unacceptable at universities. Get the facts and comment on the facts Mr.Professor....Are you for bombing our capitol”....Are you for bombing the Pentagon?.....Are you for bombing police stations?.....Are you for killing innocent people in bombings?.......If you are against these things, you cannot support Ayers. If you are for these things, you are part of America’s problem, like Ayers.
The Chicago Sun Times, which scrubbed its website of every possible article detrimental to the Obamessiah campaign now produces a story which says what Ayers did was long ago and not really, really that bad anyhow. How shocking this “newspaper” should align itself with the radical left of education (excuse the redundancy).
“only to be forced at bayonet point to recite the Shahada or have your head sawed off.”
Maybe if on the island of Jolo, but the main core of the Philippines is very strong Catholic.
I spent all of August in Visayas and never saw even a hint of Muzies.
They are just as likely to take the US, just as they are taking the UK.
Impressive that 3,200 supposedly “smart” people, with PhDs etc., rely upon such weasel words as “activist” for someone who co-founded a TERRORIST group that set numerous bombs and KILLED people. Ayers IS a proud terrorist, and to call it merely “activism” is as absurd as when all the Mediascum call jihad mass murderers “militants”....
I began to loathe such snivelling weasels of academia many years ago when I experienced first-hand some of the bizarre extremes of political correctness on campus. Curiously, the sames kinds of people who sign such petitions were ready in an instant to “destroy” anyone who challenged any of their biases and ideological commitments.
I know for a fact (first-hand) that many of our campuses have been dominated by agit-prop scum like Ayers and his petition-signers for a long time now. Even though there are plenty of more sensible types in faculties and student populations, they mostly keep their heads down and try to do their real academic work - because who wants hordes of raving ranting ACORN types besieging their homes, offices, classrooms?
The SDS/Weatherfreak type of 60s scum have already had influence vastly beyond their numbers over 40 years, and if Obamessiah and his ACORNscum get into the WH then it’s going to get a lot worse.
He has indeed. Ayers has worked tirelessly to "educate" teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students. ...and judging by the number of signatures on this petition he's been quite successful.
This same group of academics (including the great thinker/pop dancer Rick Astley of the UK????) would never show up to defend the First Amendment right of David Horowitz or Daniel Pipes to speak out on campus about radical Islam. Defending Ayers and his Manson-loving wife Dohrn is like defending a surviving Adolf Hitler because he bacame an expert on the Autobahn after he did some “despicable things” 40 years ago which “just everyone else was doing” in “a time of turmoil”.
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