Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Monkeyleg on October 04, 2008, 06:09:00 PM
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I love it! Obama's finally getting called on the carpet for his relationship with Ayers and Dohrn.
Story here (http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/04/palin-accuses-obama-palling-terrorists/)
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It's about time someone on the McCain ticket did something aggressive!!!!!! ;)
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It's about time someone on the McCain ticket did something aggressive!!!!!! ;)
Next thing you know, they'll be defending the U.S. Constitution.
BTW: Very funny with "the annoyed man" label. Now, who's the wise guy . . . :D
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'Bout damn time.
Blogs and 'net journalists can do all the reporting they want, but the MSM hasn't picked any of it up or sanitizes it.
If the Rep candidates say it, though, they have to deal with it, even to dismiss it out of hand.
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Now is the right time to pound him on his associates. My criterion for evaluating a candidate for office is "what did the person do" not what "did the person promise". The sure fire way to evaluate a candidate with zero history (a catalogue of "dids") is his associates. I question if any one would have paid attention early on.
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Palin's already being called a racist. Before this is over McCain will be tagged a racist and a Cong collaborator.
They need to speak the truth, regardless.
But, man, this is going to get ugly and create engender huge division.
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We already have division.
A huge division.
We've just had everyone in denial about it.
A little honesty is just the thing.
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Palin's already being called a racist. Before this is over McCain will be tagged a racist and a Cong collaborator.
They need to speak the truth, regardless.
But, man, this is going to get ugly and create engender huge division.
The worrying thing for me is that this is the AP who are calling her racist. I wouldnt mind if it was idiot bloggers doing it, but when a mainstream media outlet feels safe enough to call someone a racist on the basis of zero actual evidence (and check out the suggestion at the end of the piece that McCain is racist as well) then it is extremely worrying.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hLxEMDD-UlNa6HUrozE6ZkGYPTqAD93KGGB00
Of course, one then has to note the repeated suggestion that Palin is lying when she suggested that Obama and Ayers were close, wheras Obama is less wrong (indeed, the piece suggests he is being rather blunt rather than wrong) when he points to McCain's age and health. Sadly, there is no mention of the McCain-Limbaugh Spanish ad that Obama put out, which you think might have been more relevant when talking about nonsensical associations.
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A harsh and plainly partisan judgment, certainly, but not on the level of suggesting that a fellow senator is un-American and even a friend of terrorists.
Seems to me that they served on the board together, had been to each other's homes, and more. Sounds like friends to me.
Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?
In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.
That's reading a lot into Palin's remarks. It also assumes that the public would be more repulsed by a black candidate than a candidate who has a relationship with a domestic terrorist.
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Seems like a weak line of attack to me, and I expect to see backlash from it. I've been around "bad" people before, doesn't mean much about me. Sean Hannity has been yelling about this for months, I don't think people are going to suddenly flip out about something they've already heard dismissed.
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No evidence shows they were "pals" or even close when they worked on community boards years ago and Ayers hosted a political event for Obama early in his career.
Yep, I host political events for people who aren't my pals all the time. :rolleyes:
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Show me someone's friends, and I can tell you what sort of person they are.
Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko...hm...
Why is Ayers still alive in the first place? Why is he teaching at a university? He's an absolutely unrepentant terrorist who killed Americans.
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What I'd like to see is someone asking the question about Obama's admitted drug use . . . I mean, when Roger Clemens - a BASEBALL PLAYER - was accuses of using steroids, it's front page news, congressional hearing are held . . . it's a BIG deal.
FOR A FREAKING ENTERTAINER!! HE PLAYS A GAME!!!
Yet Obama admits to smoking dope and snorting coke . . . and nothing. Non-issue.
And HE wants a job where he'll have access to nuclear launch codes.
What's wrong with this picture????
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Seems like a weak line of attack to me, and I expect to see backlash from it. I've been around "bad" people before, doesn't mean much about me. Sean Hannity has been yelling about this for months, I don't think people are going to suddenly flip out about something they've already heard dismissed.
No, but then you arent running for the highest office in the land, and you didnt claim that the guy who set bombs at the Pentagon was "just a guy from the neighbourhood". What type of neighbourhood do you live in?
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Seems like a weak line of attack to me, and I expect to see backlash from it. I've been around "bad" people before, doesn't mean much about me. Sean Hannity has been yelling about this for months, I don't think people are going to suddenly flip out about something they've already heard dismissed.
No, but then you arent running for the highest office in the land, and you didnt claim that the guy who set bombs at the Pentagon was "just a guy from the neighbourhood". What type of neighbourhood do you live in?
Well, that's Chicago. Bombs are a means of contract resolution. Especially firebombs. If you don't pay your shakedown money, if you annoy the CPD, all that.
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I think what is happening is that even people like ourselves are standing paralyzed while a mugging, a robbery, and a rape is taking place. I think we're all in shock at what's happening in what we thought was a good neighborhood and a safe place to live. I mean, of course, our country. Perhaps it is the timing of it, sooner than many of us expected; the magnitude, so broad that it can't easily be pinned only on one segment of society; or the subversive power, so deep that it affects not only strangers but neighbors, friends, and family.
We saw it coming...but we didn't. And now it's not theoretical but real enough that it may be only a month away.
Other people have lived through such times, and we have read about them, but none of us on this board, with the possible exception of immigrants from war-torn states, has really experienced this kind of cultural, moral, and social tsunami that threatens to break over this Republic.
Maybe the real question is: who, at this point, do we trust? And where do we look for aid in resistance?
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No, but then you arent running for the highest office in the land, and you didnt claim that the guy who set bombs at the Pentagon was "just a guy from the neighbourhood". What type of neighbourhood do you live in?
Ayers isn't running for president, and I don't think Obama has any responsibility to do background checks on every person he meets. I don't even understand what I'm supposed to be worried about here. Is everyone who Ayers even knows suddenly a terrorist? I say attack Obama on policy, experience, and judgment - this crap is silly though. Sean Hannity has been screaming about this for months, people are not going to suddenly jump to supporting McCain because of this, if anything they're sick of hearing about it.
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No, but then you arent running for the highest office in the land, and you didnt claim that the guy who set bombs at the Pentagon was "just a guy from the neighbourhood". What type of neighbourhood do you live in?
Ayers isn't running for president, and I don't think Obama has any responsibility to do background checks on every person he meets. I don't even understand what I'm supposed to be worried about here. Is everyone who Ayers even knows suddenly a terrorist? I say attack Obama on policy, experience, and judgment - this crap is silly though. Sean Hannity has been screaming about this for months, people are not going to suddenly jump to supporting McCain because of this, if anything they're sick of hearing about it.
Would you work closely on a neighborhood board with a known terrorist whose actions killed people?
Would you?
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You don't understand what you are supposed to be worried about.
Let's leave that as a a statement, not a question.
People are "sick of hearing" that there's no Santa Claus. Yeah, I get it. So that means there must be one, right?
I think you are half-correct. People are "sick." Not all. Just about half the country. Welcome to the world of mass delusion. Obama is our Great Tulip. All hail the Great Tulip.
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Ronnyreagan, we get that you think that Obama associating with a real, live terrorist is A-OK and doesn't mean anything, but Palin's accent means she's a country bumpkin who doesn't know jack.
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Those that you associate with have no effect on you as a person? Those that you associate with say nothing about you as a person? Yeah, right, I totally buy that. :rolleyes:
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Let me put it this way.
If I were introduced to Ayers, my likely response would be a roundhouse punch to the jaw.
Obama launched his campaign from his living room.
Big difference.
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Palin's already being called a racist. Before this is over McCain will be tagged a racist and a Cong collaborator.
They need to speak the truth, regardless.
But, man, this is going to get ugly and create engender huge division.
"Racist" is going to get thrown out there by the other side everytime they get backed into a corner they can't BS their way out of.
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Palin might as well attack Obama. The press already hates her. They've accused her of so many things, charges of racism or negative campaigning or ad hominem simply won't matter.
Let's make a list of thing Palin's already been smeared with; I'll start.
Lying to cover up her daughter's pregnancy.
Firing staff for petty personal reasons.
Stupidity.
Theocracy.
Inexperience.
Being anti-scientific.
Banning books.
Neglecting her children.
Or dragging her children around to every campaign event, using them as props. She can't win, either way.
Cruelty to animals.
Being a traitor to her gender (she's pro-life.)
Homophobia.
I almost forgot, being so insanely religious that she can't be trusted with nuclear launch codes. Or even nucular launch codes.
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ronny, anyone who live throught the 60's and into the 70's know good and well who Ayers is, who he worked with, and what he did. The man was flat out dangerous in his ideology and his actions. He was at the helm of the single most radical and violent organization of the 60's. The Weathermen was the vanguard of the marxist revolution in the US. An associated group called SDS or Students for a Democratic society took the revolution to academia.
I'm sick of the Ayers thingy. Sick of media playing stupid and ignoring O'Bama associates as if they were inconsequential. O'Bama has no record to indicate his governance other than his words (sorta). Next up is his associates. What is the mindset of those with whom he associates. What is their backgrounds. Without exception those who associate with O'Bama are from the most radical elements of our society. I wait for one normal, common person to show up. Instead each new associate just confirms the pattern we've seen for months now. I don't see the logic that says his selection of associates has no bearing on his staffing of an administration. To the contrary, his friends will be the stable from which he selects his administration. I can't wait to see Ayers show up as head of the department of education.
I am proud to be known by the friends I keep. Evidently O'Bama is the same. My friends don't blow up buildings and kill people. O'Bama's does.
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Ayers isn't running for president, and I don't think Obama has any responsibility to do background checks on every person he meets.
BHO has known Ayers since at least 1995, more likely 1987. BHO has served with him on a non-profit board that sought to radicalize teachers and indoctrinate them into marxist thought.
The Annenberg Challenge spent $160million, did nothing for students' achievement in Chicago, and is BHO's only real executive experience.
I don't even understand what I'm supposed to be worried about here. Is everyone who Ayers even knows suddenly a terrorist?
You are known by the company you keep.
Also, Ayers has written many books on using education to bring about marxist revolution. BHO helped him do just that.
Even id they care not for national security or philosophical issues, I think soccer moms & dads DO care about using their kids as lab rats in an unrepentant terrorist's social engineering experiment.
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Would you work closely on a neighborhood board with a known terrorist whose actions killed people?
Would you?
The Weather Underground didn't kill anyone. In fact they would always call ahead and warn that there was a bomb to make sure that no one would get hurt. What I find really interesting is that people here like to call them terrorists, when our founding fathers would also be considered terrorists. Something that relates to this, http://www.fredsm14stocks.com/article.asp?ITEM=8
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Would you work closely on a neighborhood board with a known terrorist whose actions killed people?
Would you?
The Weather Underground didn't kill anyone. In fact they would always call ahead and warn that there was a bomb to make sure that no one would get hurt. What I find really interesting is that people here like to call them terrorists, when our founding fathers would also be considered terrorists. Something that relates to this, http://www.fredsm14stocks.com/article.asp?ITEM=8
Hello. They left...A BOMB. In CIVILIAN AREAS.
What part of that don't you understand? You don't do that! If you DO do that, you deserve to be shot!
The founding fathers targeted British MILITARY installations and troops. They didn't leave bombs in public areas around civilians!
Don't even dare compare the two!
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Hello. They left...A BOMB. In CIVILIAN AREAS.
There targets where always picked to send some type of message, and they always made sure that no one would get hurt.
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freakazoid,
If you were looking for terrorism in the American Revolution, you really picked the wrong spot.
If on the other hand, your point is that someone's definition of terrorism is too loose, then you still picked a bad comparison.
Terrorism works by - that's right - inflicting terror. Body counts are not necessary, so long as one frightens the masses. Simply put, one need not kill to be a terrorist.
That is not to imply that the Weathermen did not kill anyone. I don't know. I'm just pointing out a rather obvious problem with what you've said.
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freakazoid,
If you were looking for terrorism in the American Revolution, you really picked the wrong spot.
If on the other hand, your point is that someone's definition of terrorism is too loose, then you still picked a bad comparison.
Terrorism works by - that's right - inflicting terror. Body counts are not necessary, so long as one frightens the masses. Simply put, one need not kill to be a terrorist.
That is not to imply that the Weathermen did not kill anyone. I don't know. I'm just pointing out a rather obvious problem with what you've said.
Comparison takes another twist there-it looks like the weathermen were mainly saboteurs, using explosives to do the damage. Not sure how that fits in to the definition we're using here.
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It's more than just their reprehensible tactics, it's their motive. The Founding Fathers' intent was to liberate the individual from tyranny, not submerge the individual in a collective mass. People like Ayers always try to represent their goals in a benign way but the end result is always the same: most people taking orders from autocrats.
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freakazoid,
If you were looking for terrorism in the American Revolution, you really picked the wrong spot.
If on the other hand, your point is that someone's definition of terrorism is too loose, then you still picked a bad comparison.
Terrorism works by - that's right - inflicting terror. Body counts are not necessary, so long as one frightens the masses. Simply put, one need not kill to be a terrorist.
That is not to imply that the Weathermen did not kill anyone. I don't know. I'm just pointing out a rather obvious problem with what you've said.
Comparison takes another twist there-it looks like the weathermen were mainly saboteurs, using explosives to do the damage. Not sure how that fits in to the definition we're using here.
And another twist.... Oh I can't think of anything right now, lol. Actually I would say terrorism is to inflict fear on civilians. But that wasn't there goal.
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Terrorism is a specialized form of extortion.
The aggressor, rather than directly attacking his objective, attacks a third party, typically one that's non-combatant and not directly involved in the squabble or conflict at hand.
The aggressor depends on the sympathy of the objective for this third party and also on the influences this third party may have as a collective upon the actions of that objective.
Another aspect of "terror" is that it seldom induces actual terror but rather a persistent and exhausting anxiety.
But, yes, extortion.
Obtaining benefit through the threat or application of violence.
If it makes anyone feel better, perhaps we can call Mr. Ayers a political extortionist.
There. Better?
Hey, fixes it for me. I'd hang out with him any time.
He and me, we be buds.
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He and me, we be buds.
Word.
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Hello. They left...A BOMB. In CIVILIAN AREAS.
There targets where always picked to send some type of message, and they always made sure that no one would get hurt.
you missed this?
On October 20, 1981 the Weather Underground combined forces with the Black Liberation Army to rob a Brink's armored truck. Two policemen and a Brink's guard were killed. The Black Liberation Army members Jeral Wayne Williams (aka Mutulu Shakur), Donald Weems (aka Kuwasi Balagoon), Samuel Smith and Nathaniel Burns (aka Sekou Odinga), Cecilio "Chui" Ferguson, Samuel Brown (aka Solomon Bouines) with five members of the Weather Underground (David Gilbert, Samuel Brown, Judith Alice Clark, Kathy Boudin, and Marilyn Buck) stole $1.6 million from a Brink's armored car at the Nanuet Mall, in Nanuet, New York. All the perpertrators were eventually captured and tried. Kathy Boudin's child with David Gilbert, Chesa, was raised to adulthood by Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, while she was in prison.
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Bill Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was quoted in an interview to say "I don't regret setting bombs"[58] but has since claimed he was misquoted.[59
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C'mon, next you'll be saying that Charles Manson is a killer. Barack was only 8 when all that Tate "unpleasantness" occurred. If he wants to get together with Charlie 30 years later, have him over to the house, work with him, start his political career with him, what's the problem?
Are you gonna tell me that you have a problem with Charles Manson sleeping in your guestroom next to your children? You need to seek help. This is a new day & age. Until your child's blood is used to write messages on the wall, you keep yer trap shut. You old folks had your chance & locked up the true freedom fighters. How dangerous could Manson be? Or Ayers? Or Obama? Let's just check it out. Like a trial run, dude. Cool. Peace out. Power to the people. How bad could it be? Ya'll are too uptight. This is fun... It's just a country, you know, we have, like, the whole world living together, like, you know, like one, man.
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Would you work closely on a neighborhood board with a known terrorist whose actions killed people?
Would you?
The Weather Underground didn't kill anyone. In fact they would always call ahead and warn that there was a bomb to make sure that no one would get hurt. What I find really interesting is that people here like to call them terrorists, when our founding fathers would also be considered terrorists. Something that relates to this, http://www.fredsm14stocks.com/article.asp?ITEM=8
The Weather Underground actually killed quite a few people prior to the 1981 bank robbery:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization)#Anti-personnel_bomb_set_on_window-ledge_in_San_Francisco
I think Andrew Mellon says it best:
"The only reason they were not guilty of mass murder is mere incompetence. I don't know what sort of defense that is."
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ronny, anyone who live throught the 60's and into the 70's know good and well who Ayers is, who he worked with, and what he did. The man was flat out dangerous in his ideology and his actions. He was at the helm of the single most radical and violent organization of the 60's. The Weathermen was the vanguard of the marxist revolution in the US. An associated group called SDS or Students for a Democratic society took the revolution to academia.
Well I didn't live through the 60s and 70s so maybe that's why I don't get it. If this guy is so terrible why isn't he in prison? Or for that matter why was he never convicted? If it's a failing of the justice system why hasn't anyone done their patriotic duty to dispatch this guy? If he's so evil why is he a professor at the university of chicago (let me guess - it's an evil liberal conspiracy to elevate terrorists to the highest levels of academia to brainwash our youth?)
I'm not saying Obama should make him a policy adviser or that he's the first person I would seek out to friends with. I'm saying this has been covered - the media's reaction has been to call this an unfair attack and people are not going to jump to supporting McCain because of this. On a board such as this where the common sentiment is that Obama is the communist gun-grabbing anti-christ I am not surprised that people are eating this *expletive deleted*it up. No one here was going to vote for Obama anyway so it has no impact. The question is whether this will affect undecided voters and my opinion is that if it does, it will be a negative for McCain. As I said previously, attack Obama's experience, judgment, and policy - there should be plenty there to attack.
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Ronnyreagan, we get that you think that Obama associating with a real, live terrorist is A-OK and doesn't mean anything, but Palin's accent means she's a country bumpkin who doesn't know jack.
You obviously didn't comprehend what I wrote regarding Palin's "accent". Maybe you should go back through that topic again as you completely missed my point. Oh no! I hope that didn't sound too 'elitist'! :O
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As I said previously, attack Obama's experience, judgment, and policy - there should be plenty there to attack.
:lol: Did you REALLY mean to say that? That's pretty darn funny.
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ronny, anyone who live throught the 60's and into the 70's know good and well who Ayers is, who he worked with, and what he did. The man was flat out dangerous in his ideology and his actions. He was at the helm of the single most radical and violent organization of the 60's. The Weathermen was the vanguard of the marxist revolution in the US. An associated group called SDS or Students for a Democratic society took the revolution to academia.
Well I didn't live through the 60s and 70s so maybe that's why I don't get it. If this guy is so terrible why isn't he in prison? Or for that matter why was he never convicted? If it's a failing of the justice system why hasn't anyone done their patriotic duty to dispatch this guy? If he's so evil why is he a professor at the university of chicago (let me guess - it's an evil liberal conspiracy to elevate terrorists to the highest levels of academia to brainwash our youth?)
I'm not saying Obama should make him a policy adviser or that he's the first person I would seek out to friends with. I'm saying this has been covered - the media's reaction has been to call this an unfair attack and people are not going to jump to supporting McCain because of this. On a board such as this where the common sentiment is that Obama is the communist gun-grabbing anti-christ I am not surprised that people are eating this *expletive deleted*it up. No one here was going to vote for Obama anyway so it has no impact. The question is whether this will affect undecided voters and my opinion is that if it does, it will be a negative for McCain. As I said previously, attack Obama's experience, judgment, and policy - there should be plenty there to attack.
You dont think associating with someone who himself admits that he put bombs in public places raises questions about Obama's judgement?
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Would you work closely on a neighborhood board with a known terrorist whose actions killed people?
Would you?
I might. What would you do? If he's a known terrorist whose actions killed people would you take the opportunity to kill him on the spot? Surely that would be the right thing to do if he's so dangerous. :police:
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Ok. Maybe you all should just spell this out for me. Let's say Obama gets elected. What is going to happen as a result of him knowing Ayers? Is Obama going to start planting bombs at the pentagon? What is the great danger that we face from electing an acquaintance of Ayers? (I mean besides Obama's own policies)
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Ok. Maybe you all should just spell this out for me. Let's say Obama gets elected. What is going to happen as a result of him knowing Ayers? Is Obama going to start planting bombs at the pentagon? What is the great danger that we face from electing an acquaintance of Ayers? (I mean besides Obama's own policies)
If it was just Ayers? Probably not much.
However, when viewed against the other people he has "associated" with, his habit of doing things he has specifically denied planning to do (campaign funding, running for the Presidency), his numerous claims that have turned out to be either false (Auschwitz, that skin-whitening thing) or a vast stretch of the truth, his remarkable (given his education) failure to achieve anything outside of his own political interests, his somewhat odd failure to release medical records (given how his surrogates have been attacking McCain, who has allowed access to his) and (as Krauthammer said after the Democratic Convention) the remarkable lack of people who "worked" with him who are willing to publicly testify about how great he is.
Then of course you have to look at the party he is a member of, its responsibility for the mess we are all in now, and the remarkable hypocrisy of people like Frank, Dodd and Obama himself when they criticize Bush and McCain, who at least did try to rein the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac circus in.
Finally, one must surely be concerned about the quasi-religious aspect of parts of his support.
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Finally, one must surely be concerned about the quasi-religious aspect of parts of his support.
I dislike Obama very much, but that's the least problem I have with him.
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Would you work closely on a neighborhood board with a known terrorist whose actions killed people?
Would you?
I might.
I wouldn't, especially since that "neighborhood board" was a multi-million dollar effort to radicalize public school children.
But, I have standards.
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I don't understand people who will ignore Obama's historical associates like Ayers. It isn't that Obama is supposed to "vet" everyone he meets. That ignores the point. The point being Obama's core beliefs. Why associate with Ayers at all unless there's some part of him that approves or condones what Ayers was doing? One of Obama's early mentors in Hawaii was a communist. What does that tell us about his political beliefs.
On The High Road a thread was started that got shut down because it became political. One poster claimed Obama was a centrist because he was running a centrist campaign.
No.
Obama is "running centrist" because the majority of voters that can effect the election are there. He's trying to get their votes.
What has Obama promised in the past? He has come out in favor of gun confiscation, supports the assault weapon ban, and supported the DC gun ban prior to Heller -- after which he somehow finds he's supported Heller. So where does he stand?
Clinton found out gun bans hurt. This lesson hasn't been forgotten, and don't think Obama doesn't know this.
Obama has been in favor of taxes. He wants to increase the capital gains tax on business ... except most businesses pay income tax not cap gains... so what's that: ignorance or a lie? He wants to decrease taxes on 95% of Americans in the middle class except 30-35% don't pay taxes, so what is THAT about??
Obama is a hollow man with happy dreams. No principles, no convictions or consistant ideology is found in his political promises. But if you want to know his core, look to where he came from. Look who his mentors were.
THAT is Barack Hussein Obama.
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ronnyreagan:
Here is a bit form Volokh that might aid your understanding.
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_09_28-2008_10_04.shtml#1223178667
What is the Significance of Obama's Ties to Ayers (and Wright?):
Here's my take: Obama is an extremely ambitious man. He's been interested in a national political career for many years. It's not that surprising that he wouldn't find Ayers and Wright objectionable company--in the very liberal, Hyde Park/Ivy League circles that he's traveled in since attending Columbia, people with such views are more mainstream than, say, the average conservative evangelical Christian. That itself makes Obama far more liberal than the image his campaign attempts to portray.
But what is interesting to me is that not only did Obama not personally find anything especially obnoxious about Wright's radicalism, anti-Americanism, ties to Farrakahn, and so on, or Ayers' lack of regret for his terrorist past, he apparently didn't expect that much of anyone else would care, either. How else do you explain why he didn't jettison these individuals from his life before they could damage his presidential ambitions? How else do you explain how his campaign seemed to be caught flatfooted when Obama's ties to Wright and then Ayers became campaign issues? And, perhaps most tellingly, how else do you explain that when Obama was asked in a debate with Clinton about his ties to Ayers, he analogized his friendship with Ayers to his friendship with Senator Tom Coburn, as if being friends with a very conservative senatorial colleague is somehow analogous with being friends with an unrepentant extreme leftist domestic terrorist?
In short, Obama's ties to Ayers and Wright suggest to me NOT that Obama agrees with their views, but that he is the product of a particular intellectual culture that finds the likes of Wright and Ayers to be no more objectionable, and likely less so, than the likes of Tom Coburn, or, perhaps, a Rush Limbaugh. Not only that, but he has been in his particular intellectual bubble so long that he was unable to recognize just how offensive the views of a Wright are to mainstream America, or how his ties to Ayers would play with the public, especially post-9/11.
Does that mean that Obama would be a bad president, or an extremist president? No, or at least, not necessarily. One 20th century president--Reagan--had a rather extreme worldview, but he was a good enough politician to govern reasonably close to the center, and have a successful presidency. Obama may have similar skills, though he lacks Reagan's advantage of having been an ideological convert from the other side. But in any event, he is clearly not the mainstream partisan of nonideological change that he is running as, and it at least seems worth pointing that out.
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ronnyreagan:
Here is a bit form Volokh that might aid your understanding.
Thanks, that made way more sense to me than most of hysteria I've heard on this topic. Good article.
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I don't buy Bernstein's "explanation" of Obama in Volokh; by that I mean it dispels none of my concerns. If Bernstein's correct BHO is either Macbeth on steroids, totally opportunistic and amoral, or so cut off from moral and emotional realities that he is a practicing sociopath who presents a clear and present danger.
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It was asked why Ayers is not in prison. The official answer is prosecutorial mishandling of the case. I think it behooves all of us to probe further for the "unofficial" answer, some of which has been covered already by other writers. Ayers is well-connected in Chicago society, and one of the things we can learn from the Ayers case is that all is forgiven--for the right people. He's been taken care of, and we should know exactly by whom.
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I don't know why we're arguing with a guy who advocates lynching. But maybe that explains why he has no problem with the Ayers connection.
Ok. Maybe you all should just spell this out for me. Let's say Obama gets elected. What is going to happen as a result of him knowing Ayers? Is Obama going to start planting bombs at the pentagon? What is the great danger that we face from electing an acquaintance of Ayers? (I mean besides Obama's own policies)
Did anyone say that Ayers was going to direct policy? The association with Ayers simply demonstrates that Obama is himself a bad guy. If that is not plain enough for you, then I guess you have a lot of company in the Democratic Party.
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On October 20, 1981 the Weather Underground combined forces with the Black Liberation Army to rob a Brink's armored truck
Well that isn't exactly true. At that time it was no longer the Weather Underground. There were members from the group but it wasn't the Weather Underground, the WU was dissolved by that time. Not only that but the robbery went bad and the 3 people where killed. It's not like they planned to kill them.
The Weather Underground actually killed quite a few people prior to the 1981 bank robbery:
One person isn't quite a few. And it was after that that they decided to not target people anymore. Also who was killed was a cop, while they are still considered a civilian they are still part of the system. Although I do think they made a bad decision for several reasons, it would appear that they also realized that.
There are a few things I think that would be important.to know if possible. Did Obama know that this was THE Ayers? Did he know that he would be working with him? Did he know if Ayers wished that they hadn't done what they did?
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Did Obama know that this was THE Ayers? Did he know that he would be working with him? Did he know if Ayers wished that they hadn't done what they did?
Yer not serious?
This is the "plausible deniability" defense.
"You can't prove he knew, and there's a very slim chance that he might not have known, and I can come up with scenarios where it could be argued he didn't know . . . therefore, the poor guy is just a patsy."
But he's way smarter than the rest of us, and regardless of the things he has already said, the votes he has already cast, and the people he has hung out with for decades, he's the only one morally qualified to lead us.
And I know this because you can't field an assertion with which I cannot argue.
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Not only that but the robbery went bad and the 3 people where killed. It's not like they planned to kill them.
I just wanted to re-post this little bit ^^^ and marvel at it.
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I just wanted to re-post this little bit ^^^ and marvel at it.
??
Yer not serious?
Yeah, I am serious. ??
It had been 20 years from when the WU was operating to when Obama worked with Ayers. It wouldn't be that hard to think that he wouldn't know that this guy was the same guy as the one who was part of the WU.
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Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist who wanted to put the US on a socialist path through violence.
Obama is an unrepentant socialist who wants to put the US on a socialist path by any means necessary.
You don't think that Ayers' background might, just might have come up once or twice when two fellow travellers meet?
I knew who Ayers was, and I've never been to his house or even to Chicago. If Obama really didn't know who Ayers (the darling of the Chicago leftist society) he was, then Obama is absolutely unqualified to do anything but live in a cave.
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"I persons terrorist is another's freedom fighter."
Do I need to compare again the people who fought during the revolutionary war?
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My friends don't blow up buildings and kill people.
Some of mine do, but the Marine Corps paid us to........
Oh and for everyone arguing with freak, esp some of our newer posters..........
He's a "Christian anarchist" who's apparently also some form of communist, who's only defense of his belief system is "Go read the rev.left forums." I'd like to humbly suggest that reason and logic might be rather sub-optimal in an attempt at discourse with the young fellow.
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"I persons terrorist is another's freedom fighter."
Do I need to compare again the people who fought during the revolutionary war?
Epic Fail.
Time to retake history...
Chris
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"I persons terrorist is another's freedom fighter."
Do I need to compare again the people who fought during the revolutionary war?
Don't even dare compare the Founding Fathers and the leaders of the American Revolution with scum like Ayers.
Not only that but the robbery went bad and the 3 people where killed. It's not like they planned to kill them.
That makes it perfectly acceptable because it was an oopsie that 3 people died :rolleyes:
WTF, over?
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That Ayers and the Founding Fathers appear in the same sentence shows how far off the tracks a big chunk of this nation really is.
If we leave the future of America to public schools, MTV, and exploitation flicks, we can't expect anything except bread, circuses, and a succession of Obamas.
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It had been 20 years from when the WU was operating to when Obama worked with Ayers. It wouldn't be that hard to think that he wouldn't know that this guy was the same guy as the one who was part of the WU.
In the mid-1990s, Ayers and Dohrn hosted a meet-and-greet at their house to introduce Obama to their neighbors during his first run for the Illinois Senate. In 2001, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama's campaign. Ayers also served alongside Obama between December 1999 and December 2002 on the board of the not-for-profit Woods Fund of Chicago. That board met four times a year, and members would see each other at occasional dinners the group hosted.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/902213,CST-NWS-ayers18.article
Does that help?
As for the three "unintentional" deaths - guess what? If you and your best friend decide to rob a convenience store, and your friend is legally shot and killed by the store owner, guess who gets charged with homicide? You do.
Also who was killed was a cop, while they are still considered a civilian they are still part of the system.
You might wish to reconsider that remark.
If he's a known terrorist whose actions killed people would you take the opportunity to kill him on the spot? Surely that would be the right thing to do if he's so dangerous.
I thought we weren't allowed to "advocate commission of capital crimes."
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Here's an interesting perspective on the Obama/Ayers connection: video (http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=3134362&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/)
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I've just had a shattering realization.
The fact that we're discussing this makes us all racists. :O
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On October 20, 1981 the Weather Underground combined forces with the Black Liberation Army to rob a Brink's armored truck
Well that isn't exactly true. At that time it was no longer the Weather Underground. There were members from the group but it wasn't the Weather Underground, the WU was dissolved by that time. Not only that but the robbery went bad and the 3 people where killed. It's not like they planned to kill them.
The Weather Underground actually killed quite a few people prior to the 1981 bank robbery:
One person isn't quite a few. And it was after that that they decided to not target people anymore. Also who was killed was a cop, while they are still considered a civilian they are still part of the system. Although I do think they made a bad decision for several reasons, it would appear that they also realized that.
There are a few things I think that would be important.to know if possible. Did Obama know that this was THE Ayers? Did he know that he would be working with him? Did he know if Ayers wished that they hadn't done what they did?
but wait! i thought they didn't kill anyone? who said that? must be that new age enlightened thinking that goes way over my head.
"It's not like they planned to kill them."
they accidentally robbed the bank? didn't know the guns were loaded? what sad tripe
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He's a "Christian anarchist" who's apparently also some form of communist, who's only defense of his belief system is "Go read the rev.left forums."
First of all! There is no period between rev and left, :P. Second of all, that is not my only defense. I will defend my beliefs, just that I'm not very good at explaining myself and why I believe something so I often also suggest going there to get a better understanding than what I can give. You know whats funny, over at revleft they would often make fun of me for anytime Christianity is brought up I also always suggest that they read something like Mere Christianity, :lol:
I'd like to humbly suggest that reason and logic might be rather sub-optimal in an attempt at discourse with the young fellow.
Oh please, ;/
Epic Fail.
Time to retake history...
Perhaps fill me in on where I went wrong in comparing them?
That Ayers and the Founding Fathers appear in the same sentence shows how far off the tracks a big chunk of this nation really is.
I highly doubt that a big chunk of the nation would think anything good of Ayers.
If we leave the future of America to public schools, MTV, and exploitation flicks, we can't expect anything except bread, circuses, and a succession of Obamas.
MTV sucks, hardly any music and when there is it is usually rap, and I don't care much for todays rap. There needs to be more classic rock and stuff. Music like The Moody Blues, ELP, the B52s. You know, good music.
You might wish to reconsider that remark.
I am assuming correctly that cops are civilians right?
Does that help?
Sort of... But it doesn't really answer the questions.
As for the three "unintentional" deaths - guess what? If you and your best friend decide to rob a convenience store, and your friend is legally shot and killed by the store owner, guess who gets charged with homicide? You do.
Ok?
they accidentally robbed the bank? didn't know the guns were loaded? what sad tripe
Still doesn't mean that they planned to kill anyone.
but wait! i thought they didn't kill anyone? who said that?
Touche. But after that one killing they decided that they shouldn't target people anymore.
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so in the "anarchist" world you get a mulligan for only killing TWO folks? and blinding another? or they get a bye for being poor at what they do? i think the chinese handle cases like this real fine.
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But, man, this is going to get ugly and create engender huge division.
Yeah, exactly. We need to abandon the divisive politics of the past and fall into step with Obama. If you do anything else, you're just standing in the way.
Viva la revolution!
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But, man, this is going to get ugly and create engender huge division.
Yeah, exactly. We need to abandon the divisive politics of the past and fall into step with Obama. If you do anything else, you're just standing in the way.
Viva la revolution!
Yeah, why is it always our fault for creating "divisiveness"? Isn't any potential divisiveness Obama's fault for being a far-left radical who is completely out of step with American ideals and values?
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HTG, that post was just so full of racist code language, I don't know where to start. :police:
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No, but then you arent running for the highest office in the land, and you didnt claim that the guy who set bombs at the Pentagon was "just a guy from the neighbourhood". What type of neighbourhood do you live in?
Ayers isn't running for president, and I don't think Obama has any responsibility to do background checks on every person he meets. I don't even understand what I'm supposed to be worried about here. Is everyone who Ayers even knows suddenly a terrorist? I say attack Obama on policy, experience, and judgment - this crap is silly though. Sean Hannity has been screaming about this for months, people are not going to suddenly jump to supporting McCain because of this, if anything they're sick of hearing about it.
I'm not sick of hearing about it. I'm sick of NOT hearing about it. We find out that Obama's longtime preacher is spouting hate-filled, racist, politically charged sermons, and it's all forgiven when Obama gives a speech about racism? We find out that one of Obama's close supporters is an admitted, unrepentant, violent criminal who only stopped because he was caught, and it's all swept under the rug because Obama was a child when Ayers was blowing big expensive public things up? Should we not expel and/or jail the high-school student who phones in a bomb threat because, well, he DID give fair warning...
Further down the time-heals-all-wounds line, here's a tangent for you to think about... all that slavery crap that people are still bitching about - neither I nor my family, nor indeed anyone I've ever known, has profited from slavery(BY ANY CHOICE OF OUR OWN). All that really bad stuff went down more than a hundred years ago, long before my great-grandfather was born. So tell me why - if Obama can't be held to account for his willful association with said criminal(excuse me, *former* criminal) only thirty-something years later - why am I held responsible for slavery? Why are we still discussing reparations? Let bygones be bygones!
On October 20, 1981 the Weather Underground combined forces with the Black Liberation Army to rob a Brink's armored truck
Well that isn't exactly true. At that time it was no longer the Weather Underground. There were members from the group but it wasn't the Weather Underground, the WU was dissolved by that time. Not only that but the robbery went bad and the 3 people where killed. It's not like they planned to kill them.
I expect that most of us would say that a thief who makes the choice to kill a person in order to avoid capture is quite a different person from a thief who surrenders. I can't believe your implication that it's not a big deal because they didn't "plan" to kill. Second-degree murder is still murder.
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Unless it's just a cop who gets waxed. Cops don't count. They're part of the system, man.
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I keep thinking about the drubbing that Ashcroft received for his interview with Southern Partisan magazine. The media seemed to think that story was fairly important.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1880
They even felt it appropriate to tell us that McCain was endorsed by a preacher that said things people didn't like! :O
And of course, Sarah Palin is criticized for blowing up Alaska's federal buildings giving a speech to the Independence Party.
But if you want some true hypocrisy, you can't beat prominent Congressional Democrats like, oh, I don't know, the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, questioning flatly impeaching people's patriotism. :laugh: Hooooooo wee boy, but I just love that!
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Second-degree murder is still murder.
Of course this gets into, what is "murder".
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Second-degree murder is still murder.
Of course this gets into, what is "murder".
Shooting someone while robbing a bank would seem like a good place to start......
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Second-degree murder is still murder.
Of course this gets into, what is "murder".
If it simplifies things for you, feel free to consider it murder whenever you kill someone while stealing their money.
Heh. Looks like Balog beat me to it.
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Shooting someone while robbing a bank would seem like a good place to start......
So many premises need to be set up before you can get to explaining why taking the money from the Brinks truck was justified. Also like I said before, the group that robbed the Brinks truck was not the WU. So that example can't be used as an example that the WU killed people. The only example that can be used is the one of the killing of the cop. Which I have already talked about.
Now something that I think also needs to be said is that the WU was a Marxist-Leninist group. Which is a little to authoritarian for my tastes, I am an anarchist don't forget, so not everything they did I would agree with.
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Here's a little taste of the WU:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWEwNWI4ZmU1N2E1OGVlZWIwZjVjNmQ2NWIwMzRlOGM=
Many of us forget that the Weather Underground bombing cam-
paign was not a matter of a few isolated incidents. From September
1969 to May 1970, Rudd and his co-revolutionaries on the white rad-
ical left committed about 250 attacks, or almost one terrorist bomb-
ing a day (government estimates put that number up to 600 percent
higher). During the summer of 1970, there were twenty bombings a
week in California. The bombings were the backbeat to the sym-
phony of violence, much of it rhetorical, that set the score for the
New Left in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Rudd captured the tone
perfectly: “It’s a wonderful feeling to hit a pig. It must be a really
wonderful feeling to kill a pig or blow up a building.” “The real di-
vision is not between people who support bombings and people who
don’t,” explained a secret member of a “bombing collective,” but
“between people who will do them and people who are too hung up
on their own privileges and security to take those risks.”
Bourgeois self-loathing lay at the very heart of the New Left’s ha-
tred of liberalism, its love affair with violence, and its willingness to
take a sledgehammer to Western civilization. “We’re against every-
thing that’s ‘good and decent’ in honky America,” declared one
rebel. “We will burn and loot and destroy. We are the incubation of
your mother’s worst nightmare.” The Weathermen became the storm
troopers of the New Left, horrifying even those who agreed with
their cause. Convinced that all whites were born tainted with the
original sin of “skin privilege,” the fighting brigade of the New Left
internalized racialist thinking as hatred of their own whiteness. “All
white babies are pigs,” declared one Weatherman. On one occasion
the feminist poet Robin Morgan was breast-feeding her son at the of-
fices of the radical journal Rat. A Weatherwoman saw this and told
her, “You have no right to have that pig male baby.” “How can you
say that?” Morgan asked. “What should I do?” “Put it in the
garbage,” the Weatherwoman answered.
Bernadine Dohrn [Ayers' wife], an acid-loving University of Chicago law stu-
dent turned revolutionary, reflected the widespread New Left fasci-
nation with the serial-killing hippie Ãœbermensch Charles Manson.
“Dig It! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same
room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach!
Wild!” In appreciation, her Weather Underground cell made a three-
fingered “fork” gesture its official salute.
The victim who was stuck with the fork was pregnant at the time & Dohrn thinks it is fine & dandy.
"What is murder?"
Freak, you are a self-parody.
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If he's a known terrorist whose actions killed people would you take the opportunity to kill him on the spot? Surely that would be the right thing to do if he's so dangerous.
I thought we weren't allowed to "advocate commission of capital crimes."
I'm not - I had never heard of this man until the primaries. Other people seem a little more "radical" though...
"Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)
"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience. "
=|
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Shooting someone while robbing a bank would seem like a good place to start......
So many premises need to be set up before you can get to explaining why taking the money from the Brinks truck was justified.
Oh, pleeeaaase try. I would love to hear an argument justifying why taking money froma Brinks truck is the right thing to do. :O :rolleyes: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
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Shooting someone while robbing a bank would seem like a good place to start......
So many premises need to be set up before you can get to explaining why taking the money from the Brinks truck was justified.
Oh, pleeeaaase try. I would love to hear an argument justifying why taking money froma Brinks truck is the right thing to do. :O :rolleyes: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Because Brinks hauls money for "The Man" and "The Man" is evil because they take money from the poor.
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If he's a known terrorist whose actions killed people would you take the opportunity to kill him on the spot? Surely that would be the right thing to do if he's so dangerous.
I thought we weren't allowed to "advocate commission of capital crimes."
I'm not - I had never heard of this man until the primaries. Other people seem a little more "radical" though...
"Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)
"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience. "
=|
That's funny. You quoted yourself advising us that, if we think someone is a domestic terrorist, we should kill him, on our own initiative, without due process. (That's called lynching.)
Then you point to one guy, ostensibly suggesting that Bill Ayers should be killed, and presume that he was talking about lynching, rather than legal execution.
You're funny. I hope we keep you. :P
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Here's a little taste of the WU:
I call BS.
Because Brinks hauls money for "The Man" and "The Man" is evil because they take money from the poor.
:P
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That's funny. You quoted yourself advising us that, if we think someone is a domestic terrorist, we should kill him, on our own initiative, without due process. (That's called lynching.)
I'm not sure how you can keep misunderstanding this. My whole point was that if he's so dangerous he shouldn't be allowed to walk free and possibly harm people. The fact that he IS NOT THAT DANGEROUS was the whole point. If you'd like me to go over this again, I certainly can, but at that point I'll be convinced you're being intentionally obtuse.
Then you point to one guy, ostensibly suggesting that Bill Ayers should be killed, and presume that he was talking about lynching, rather than legal execution.
It's not like the guy yelled "Arrest him, bring him to trial, find him guilty of crimes he committed forty years ago, and legally execute him!". He just yelled "Kill Him!"
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"I call BS." is that you personally or should we reference rev left to find out why/how its bs
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There are a lot of dangerous people in this country "walking free." That's the problem we face. We have a system that protects them, in fact creates them. And they are not only in the underclass, they are on Wall St., in the State Dept., sitting on the bench, lecturing in universities, writing columns in mainstream newspapers, and indoctrinating your second-graders.
What we don't need, at this critical juncture, is to turn America OVER to the dangerous element under the color of The Law.
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"I call BS." is that you personally or should we reference rev left to find out why/how its bs
Revleft, duh. :P Some of the things said are just absurd.
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"I call BS." is that you personally or should we reference rev left to find out why/how its bs
Revleft, duh. :P Some of the things said are just absurd.
Like "Killing someone while robbing a bank is either A. not a big deal if you didn't really plan to or B. perfectly fine if the bank robbers are heroic revolutionaries."
You're right, that is pretty absurd.
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Did I say it wasn't a big deal?
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Here's a little taste of the WU:
I call BS.
Which part?
Here is what a WU contemporary had to write about the "fork salute":
"I don’t regret setting bombs," Ayers was quoted in the opening line of the Times profile; "I feel we didn’t do enough." In 1969, Ayers and his wife convened a "War Council" in Flint Michigan, whose purpose was to launch a military front inside the United States with the purpose of helping Third World revolutionaries conquer and destroy it. Taking charge of the podium, dressed in a high-heeled boots and a leather mini-skirt – her signature uniform – Dorhn incited the assembled radicals to join the war against "Amerikkka" and create chaos and destruction in the "belly of the beast." Her voice rising to a fevered pitch, Dohrn raised three fingers in a "fork salute" to mass murderer Charles Manson whom she proposed as a symbol to her troops. Referring to the helpless victims of the Manson Family as the "Tate Eight" (the most famous was actress Sharon Tate) Dohrn shouted:
Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!
Embarrassed today by this memory, but unable to expunge it from the record and unwilling to repudiate her terrorist deeds, Dorhn resorts to the lie direct. "It was a joke," she told the sympathetic Times reporter, Dinitia Smith; she was actually protesting America’s crimes. "We were mocking violence in America. Even in my most inflamed moment I never supported a racist mass murderer." In 1980, I taped interviews with thirty members of the Weather Underground who were present at the Flint War Council, including most of its leadership. Not one of them thought Dohrn was anything but deadly serious. Outrageous nihilism was the Weatherman political style. As soon as her tribute to Manson was completed, Dohrn was followed to the Flint platform by another Weather leader who ranted, "We’re against everything that’s ‘good and decent’ in honky America. We will loot and burn and destroy. We are the incubation of your mothers’ nightmares."
Did I say it wasn't a big deal?
Your words definitely implied that the unplanned nature of the killings was exculpatory:
"Not only that but the robbery went bad and the 3 people where killed. It's not like they planned to kill them."
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Ohhh, I can't wait to hear that FZ explain that the Rosenbergs were innocent and Alger Hiss was just misunderstood.
FZ, your talking about this group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization)) right ?? These folks are just poor misunderstood bunny snugglers, and not violent domestic terrorists preying on innocent victims....right ???
;/
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Another snippet from the Horowitz interview(s) with WU members:
I interviewed Ayers ten years ago, in a kindergarten classroom in uptown Manhattan where he was employed to shape the minds of inner city children. Dressed in bib overalls with golden curls rolling below his ears, Ayers reviewed his activities as a terrorist for my tape recorder. When he was done, he broke into a broad, Jack Horner grin and summed up his experience: "Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. America is a great country."
In my experience, what drives most radicals are passions of resentment, envy and inner rage. Bill Ayers is a scion of wealth. His father was head of Detroit’s giant utility Commonwealth Edison, in line for a cabinet position in the Nixon Administration before his son ruined it by going on a rampage that to this day he cannot explain to any reasonable person’s satisfaction (which is why he has to conceal so much). It could be said of Bill Ayers that he was consumed by angers so terrible they led him to destroy his father’s career. But in the 10 hours I interviewed him I saw none of it. What I saw was a shallowness beyond conception. All the Weather leaders I interviewed shared a similar vacuity. They were living inside a utopian fantasy, a separate reality, and had no idea of what they had done. Nor any way to measure it. Appreciating the nation to which they were born, recognizing the great gifts of freedom and opportunity their parents and communities had given them, distinguishing between right and wrong – it was all above their mental and moral ceiling.
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Ohhh, I can't wait to hear that FZ explain that the Rosenbergs were innocent and Alger Hiss was just misunderstood.
I don't know who they are.
FZ, your talking about this group right ?? These folks are just poor misunderstood bunny snugglers, and not violent domestic terrorists preying on innocent victims....right Huh?
:rolleyes: The people who fought in the revolutionary war would be called "violent domestic terrorists" too. Preying on innocent victims, where do you get that?
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FZ, your talking about this group right ?? These folks are just poor misunderstood bunny snugglers, and not violent domestic terrorists preying on innocent victims....right Huh?
:rolleyes: The people who fought in the revolutionary war would be called "violent domestic terrorists" too. Preying on innocent victims, where do you get that?
The people who fought the revolution fought to protect themselves and their families and their livelihoods. They fought to preserve their liberties. They fought for the right to control their own lives and their futures.
The Weathermen killed to steal someone else' money.
There is a difference.
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The people who fought the revolution fought to protect themselves and their families and their livelihoods. They fought to preserve their liberties. They fought for the right to control their own lives and their futures.
The Weathermen killed to steal someone else' money.
There is a difference.
If you would allow me to play Devil's Advocate for a moment, please allow me to respond with the best liberal argument I have heard to these claims:
"NU-UH!!!!!!"
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The people who fought in the revolutionary war would be called "violent domestic terrorists" too.
Do you honestly not know the difference between war and terrorism?
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The people who fought in the revolutionary war would be called "violent domestic terrorists" too.
Do you honestly not know the difference between war and terrorism?
This kind of people can't.
The reason is that words don't have meaning for them. In their minds, the only difference between war and terrorism is semantics.
If you call civilians "tools of an oppressive society," then they are legitimate targets.
To the leftists, whatever is necessary to win is fine: they consider "terrorism" just another option.
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See next post. Sorry.
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To the leftists, whatever is necessary to win is fine: they consider "terrorism" just another option.
Ack-shally, Joe, freakazoid is not quite a leftist, but then not quite right in the head, either. =) We tend to assume someone's a leftist, unless they're a doctrinaire rightist. It is to be avoided.
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The people who fought the revolution fought to protect themselves and their families and their livelihoods. They fought to preserve their liberties. They fought for the right to control their own lives and their futures.
To quote George Orwell from his book, The Road to Wigan Pier:
"They have never made it sufficiently clear that the essential aims of Socialism are justice and liberty."
In that section, Part 2, he is talking about the problems that he sees with how socialists are doing things and how they are viewed by the common person.
Do you honestly not know the difference between war and terrorism?
I don't believe that the people who fought in the revolutionary war, is that something that should be capitalized?, where terrorists. But if we where to do what they did, we would be labeled terrorists.
but then not quite right in the head, either.
:P
We tend to assume someone's a leftist, unless they're a doctrinaire rightist. It is to be avoided.
You see that A LOT around here. :(
To the leftists, whatever is necessary to win is fine: they consider "terrorism" just another option.
Really!? ALL "leftists" believe this huh, ;/
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Now something that I think also needs to be said is that the WU was a Marxist-Leninist group. Which is a little to authoritarian for my tastes, I am an anarchist don't forget, so not everything they did I would agree with.
Ack-shally, Joe, freakazoid is not quite a leftist, but then not quite right in the head, either. =) We tend to assume someone's a leftist, unless they're a doctrinaire rightist. It is to be avoided.
During my high-school and college years, I found self-described anarchists and socialists/communists to be conspicuously similar in many ways. Find a bunch of "true" Marxists and a bunch of "hardcore" anarchists and they'll dress the same, speak the same, blame the same people(Bush/Rove/"the right"/Amerika/The Man) for the world's woes... They believe that The Institution is tilted in favor of those exploitative fat-cats at the expense of the proletariat, and if The People were "just given a chance" to realize their potential(whether through totalitarian control or anarchic self-government), things would be wonderful - dare I say, Utopian. Most will be "educated", having plenty of classroom knowledge and readily quoting Nietzche, Marx, Orwell and Lenin. Most will also have a lot of time to protest and attend rallies, the depth of their political convictions prohibiting any sort of capitulation to "the establishment" in the form of employment. Dad, please send money, this revolution business doesn't pay so well...
...they all also made great efforts to ensure that the general populace knew "where they stand". E.g., "I am an anarchist don't forget". We know what you believe by what you say, not what title you give yourself. I don't need to go around reminding people that "I am a libertarian". They know by the way I act and the things I say.
I'm not sure how you can keep misunderstanding this. My whole point was that if he's so dangerous he shouldn't be allowed to walk free and possibly harm people. The fact that he IS NOT THAT DANGEROUS was the whole point. If you'd like me to go over this again, I certainly can, but at that point I'll be convinced you're being intentionally obtuse.It's not like the guy yelled "Arrest him, bring him to trial, find him guilty of crimes he committed forty years ago, and legally execute him!". He just yelled "Kill Him!"
One need not be violent to be dangerous. He is dangerous by virtue of his freedom. His absence of remorse reinforces the notion that it's "OK" to do REALLY bad/destructive things, as long as you believe you have "the greater good" in mind. THAT is dangerous.
He's admitted guilt... or I should say he's TAKEN OWNERSHIP of his crimes. However, the Constitution ensures that no-one may be tried twice for the same crime(and certain statutes of limitation apply), and he seems also to have some friends who could be described as somewhat influential. The fact is, there's nothing to be done about him within the law, and those who have a problem with him... well, we believe in the law, so we don't "Kill Him".
I don't know who they are.
:rolleyes: The people who fought in the revolutionary war would be called "violent domestic terrorists" too. Preying on innocent victims, where do you get that?
The Rosenbergs gave secrets regarding atomic weapons to the Soviet Union. Hiss and his wife were also spies for the USSR, although less-known.
As with any revolutionary/terrorist, history will be the Weathermen's judge, as it was the Founding Fathers' judge. Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and their associates have been vindicated... will Ayers and Dorhn? Only if the "revleft" writes the textbooks.
If you call civilians "tools of an oppressive society," then they are legitimate targets.
The famous justification "there are no innocent victims" seems to fit the bill. You know, we're all complicit by virtue of our inaction.
Note also that we're also now expected to empathize with Mr. Ayers, who is a "gentle soul" but has "Recently... been the "target of a smear campaign".
http://antiauthoritarian.net/NLN/?p=488 (http://antiauthoritarian.net/NLN/?p=488)
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During my high-school and college years, I found self-described anarchists and socialists/communists to be conspicuously similar in many ways
Seeing as how communism is stateless and classless, anarchism is just one of the ways there.
Most will be "educated", having plenty of classroom knowledge and readily quoting Nietzche, Marx, Orwell and Lenin.
I wish I could. I wonder how many hear can quote different founding fathers and such. I hardly think being educated is a bad thing.
Most will also have a lot of time to protest and attend rallies,
I wish I had a lot of time to be able to, of course you don't have to have a lot of idle time to be able to. Just like you don't have to have a lot of idle time to go to a gun show, or a sporting event, or out hunting. But of course you don't care about that because your goal was to try to make us sound like a bunch of leachers.
Dad, please send money, this revolution business doesn't pay so well...
Please, ;/
...they all also made great efforts to ensure that the general populace knew "where they stand". E.g., "I am an anarchist don't forget". We know what you believe by what you say, not what title you give yourself. I don't need to go around reminding people that "I am a libertarian". They know by the way I act and the things I say.
What does this have to do with anything? And when do we say things like that? Also how many people even know what a libertarian is, or have ever even heard of it?
The Rosenbergs gave secrets regarding atomic weapons to the Soviet Union. Hiss and his wife were also spies for the USSR, although less-known.
Ah thank you. Now, the USSR was state capitalist, hardly anything I would support. You won't find much love for the Soviet Union on revleft either.
As with any revolutionary/terrorist, history will be the Weathermen's judge, as it was the Founding Fathers' judge.
I don't need history to judge for me. I know that the revolutionary war was right because it was for the idea of liberty. Of course you also managed to skirt the real question, nice.
The famous justification "there are no innocent victims" seems to fit the bill. You know, we're all complicit by virtue of our inaction.
Yeah, we leftists all believe that, ;/
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Seeing as how communism is stateless and classless, anarchism is just one of the ways there.
So, Mr. Anarchist, (note, I am not calling you a liberal- liberals are different from leftists. Leftists are commited to some foolish idea such as socialism or, here illustrated, communism), I gave you a challenge earlier: have you even looked for Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit"?
After you're done avoiding that book, you can then avoid "The Road to Serfdom" by the same author.
Also, in note to your Most will be "educated", having plenty of classroom knowledge and readily quoting Nietzche, Marx, Orwell and Lenin.
I wish I could. I wonder how many hear can quote different founding fathers and such. I hardly think being educated is a bad thing.
his point was that, in their education, they have made a point of focusing on socialists, while ignoring others. (Kind of like I'm accusing you of doing).
I have read Nietzche, Marx, and Orwell (I admit I've never touched Lenin). I am aware of their main principles. I, however, cannot quote them because I did not consider them worthy of that much attention. [Edit: George Orwell has works that most definitely are, though.]
I can, however, quote C.S. Lewis, Twain, Shakespeare, Adam Smith, Hayek, and many of the founding fathers. This is because their works ARE worth paying extra attention to.
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So, Mr. Anarchist, (note, I am not calling you a liberal- liberals are different from leftists. Leftists are commited to some foolish idea such as socialism or, here illustrated, communism),
And I thank you for being able to distinguish that there is a difference, :)
I gave you a challenge earlier: have you even looked for Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit"?
After you're done avoiding that book, you can then avoid "The Road to Serfdom" by the same author.
It's not that I am avoiding it. I am currently in the middle of reading Thomas Pains Rights Of Man. Right now I am at the section, Declaration Of The Rights of Man And of Citizens: Be the National Assembly of France. Can't wait till I get to Part 2, as that seems like the part that will interest me the most. Part one focused more on the France stuff which kind of bored me, mostly because I don't know much about it's history so all that it is talking about I don't much understand. But something I have started to do lately is write down page numbers of parts that interest me, :) And when I am done with this book I shall move onto another book in my large stack of books to read. But I shall make a note to purchase your suggested reading material. :)
I have read Nietzche, Marx, and Orwell (I admit I've never touched Lenin). I am aware of their main principles. I, however, cannot quote them because I did not consider them worthy of that much attention. [Edit: George Orwell has works that most definitely are, though.]
Well, thats more than me lol. The only Marx that I have read was the Communist Manifesto and I didn't particularly care for it, found it hard to read. Although that is probably because of the language used back then isn't used the same way now. George Orwell has some good stuff. Recently finished The Road to Wigans Pier, loved it with, marked lots of pages that I found interesting. Another author I have found that I like is Leo Tolstoy, read his Confession and Other Religious Writings, very well written.
I can, however, quote C.S. Lewis, Twain, Shakespeare, Adam Smith, Hayek, and many of the founding fathers. This is because their works ARE worth paying extra attention to.
Only two that I have read was one by Shakespeare, because it was required in English class. And the other was Mere Christianity by CS Lewis, which was a very enjoyable read. Can't quote anything but when I finish the books in my to be read pile he is one that I plan on reading again and this time marking pages that I find interesting.
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freak:
ANY 18th/19th century native-German-speaking writer is going to be a bear to read. They could never use one word when 1000 would work. They also tried to ram reality into their own philosophical framework and had to do some gymnastics to get the job done, calling for more dense verbiage.
Clausewitz was similar to Marx in that respect. They desperately needed heavy-handed editors.
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Are you serious in saying Marx isn't deserving of attention?
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Are you serious in saying Marx isn't deserving of attention?
You will note I said "That much attention." The pro-noun "that" had the (hopefully) understood antecedent of "Reading and studying to the point that I am able to quote them at will."
Marx is most definitely worth attention: Know thy enemy.
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Beyond that, some of Marx's historiographical points are rather valid, IMO.
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Beyond that, some of Marx's historiographical points are rather valid, IMO.
Ironically, he understood most of economics. It was his failure to understand value that lead to his unbelievably stupid philosophy.
Funny how the people today no longer ascribe to the labor theory of value but still think communism is a good idea.
Excuse me, I'm going to go start digging a hole. It'll be worth thousands by the time I'm done with it!
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I wish I could. I wonder how many hear can quote different founding fathers and such. I hardly think being educated is a bad thing.
I always thought spelling was an essential part of being educated, but perhaps I am just a reactionary :P
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Seeing as how communism is stateless and classless, anarchism is just one of the ways there.
I understand this, but communism and socialism are two different things. Communism is the idea that all individuals will live/work/sacrifice for the good of the whole, and socialism is a command form of government ostensibly instituted in order to lead to communism. True communism will never work on any appreciable scale, simply due to human nature. People are primarily self-interested, which is why capitalism works so well and socialist governments always rot from the inside due to corruption.
Anarchism, as I see it, is the notion that people will get by just fine without government or laws - that people can be governed by their own values, honor, personal code or whatever. Anarchism will never last long either, also due to human nature. People, when left to themselves, will take for themselves at the expense of others. See eastern Africa for examples. There are "good" people of strong character and honorable values... but there are also people who are selfish(not the same as self-interested) and dishonest.
Communism and anarchism are ideals. I'd call them noble ideals, in that they assume that people CAN be trusted to play nice with others, but they are ideals that have yet to be realized anywhere in human history. I confess that I don't understand how anyone can truly believe in either one, having witnessed their many past failures under the leadership of brilliant men.
I wish I could. I wonder how many hear can quote different founding fathers and such. I hardly think being educated is a bad thing.
I can't pop off with quotes like some here can, at least not to the same extent. I wasn't intending to degrade the importance of education. What I was trying to get across is that schooling is not enough. College teaches you all about history, philosophy and theoretical politics/government. College shows you the possibilities, and you follow the path that you feel is right. You get the rest of your life to find out if you made the right choices.
No-one is truly educated, though, who hasn't had a real job, paid real taxes and dealt with real problems. THIS is why I mentioned the quoting bit. It's all well and good to read and understand great philosophical works, but that must be tempered with real-world experience.
For this reason, I don't believe the voting age should be lower than 21. You simply can't make a vote based on anything other than idealism or naivete until you've gotten pissed at where your tax dollars are going, or where our troops are being sent this time, or... know what I mean? Schooling isn't enough. :shrug:
I wish I had a lot of time to be able to, of course you don't have to have a lot of idle time to be able to. Just like you don't have to have a lot of idle time to go to a gun show, or a sporting event, or out hunting. But of course you don't care about that because your goal was to try to make us sound like a bunch of leachers.
I certainly don't have time for political activism or protesting. I've got a job, a house, and a wife(and a couple of forums) which I consider better uses of my time. I tend to think that most protests these days are outlets for mass whining, be they the "si se puede" illego-marches out here(roiling crowds comprised of a few decent people and an awful lot of "leachers") or the crowds that stand in front of abortion clinics(angry mobs comprised of a few well-meaning people and an awful lot of self-righteous people). We live in a representative democracy, in which we may participate on many levels without resorting to protests, not the least of which is by voting. We also live in a capitalistic society, in which we may vote with our dollars. I offer you this: it takes a lot more time and hard work to effect changes through legitimate means, than it does to organize a protest to let the world know you're mad about something.
Please, ;/
The "dad" thing was out of line, however I do stand by my overall point, which was that the individuals I'd described - the ideological purists - were not contributing members of society. They were too busy being angry and oppressed to get a job.
What does this have to do with anything? And when do we say things like that? Also how many people even know what a libertarian is, or have ever even heard of it?
You took the time to remind us all that you are "an anarchist". Just reminded me of people I used to know who were very public about their political leanings. Most people don't really seem to know what it means to be a Democrat or Republican in the historical sense, let alone libertarian(small-l). For that reason, I won't claim a political leaning unless pressed to put a name to my beliefs, and even then I don't identify with a party. I believe what I believe and don't want a title.
I don't need history to judge for me. I know that the revolutionary war was right because it was for the idea of liberty.
I understand and agree with you, but can you offer any constructive purpose to the activities of the Weathermen? Their goal, as I see it, was to destroy liberty by suppressing the individual("We The Living") - a different sort of equality. Their cause was not just.
Of course you also managed to skirt the real question, nice.
I didn't mean to skirt anything; I think you refer to the Founding Fathers/terrorists question. Certainly, in British eyes, the American revolutionaries were viewed as insurrectionists. I would expect, however, a different perspective from the majority of colonial citizens. The Revolution also enjoyed a fair bit of popular support, whereas the Weathermen did not.
Yeah, we leftists all believe that, ;/
That was implied, but not by me. I was actually not intending to address you with that response, although you seemed to indicate some belief in the ends-justify-the-means thing when discussing the Brinks truck robbery and the definition of murder.
Excuse me, I'm going to go start digging a hole. It'll be worth thousands by the time I'm done with it!
:lol:
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Certainly, in British eyes, the American revolutionaries were viewed as insurrectionists. I would expect, however, a different perspective from the majority of colonial citizens. The Revolution also enjoyed a fair bit of popular support, whereas the Weathermen did not.
Quite. There is a big difference between an actual popular revolt, which a sizable percentage of the population participates in or supports, led by those who were already real leaders in their communities; and a few violent acts by an extremist fringe of zealots. The latter is nothing but an ideologically-motivated crime wave.
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So the Warsaw Ghetto fighters were an ideologically motivate crime wave?
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No. They weren't an an extremist fringe of zealots.
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No. They weren't an an extremist fringe of zealots.
So the morality of your action depends on your popularity?
(The WG partisans were opposed by most of the local Jews).
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Micro, you're pushing the plausibility envelope.
You are now arguing simply because you can.
I'm not impressed.
If you cannot figure out the difference between people fighting real oppression and people fighting to impose their will on others, there's not much in the way of subtle nuance that's going to convince you.
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No, my argument is very simple:
To qualify as a terrorist, you must primarily target innocent civilians. A person who targets soldiers or other armed agents of the government is an insurgent or a guerilla.
Even IF your cause is popular, or even just, targetting innocents makes you a terrorist.
The guys who lob rockets at Sderot are terrorists, though their cause is popular among their people (or at least more so than the cause of American Independence was among the colonists).
Whether your cause is just or not does not hinge on its popularity, either. For example, the Soviet government enjoyed the support of the majority of its people, and yet some of them (very few) still resisted when the KGB came to take them to the camps. Their cause was perfectly just though not popular.
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No-one is truly educated, though, who hasn't had a real job, paid real taxes and dealt with real problems.
blasphemy!! =D
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No, my argument is very simple:
To qualify as a terrorist, you must primarily target innocent civilians. A person who targets soldiers or other armed agents of the government is an insurgent or a guerilla.
Even IF your cause is popular, or even just, targetting innocents makes you a terrorist.
The guys who lob rockets at Sderot are terrorists, though their cause is popular among their people (or at least more so than the cause of American Independence was among the colonists).
Whether your cause is just or not does not hinge on its popularity, either. For example, the Soviet government enjoyed the support of the majority of its people, and yet some of them (very few) still resisted when the KGB came to take them to the camps. Their cause was perfectly just though not popular.
Succinct and accurate.
Acts of terorrism can be committed in pursuit of just causes, and sometimes legitimate use of force occurs in pursuit of unjust causes (for example, using force to attack terrorists who are fighting against a totalitarian state...)
Edited for typo
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To qualify as a terrorist, you must primarily target innocent civilians.
Well, that's reasonably close.
Terrorism is a specialized form of extortion. It's an attack on an indirect vector using otherwise uninvolved, but important-to-the-target, individuals and groups.
The concept is simple: you wish to harm or influence someone who is too large or powerful to attack directly; you discover whom it is that a) he values and feels he must protect, or b) is in a position to directly influence him (e.g. an electorate or customer base), or c) he is expected to represent or protect; you then systematically attack the largely defenseless dependent or influential people whom he is now obliged to somehow act to protect or lose face/lose family/lose power/etc., and so on.
In it's simplest form, it's "hand over the money, or the girl gets it."
It's not a long stretch from there to "comply with my wishes or I'll bomb more of your constituents/allies/family/students/whatever."
From the extortionist's point of view, the best outcome is that the group that's attacked, itself prevails on the target authority to negotiate/capitulate/compromise. Also acceptable is that the target authority has an extreme attack of "conscience" and gives in rather than see more harm come to his [dependents].
The classic example is, of course, "targeting innocents" as mentioned, but innocence is not required, only "value-to-target" importance.
The "terror" label is one I didn't question until 2001. What I found was that "terror" wasn't what most of America felt, or even horror for that matter, but rather a persistent anxiety about what was coming next. This persistent anxiety is exhausting, as I can attest from first-hand experience and from direct observation.
While the objective may have been terror, what actually happens in a society like ours is even more ironic: in an effort to reduce this anxiety, those in charge impose draconian "protective" measures, doing more economic and social damage than the actual attack could ever have hoped to do.
If I were a "terror" strategist, my objective would no longer be to "frighten" the population, but instead to play a kind of "policy billiards" with the government, seeing if I couldn't do something minor-but-scary, and get them to impose a whole new layer of liberty-encroaching rules so as to be seen to "do something!" about this "terrorism."
In the end, the strategy of indirect-vector attacks is effective to the degree that you can produce enough "worry" to get authorities to impose restrictions on the very people whose liberty they're supposed to protect.
You won't ever achieve chronic "terror," but plain old "worry" will do just fine on a large enough scale.
In an interesting alternate universe, I wonder what would have happened if, without any fanfare at all, the response to 9/11 had been simply to a) clear the site and rebuild, and b) quickly and quietly locate those responsible and exterminate them.
If the "national drama" of it all had been set aside, the damage repaired, and a limited-but-harsh military response carried out, I would imagine the attractiveness of such an approach ("terror") would have been subject to some serious review.
Of course, really, this all predicates on the idea that the populace would be disinclined to buy into the dramatics. Sadly, in an era of "reality TV" and drama-for-its-own-sake, that was never going to happen.
Anyway.
I really shouldn't ramble like that.
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If I were a "terror" strategist, my objective would no longer be to "frighten" the population, but instead to play a kind of "policy billiards" with the government, seeing if I couldn't do something minor-but-scary, and get them to impose a whole new layer of liberty-encroaching rules so as to be seen to "do something!" about this "terrorism."
Early 20th century anarchists were exaclty like that vis-a-vis the world's monarchies. They believe that once the monarchs tightened the screws enough, the people would rise up and destroy them.
WRT 9/11 I believe that what happened had to happen - even if 9/11 itself didn't.
80 years (at least) of Progressive (read: big-government) policies have turned America into a society where the knee-jerk reaction to a crisis, at least from a political standpoint, is to demand that the government do something - anything! - to claim that the world 'changed' after Columbine, or 9/11, or the White House shooting in (IIRC) 1993.
The truth is that a 'crisis' on the scale of 9/11 is bound to reoccur, and if it doesn't, some other crisis does. Until the knee-jerk reaction is not altered you will have more and more 'emergency' laws passed with every 'emergency'.
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I was not defining terrorism. I was pointing out an obvious difference between the American revolutionaries and the Weathermen. I didn't say it was the only or best distinction to draw between the two.
And, yes, the popularity of one's movement can affect its morality. Resistance to oppression is one thing, but an actual revolution is another. If one is going to pursue armed resistance to constituted authority (which both the Weathermen and the revolutionaries did) it matters whether the act(s) will be merely a lethal temper tantrum, or whether it will be constructive.
(The WG partisans were opposed by most of the local Jews).
That makes them neither extremists, nor zealots.
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That makes them neither extremists, nor zealots.
So what does make an extremist or a zealot? The confident say so of someone on the internet?
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OK. What was extremist or zealous about these gentlemen in Warsaw?
But come to think of it, I'm tired of taking seriously this attempt to equate the ZOB or the American revolutionaries with the WU. Go pound sand.
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Micro, you seem to postulate that the violence against the people and property of the US is somehow right and proper -- even "destined" in a sense.
And that therefore it wasn't really extortion but an effort at liberation.
A sort of . . . rising up against the evil overlord oppressors?
Do I read this correctly?
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No, I make no attempt to defend the Weathermen. It is a sad thing that they were not shot by their intended victims.
But I do think we need to get our definitions in order.
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Well, folks, we are all racist rednecks. Heck, Frank Rich tells me so.
October 12, 2008
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama
By FRANK RICH
IF you think way back to the start of this marathon campaign, back when it seemed preposterous that any black man could be a serious presidential contender, then you remember the biggest fear about Barack Obama: a crazy person might take a shot at him.
Some voters told reporters that they didn’t want Obama to run, let alone win, should his very presence unleash the demons who have stalked America from Lincoln to King. After consultation with Congress, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, gave Obama a Secret Service detail earlier than any presidential candidate in our history — in May 2007, some eight months before the first Democratic primaries.
“I’ve got the best protection in the world, so stop worrying,” Obama reassured his supporters. Eventually the country got conditioned to his appearing in large arenas without incident (though I confess that the first loud burst of fireworks at the end of his convention stadium speech gave me a start). In America, nothing does succeed like success. The fear receded.
Until now. At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every conceivable twist. They are alarms. Doing nothing is not an option.
All’s fair in politics. John McCain and Sarah Palin have every right to bring up William Ayers, even if his connection to Obama is minor, even if Ayers’s Weather Underground history dates back to Obama’s childhood, even if establishment Republicans and Democrats alike have collaborated with the present-day Ayers in educational reform. But it’s not just the old Joe McCarthyesque guilt-by-association game, however spurious, that’s going on here. Don’t for an instant believe the many mindlessly “even-handed” journalists who keep saying that the McCain campaign’s use of Ayers is the moral or political equivalent of the Obama campaign’s hammering on Charles Keating.
What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.
By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out “Terrorist!” The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama’s middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers’s Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.
That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family” was how a McCain press release last week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8.
We all know what punishment fits the crime of murder, or even potential murder, if the security of post-9/11 America is at stake. We all know how self-appointed “patriotic” martyrs always justify taking the law into their own hands.
Obama can hardly be held accountable for Ayers’s behavior 40 years ago, but at least McCain and Palin can try to take some responsibility for the behavior of their own supporters in 2008. What’s troubling here is not only the candidates’ loose inflammatory talk but also their refusal to step in promptly and strongly when someone responds to it with bloodthirsty threats in a crowded arena. Joe Biden had it exactly right when he expressed concern last week that “a leading American politician who might be vice president of the United States would not just stop midsentence and turn and condemn that.” To stay silent is to pour gas on the fires.
It wasn’t always thus with McCain. In February he loudly disassociated himself from a speaker who brayed “Barack Hussein Obama” when introducing him at a rally in Ohio. Now McCain either backpedals with tardy, pro forma expressions of respect for his opponent or lets second-tier campaign underlings release boilerplate disavowals after ugly incidents like the chilling Jim Crow-era flashback last week when a Florida sheriff ranted about “Barack Hussein Obama” at a Palin rally while in full uniform.
From the start, there have always been two separate but equal questions about race in this election. Is there still enough racism in America to prevent a black man from being elected president no matter what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is out on the first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unambiguous answer to the second: Yes.
McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead. The tone was set at the Republican convention, with Rudy Giuliani’s mocking dismissal of Obama as an “only in America” affirmative-action baby. We also learned then that the McCain campaign had recruited as a Palin handler none other than Tucker Eskew, the South Carolina consultant who had worked for George W. Bush in the notorious 2000 G.O.P. primary battle where the McCains and their adopted Bangladeshi daughter were slimed by vicious racist rumors.
No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin’s convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago’s mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was “regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man.” In the ’60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: “Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls.”
This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential vice president at a national political convention. It’s astonishing there’s been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis Farrakhan — or William Ayers — in Denver.
The operatives who would have Palin quote Pegler have been at it ever since. A key indicator came two weeks after the convention, when the McCain campaign ran its first ad tying Obama to the mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Rather than make its case by using a legitimate link between Fannie and Obama (or other Democratic leaders), the McCain forces chose a former Fannie executive who had no real tie to Obama or his campaign but did have a black face that could dominate the ad’s visuals.
There are no black faces high in the McCain hierarchy to object to these tactics. There hasn’t been a single black Republican governor, senator or House member in six years. This is a campaign where Palin can repeatedly declare that Alaska is “a microcosm of America” without anyone even wondering how that might be so for a state whose tiny black and Hispanic populations are each roughly one-third the national average. There are indeed so few people of color at McCain events that a black senior writer from The Tallahassee Democrat was mistakenly ejected by the Secret Service from a campaign rally in Panama City in August, even though he was standing with other reporters and showed his credentials. His only apparent infraction was to look glaringly out of place.
Could the old racial politics still be determinative? I’ve long been skeptical of the incessant press prognostications (and liberal panic) that this election will be decided by racist white men in the Rust Belt. Now even the dimmest bloviators have figured out that Americans are riveted by the color green, not black — as in money, not energy. Voters are looking for a leader who might help rescue them, not a reckless gambler whose lurching responses to the economic meltdown (a campaign “suspension,” a mortgage-buyout stunt that changes daily) are as unhinged as his wanderings around the debate stage.
To see how fast the tide is moving, just look at North Carolina. On July 4 this year — the day that the godfather of modern G.O.P. racial politics, Jesse Helms, died — The Charlotte Observer reported that strategists of both parties agreed Obama’s chances to win the state fell “between slim and none.” Today, as Charlotte reels from the implosion of Wachovia, the McCain-Obama race is a dead heat in North Carolina and Helms’s Republican successor in the Senate, Elizabeth Dole, is looking like a goner.
But we’re not at Election Day yet, and if voters are to have their final say, both America and Obama have to get there safely. The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism, and each day the mob howls louder. The onus is on the man who says he puts his country first to call off the dogs, pit bulls and otherwise.
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Good Grief, Frank Rich is off on a tear.
I guess it's just really to hard for some people in this country to understand that Obama's connection to Ayers goes to Obama's character. Yeah ... Ayers was doing his bombings when Obama was a kid ... but he's never repented, said after 9/11 he regreted not doing more ... and Obama maintained a relationship with him as an adult himself.
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I just don't get it, I guess.
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I just don't get it, I guess.
That's because you're a racist for even trying to "get it." You're not supposed to ask questions, just Believe.
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Good Grief, Frank Rich is off on a tear.
I guess it's just really to hard for some people in this country to understand that Obama's connection to Ayers goes to Obama's character. Yeah ... Ayers was doing his bombings when Obama was a kid ... but he's never repented, said after 9/11 he regreted not doing more ... and Obama maintained a relationship with him as an adult himself.
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I just don't get it, I guess.
I guess Frank Rich has never heard of Godwin's Law.