September 12, 2001
BY STEVE NEAL SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
They are without shame. On the morning that the World Trade Center was razed by terrorist attacks, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn defended the use of explosives in the New York Times.
"I don't regret setting bombs," Ayers told the Times. "I feel we didn't do enough."
Ayers and Dohrn, who spent the 1970s as fugitives in the Weather Underground, have never apologized for promoting bigotry and violence. His neck is still tattooed with the Weathermen's rainbow and lightning logo. They are spoiled rich kids who never grew up.
It is puzzling that Ayers and Dohrn are being lionized for their political activism. He is the author of a new book, Fugitive Days, a memoir that is partly fiction. In the book, Ayers brags about taking part in the 1970 bombing of New York City police headquarters, a 1971 bombing of the U.S. Capitol, and a 1972 bombing of the Pentagon. Ayers writes that the Weathermen were responsible for a dozen of these bombings. He doesn't mention that the Weathermen idolized killer Charles Manson and adopted a fork as their symbol because a fork was shoved into the stomach of one of Manson's victims. At their 1969 convention in Flint, Mich., the Weathermen demonized the actress Sharon Tate, a Manson victim.
The former radio personality Studs Terkel, who does a pretty fair impression of the village idiot, gushes that this book is "a deeply moving elegy to all those young dreamers who tried to live decently in an indecent world. Ayers provides a tribute to those better angels of ourselves."
Ayers and Dohrn are scheduled to speak and sign books at 6 p.m. tomorrow in the Harold Washington Library. Why is our city honoring these self-absorbed nitwits?
In their 1974 book Prairie Fire, they claim that the Weathermen were responsible for 18 "focused and specific" bombings including attacks on law enforcement officials, an army base, corporate offices, and a federal office building.
Dohrn and Ayers denounce their native land and cite the People's Republic of China as "a wonderful development in the advance of humanity." They wax poetic about the 1966 Cultural Revolution in which millions of Chinese citizens were tortured and killed.
Ayers and Dohrn, in this same book, condemn the democratic state of Israel, denounce Zionism as racism, and endorse Palestinian terrorists as "a most progressive force in the politics of the Mideast."
The Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'rith, which monitors hate groups, has noted "a striking similarity between The Order and other rightist gangs and that of certain leftist terrorists, notably the Weather Underground ... and their allies."
According to the ADL: " ... their tactics are similar, and so are some of their basic objectives and attitudes. Both seek to destroy the American government and the system of constitutional liberty on which it rests. Both are sworn enemies of 'Zionism' and the State of Israel. Both are elitists who claim a monopoly of truth and the right to forcibly impose it on the majority. Both view the ordinary American citizen with contempt. And both seek to replace the American democratic system with a form of totalitarianism."
After playing revolutionaries, Ayers and Dohrn fell back on his family's wealth and political clout to fight their legal battles and help them obtain prestigious teaching positions. They are a disgrace to this town and an embarrassment to this country.
Who am I missing?
I feel as if we didn't do enough if these 2 are still seeing daylight. If the American justice system didn't put them away forever, perhaps a group of patriots can think of a way to..let'say...dispense with them permanently???