What's behind attacks on Obama's "association" with Bill Ayers?

[ColbertWatcher]

Some background

(from Wikipedia)
Bill Ayers was a member of a group called the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_%28organization%29">"Weathermen" (or "Weather Underground").

The Weathermen were a group of students whose goal was the "...destruction of U.S. imperialism..."
<http://martinrealm.org/documents/radical/sixties1.html>

They were formerly a part of RYM (the Revolutionary Youth Movement), a splinter group that left the larger group, SDS (Students for a Democratic Society).

They advocated communism.

They considered themselves the "white fighting force" working with the "Black Liberation Movement".

They have been called "militant", "radical" and "terrorists".

Their "activities" included jailbreaks, riots and bombings, one of which killed three of their own members.

Their first demonstration, however, was a rally during the 1969 trial of the Chicago Eight that turned into four days of rioting.

They virtually disappeared after the U.S. finally withdrew from Vietnam in 1973, but some members were involved in a 1981 bank robbery in which one security guard and two policemen were killed.

The name "Weathermen" came from the Bob Dylan song "Subterranean Homesick Blues", which contains the line:
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

So many college students were in "radical" groups, that the Weathermen breaking off from a group that splintered off from yet another group was not unique.

This was the 1960's, when every young person was either in college, in Vietnam or in Canada.

Why is the GOP-controlled media suddenly interested in this university professor?

Is it really because of the bank robbery?

I do not think so. I suspect it may have to do with quashing the idea of protest.

Instead of calling the group the "Weathermen" the GOP-controlled media prefer the term Weather Underground. Certainly, the group used either name interchangeably, but the American TV-viewing public would be more fearful of an underground than mere men.

I fear the GOP-controlled media will try to construct a narrative surrounding the Democratic candidate that includes support from these "out-of-control". If my suspicions are correct, how can this be countered?

Earlier today, a brilliant http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5581211&mesg_id=5581211">thread was started by DUer slinkerwink called "I'm TIRED Of Worrying About Republicans. It's TIME For Them To WORRY About US!"

While I agree wholeheartedly to the notion, I don't believe we should be ignorant of what they believe or of their plans. That's how we got in this mess in the first place.

[crankychatter]

1. The GOP and DLC are having a LOVE CHILD

it's scandalicious

film at eleven

"the revolution will not be televised"

YES, you are correct... this IS all about radicalizing public perception of "dissent" even though those of us against the War are the majority...

Ultimately, if Obama is Martyred by the media... and Clinton is nominated... dissenters will be "radicalized" literally, and in the public eye, as presented by the Corporate Media

You are dead on correct... try getting a DUer to admit there are wheels within these wheels is hard to do... I've tried.

They cite the MSM as if it were the end all and be all... and go back on forth on non-issues like kittens, playing with a shiny bauble.

We will be outraged on queue...

[KittyWampus]

2. please change the thread title to NON-Association.

[Armstead]

3. How do youn counter it? Laugh at it and point out that Obama had nothing to do with it

Let's re-fight the Civil War while we're at it.

[ColbertWatcher]

4. Not the Obama thing...

...the idea that "protest" is unAmerican.

That young people wanting to influence their world by creating groups of their own is somehow "communist" or "radical".

How do we counter the news GOP talking point that "the young people are revolting"?

[Swamp Rat]

5. aliens!

:hide:

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. Ayers, et al look nuttier and crazier in retrospect than they....

... actually were.

Part of that is 'cause that the VN War was rehabbed in the popular culture. Instead of the mechanized mass murder that it actually was... arguably a form of genocide, depending on how one defines the term... the US war 'effort' is widely misrepresented as a well-intentioned if somewhat misguided effort to assist oppressed SE Asians.

Over a million VNmese died... most of them from US air attacks, chemical warefare, etc. The far left of SDS, personified by Ayers, et al was responding to this inconvenient truth... low-keyed by the media at the time and largely covered-up and 'revised' in US history books.

( Ask a US HS grad to find VN on a map. Betcha they can't.)

What does this have to do with Obama? Nothing really. Hillary hopes in the current 'war on terror' climate some of the Weatherman tactics will stick to Obama via guilt by association... in spite of the fact that the real 'terror' was deployed by the terrorist policy planners in Wash DC. The GOP hopes the same thing.

They may both be right. Or they may have gone to the VN war 'well' once to often. Younger voters may not see the relevance of Ayers to Obama. It's hard to see something that isn't there.

[SoonerPride]

7. What's Behind It? IT'S FUCKING MCCARTHYISM

That's what's behind it.