I recently discovered a web-site that publishes an on-in magazine, In These Times. On that web-site today, I was surprised to see an article written by Bill Ayers, the first written statement Bill Ayers has made in some time. See the whole article here. Excerpts from the article:
- Every day, I participate in the never-ending effort to build a powerful and irresistible movement for peace and social justice. …
- During the primary, the blogosphere was full of chatter about my relationship with President-elect Barack Obama. We had served together on the board of the Woods Foundation and knew one another as neighbors in Chicago’s Hyde Park. In 1996, at a coffee gathering that my wife, Bernardine Dohrn, and I held for him, I made a donation to his campaign for the Illinois State Senate.
- Obama’s political rivals and enemies thought they saw an opportunity to deepen a dishonest perception that he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist who sympathizes with extremism—and they pounced. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) campaign provided the script, which included guilt by association, demonization of people Obama knew (or might have known), creepy questions about his background and dark hints about hidden secrets yet to be uncovered.
- On March 13, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), apparently in an attempt to reassure the “base,” sat down for an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. McCain was not yet aware of the narrative Hannity had been spinning for months, and so Hannity filled him in: Ayers is an unrepentant “terrorist,” he explained, “On 9/11, of all days, he had an article where he bragged about bombing our Pentagon, bombing the Capitol and bombing New York City police headquarters. … He said, ‘I regret not doing more.’ “ McCain couldn’t believe it. Neither could I. …
- On the campaign trail, McCain immediately got on message. I became a prop, a cartoon character created to be pummeled. ….
At the end of the article, Ayers concludes by saying: “In this time of new beginnings and rising expectations, it is even more urgent that we figure out how to become the people we have been waiting to be.”
