Posted on 03/20/2009 12:36:04 PM PDT by Doctor Raoul
No disruptions at Ayers' visit
By AD CRABLE, Staff Writer
There were no hecklers inside where Bill Ayers spoke. And the couple dozen students and people who supported or protested the former radical's appearance outside politely agreed to disagree.
With a massive police presence and tight security, feared confrontations, speech disruptions and even possible violence did not materialize, and Ayers' entire visit on Millersville University's campus Thursday took place in peace.
Not that people didn't feel strongly about a man who admitted to bombing government buildings during the Vietnam War being invited here.
"What he did was so wrong," said Nancy Leed, 56, of Washington Boro, taking a break from her job as a cashier on campus.
"I know he's not coming here to discuss his past and it will be about education, but still he left a mark — a bad mark — and I don't think this is the place that we need to hear it," said Leed.
"I know people say it was in his past, but hey, I'm from the Vietnam War era, and he went over the line," she said.
Students from both the Republican and Democrat campus chapters spoke out vociferously against bringing Ayers to campus.
"We are outraged that he is here," said Ryan Barrick, president of the college Democrats chapter. "This is an outrage to any student at Millersville University or resident of Lancaster County.
"His reputation as an unrepentant terrorist precedes him, and for him to come here to talk about urban education is flat-out wrong."
"MU Why?" read one of the signs group members held outside the Student Memorial Center, across from where Ayers spoke.
Another group held a sign that said, "MU Grads Against Terrorists."
But right next to them were the six members of the campus chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, a group that Ayers split from in the 1960s to form the more radical Weather Underground.
"I don't approve of his tactics, but he is trying to make a better world," said Josh Redd, SDS chapter president.
Joanne Roda, 56, of Lancaster, attended Ayers' speech because she was interested in his views on education.
What about the speaker's past? she was asked.
"If there's a problem, then it's with the federal government because they chose not to prosecute him," she said. "He went on to lead a good life — at least a purposeful life."
Widespread media attention and concerns trouble might erupt in a charged atmosphere prompted Millersville University officials to arrange for a huge security presence.
Several dozen police officers included campus police, Pennsylvania State Police, Lancaster city police, Ephrata police, the Lancaster County Sheriff's Department, at least two police dogs and about 20 members of the South Central Pennsylvania Regional Counter Terrorism Task Force, a regional conglomorate of public agencies.
However, the task force asked to man the event as a training exercise.
Police cars and barricades blocked streets around the building where Ayers spoke and at a closed-circuit broadcast of the speech in the nearby Student Memorial Center.
MU spokeswoman Janet Kacskos today said she did not know precisely how many law-enforcement officers were on hand and how much it would cost to pay for them.
"Anybody who wants to be paid will submit invoices," she said. However, she emphasized that all costs for security will be paid with private funds, not by the taxpayers or students.
Asked if the university had any regrets about mobilizing such a large police presence on campus, Kacskos said no and noted that the university received "hostile" phone calls and e-mail messages through Thursday.
"We needed to be prepared to protect our students; that's our first priority," she said.
Ayers' most recent talks, though certainly controversial, have invoked mixed reactions from those actually attending the events.
Last October, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln uninvited Ayers to speak on campus after the university's threat-assessment group identified safety concerns.
His talk in January before 500 people at St. Mary's College in California drew a mixture of boos and cheers from the audience, some of whom disrupted his speech before being led away by police.
A March 5 talk at the University of Colorado drew a loud ovation and no disruptions. Only a few protesters waved signs outside the event.
At Ayers' most recent campus talk, at the University of Illinois last week, a man was arrested for repeatedly approaching Ayers on four successive nights. The county's state attorney later decided not to press charges.
Staff writer Ad Crable can be reached at acrable@LNPnews.com or 481-6029.
Interesting how Ayers gets to speak without hassle but when a Conservative tries he’s heckled off the stage ...
It would be “terrorism” if someone kicked the murderer’s ass? I would call that justice. In a better day and age, he’d be swinging form a lamp post.
Stalin would have calm, Reagan would be loudly protested.
It is the way of the insane.
There’s irony for you... I guess it really is a Terrorism Protection Force. [/cynic]
>Interesting how Ayers gets to speak without hassle but when a Conservative tries he’s heckled off the stage ...
Indeed.
To listen to the locals you’d believe he’s just misguided and misunderstood. We should all sing kumbya and forget what he is and what he did. Not likely though for those of us who have a visceral response to our experiences during the Days of Rage.
His past should follow him wherever he goes, just to let him know has past is not forgotten.
Why are Republican presidents called cowboys when their foreign policies don’t coincide with liberals and Dems and the media?
It’s not forgotten - it’s ignored by the media and liberals ...
Consider the obligatory argument ad hitlerum as posted.
Yes, a terrorist has a "purposeful life". The purpose is to kill and terrorize (oops...man-caused disasters)
It's not so much what he did back then. A great many people did stupid and evil things at the time but have repented them.
It's that he remains proud of his actions.
After all this press and the more people know he tried to overthrow our gov., I’ll wager he doesn’t make it to a natural death.
Interesting indeed. The likes of Ayers, Ward Churchill and Michael Moore can speak anywhere without worrying about a pie being thrown at them. I wonder if anybody else notices. /s
Because, just like the orchestra musicians on the USS Titanic that played their songs until the cold North Atlantic ocean water filled their lungs, the Left will not cease, in their political moves or in the media until we are in a one-world Communist dictatorship where Mother Government has sole and absolute power in every conceievable part of the peasants’ lives.
Newspapers are dying everyday, and they still print more Liberal biased drivel and publish outright lies. They are about to lose their livilhoods and they still continue to cry for Stalin and Castro...
You would think that since there’s so many liberals and Democrats out there they could support these rags ...guess you need more than subscriptions to sustain a paper, they need those evil corporate companies they hate like Macy and Nordstrom and other merchandising companies to support them ...
The premise of Liberalism in every form is working hard NOT TO WORK.
Unions, affirmative action, labor laws...all toil tirelessly to make hard work a thing of the past.
The oddest part of the Left is that most are not ghetto or barrio dwellers, the majority of Liberals have made their fortunes in a capitalist system...
The system that they love to promote would never afford them the luxuries, safety or fame that they have now, in fact, they would be penniless in a Marxist society.
It is good to speak about gun control when you have armed bodyguards, an alarm system, dogs and live in a gated community.
It is great to “soak the rich” with taxes when you keep yours in offshore trusts, royalty trusts and foundations.
It is good to preach of the danger of climate change when you live in a 20,000 SF mansion and fly a private jet.
It is wonderful that you want to raise taxes on all business when you fail to pay your own share.
It is great to be a pro-homosexual marriage, pro-feminist but have nothing to say when the religion of peace kills, beats and tortures gays and women.
You love the idea of amnesty, yet your children do not attend schools, go to hospitals nor do you live near violent cartel-funded Latino gangs.
You want Social Security and healthcare “overhauled” but if you are Federal politician, you have private coverage through a side fund the taxpayers’ fund.
You seem to hate the death penalty and work tirelessly to end capital punishment, sometimes having candlelight vigils, legal defense funds, etc. to confessed murderers and rapists, but think nothing of murdering a defenseless child in its mother’s womb.
I loathe Liberals, in every way.
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