I wanted to get to the bottom of who Ayres really was and how he thought so I checked out “Fugitive Days” from the U of L Library. I managed to choke down half of it this past weekend. In literary terms it sucked. I have had better reads come from the sides of cereal boxes.
A few things jumped out at me:
1) Ayres preoccupation with sex. Every chapter either describes or alludes to a sexual act. Now, I’m not a prude, but I prefer the more tasteful stylings of someone like Hemingway or Kerouac, subtle and alluring. Ayres laces his book with overt sexual overtones and illicit affairs that consume at least 1/3 of the book. I know it was the 60’s but gees.
2) On page 14, the first three paragraphs of the new section stood out like red flags. In these paragraphs Ayres recalls the times when he would change his younger brother’s soiled diaper, the situation that would “arise” and how he dealt with said situation. This would not have been so bad if he did not seem to harbor some strange sort of affection described in the following paragraphs. He concludes by stating, “He knew how to keep a secret. Maybe I’m stretching but I was under the distinct impression that something other than normal affection to a sibling had developed.
3) On page 38, 3 paragraphs into the new chapter I read something that sounded extremely familiar;
“The fraternity wasn’t a good fit either, the Beta house being a lot like the prep school I’ just escaped - a crowd of hroney boys all living willingly in a [ now get this] a culture of clinging [ click ] mindless conventionality...”
That to me sounded a whole lot like the “Bitter Clinger” comment made by Obama earlier this spring. Could it be that this phrase is just symptomatic of the lefts loathing of Middle America, or could this be a phrase that the big 0 just happened to pick up from his mentor and incorporated into shtick.
4) Ayres is a typical liberal. The only things that make his different from the millions of other run of the mill leftists out there are his willingness to resort to violence and his relationship with O. He is from a white, privileged background who fell in with Marx in prep school out of a desire to rebel. This fascination with the counter culture was fostered and nurtured during his short stint in college, and eventually took the early form of action as a community organizer.
Points 2 & 3 troubled me the most. Something about that incident from Ayres’ youth was particularly troubling. Yes, it may be irrelevant to in connecting the former terrorists to Sen. Obama, but it provides the general sense of creepiness that just oozes from Ayres’ being. From what I have read Ayres’ would appear to be a sexual deviant determined to overthrow the existing order so as to justify and normalize his past and quite possibly present, sexual behavior.
As for the attempt to connect the writing of Obama’s “Dreams” to Ayres... I can’t speak to that; I have ever bothered to read the big O’s tome. However I do find the correlation with sentiments stated by Ayres in “Fugitive Days” to things Obama has alluded to and statements he has made, the “Bitter Clinger” comments being the most blatant. True this is part of the malady effecting the great masses of the unwashed, as often diagnosed by those enlightened few on the radical left, but the similarity in sentiment and the choice of the word “clinging’ seemed to me to be more than just coincidental.
..... Just some thoughts and observations.
If I am understanding you correctly, you see some kind of bisexuality or even child abuse playing a part in Ayers’s life. Isn’t it then interesting that in high school Obama spent many evenings drinking and smoking alone with his mentor, the communist Frank Marshall Davis, who also was a self-confessed bisexual pedophile?
It makes you think that Barack driving around having gay sex and coke in a limo not long ago is not as far-fetched as once thought. One wonders about the closeness of Ayers and Obama: did he just write his life story, or were they lovers as well?
Here's what strikes me about point 2: Ayers' parents were wealthy. They surely could have afforded a mother's helper to diaper the baby. But even if they had been poor, brothers don't change the baby's diaper. I was one of the oldest children in a very large family--the only girl. My family was upper lower class. I can't remember a single time when any of my brothers changed the current baby's diaper. That was my job...Lucky me.
So what the heck was this spoiled rich boy doing changing his brother's diaper? Creepy is exactly how I would describe his account.
He taught kindergarten at one point (or was it pre-school). His interest in in early childhood education.
Things that make you go "Mmmm"