When did you first hear of William Ayers?

[JohnnyRingo]

I was a young adult when he "bombed the Pentagon and the Capitol Building", but I don't recall the headlines at the time. It's not just me either, I've asked my same age peers if they remember hearing about what should have been the terror crime of the century, and none of them heard of this until 2008.

Why isn't this man, who's name should be well known as Charles Manson not in history books as "the man who bombed two major Washington buildings"? For that matter, why isn't he serving the rest of his life in Leavenworth for such brazen and apparently well documented attacks? I believe even Jerry Rubin served time for less.

It's not that I wasn't paying attention at the time either, I remember when Abbie Hoffman and his supporters surrounded the Pentagon in a failed attempt to levitate the building, but I would think such a heinous crime as suggested by the McCampaign would have easily trumped Hoffman's attempt at terror ala Copperfield.

These are questions everyone should ask when a McCain supporter brings up the "man who admits to blowing up the Pentagon and the US Capitol", and his connection to Barack Obama. Just ask when they first heard of William Ayers, then why they never heard of this man who could have landed a villain role in a Bond movie, until this spring.

[DS1]

1. Watching 'The Weather Underground'

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343168/

[JohnnyRingo]

8. I'd never heard of that import, Now I want to see it.

It should be a nostalgic jog through those heady times, though I suspect they toot their own horn a little louder in the doc than their actual deeds at the time warrant.

They seem like nice helpful people now:
http://www.wunderground.com/

Hahahahahaha

[garlicmilkshake]

2. I was pretty active in the antiwar movement in the mid to late 60s and I can't recall ever hearing

the name back then...so the answer to your question is...about 3 days ago.
:shrug:

[thecrow]

19. Me too, and from the Midwest

and I haven't heard of this "heinous terrorist".
Not until last week.
Odd, that.

[Lex]

3. Last week.

[dkf]

4. Who heard of "Weather Underground"?

I thought it was a website I go to when I want to see how hurricanes are coming along.

[Toucano]

18. They were originally just "Weathermen".

PBS did a good documentary in 2004.

http://www.shoppbs.org/sm-pbs-independent-lens-the-weather-underground-dvd--pi-1802854.html

[cali]

5. I heard of him in the early 70's

when his girlfriend blew herself up building a bomb in Greenwich Village. I was a teenager at the time but it was a big deal at my house because my parents knew the guy who used to own the house.

[phillysuse]

6. 1969 at the University of Chicago

along with his girlfriend Bernadine Dorhn and other radicals like Judy Clark who is serving a 75 year term in Bedford Correctional facility for the Brinks truck murder in Nyack New York.

I remember when the Weatherman faction split from SDS. I thought they were crazies then.

[gollygee]

7. I first heard of him here

very recently.

But I was just a baby when this was all going on.

Still, I've heard of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Charles Manson.

This is a very very weak attack on Obama. It's an attack only on someone Obama knows, and as you said if Ayers were really that bad we all would have known his name before this. I live in a swing voting area and I have heard a lot of election talk but not one single word about Ayers.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. I vaguely remember it only because I had a friend in the WU.

[dipsydoodle]

10. About 3 days ago here on DU

Allowing for the fact I'm UK the most significant thing I can remember from those days was Kent State University.

As a tribute : Ohio, Neil Young

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=u1eyuH1-8A4

[Fleshdancer]

11. a few weeks ago

I had to look him up to understand what the hell the republicans were talking about.

[H2O Man]

12. The idea

for "raising" the Pentagon came from Ed Sanders, in a late evening discussion with Abbie Hoffman. When the YIPPIES began to promote the idea, the press asked if they had secured a permit for their demonstration. Abbie told reporters that they were seeking a permit to allow them "to raise this hunk of granite one hundred feet, (but) the generals so far agree only to ten. We're reasonable, ten feet will have to do."

During the demonstration, the anti-war protestors were met by soldiers with rifles and bayonets. A Berkley "street person" known as Super Joel inserted a flower into a rifle's barrel, making for one of the most important photos from that era.

There remains some dispute over if the Pentagon was raised. For my part, I believe Abbie when he wrote, "The ground beneath us vibrated. The granite walls began to glow, matching the orange of the new sun, and then, before our very eyes, without a sound, the entire Pentagon rose like a flying saucer in the air." (Soon to be a Major Motion Picture; page 135)

[VeraAgnes]

13. From my older brother

in the 70's.

[sinkingfeeling]

14. Around 1969 via SDS.

[leveymg]

15. I concluded years ago that Dohrn, and possible Ayers, were COINTELPRO agents provocateur.

If the US Government really wanted to find them all those years they were on the lam -- like Abbie and Tim Leary -- they would have been found and would still be imprisoned.

I'm not the only one who's suspicions have been raised. See, http://badamerican.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/things-obama-isnt/

“One of the most militant members of the Weather Underground, ‘widely known for his skill in making bombs and fuses,’ had often criticized his comrades for limiting their bombing to property. He berated them, stating that ‘true revolutionaries had to be ready and anxious to kill people.’ It turned out that he was a paid informer and agent provocateur for the FBI,” writes Michael Linfield (Freedom Under Fire: U.S. Civil Liberties in Times of War, South End Press, 1990).

You can read the rest but my eyes always come to rest on text whenever Bernardine Dohrn is mentioned. Like here:

It is not clear if Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, were part of this widespread government manipulation of the more radical fringes of the antiwar movement in the 1960s and early 1970s, although their relationship with insider Obama should cast a hefty pall of suspicion over the duo.

I met Dohrn at a lecture of hers at Illinois State University about 10 years ago. I was well aware of her history and, in fact, as a member of the press (Peoria Journal-Star) asked her a question about the Weather Underground’s predilections toward violence.

She giggled. She thought it was funny and literally rolled her eyes pooh-poohing the question.

I knew then that whatever she had done back in the 1960s had been sanctioned by the US government and now all was ‘forgiven.’ She wouldn’t have been standing here being showered with attention, back in publishing and public speaking if she hadn’t been.

Because if she were a real radical she would have landed up like Karl Hess (if she was lucky), not a darling of academia. And don’t get me started about Jerry Rubin - always a phony. So many of the people that seemed so radical were all puppets in the grand game.

Of course most people don’t realize how many of the players in American history were puppets of the established order and that COINTELPRO never really died but has continued under different names and under different agencies.

I am convinced that the needless bloodshed at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 was such an operation - an embryonic false flag terror attack designed to forever discredit the anti-war movement and strike fear into the hearts of any future protesters. It accomplished its aims, bringing the era of student protesting to an end. Blaming the rank and file National Guard troops, in this case, was misplaced - they were pawns in the game too - children were enticed to kill children.

Everything from official infiltration of any movement advocating peace and freedom (such as the infiltration of the Quaker peace group outlined in Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 911) or the placement of agent provocateurs designed to incite violence (such as the cops caught red handed at Montebello trying to incite violence) this sort of thing has been going on for a long time. And, coming in Denver, is going on today. And many ‘red blooded ‘Murkans’ support these fascist measures, as long as they are directed against people they don’t like or have been taught to hate.

I wish people could accept the truth. But it’s hard to believe that what we apparently see is not real. But the inculcation of mythology and symbolism in American life and culture is so strong most people will cling to the paradigm against all evidence.

Barack Obama was vetted a long time ago. Wall Street hedge fund managers wouldn’t be throwing money at anyone who would overthrow their gravy train. These campaigns trying to paint him as some kind of radical, as Nimmo states, misses the point. I would much rather have Obama be connected to the true anti-war movement of the 1960s rather to cheerleaders of butchery like Madeleine Albright and Zbig or globalists like Richard Holbrooke.

[rucky]

23. If that's true, then Ayers could clear this up pretty easily.

[leveymg]

24. Why would he do that, now? It would destroy his image as a reconstructed Lefty made good.

No. Ayers would be the last person to admit such a thing about himself. At the very least, he would be revealed as untrustworthy - that would also undo the meme that the GOP is trying to create about Obama's "radical Left, terrorist" associations.

Just a hunch, but I think Bernadette was the brains of the operation, and she led him along for a while.

[murielm99]

16. I was very much aware of them

at the time they were active. Maybe this was because I was a college student at the time who sympathized with their anti-war views, if not their more violent activities.

Besides that, I was aware of who Billy Ayers was when he was a teenager. His family was very prominent not far from where I lived. I did not live in their rich neighborhood, but I knew who they were because his father was the CEO of Commonwealth Edison. I seem to recall his mother having something to do with sponsoring a youth orchestra. He had a much quieter older brother. But this is all dim recollection.

He and Bernardine were underground for a long time. I lost track of what was going on with them until around the late nineties, when I saw a newspaper article about Dohrn's work in children's law at Northwestern.

They raised a family and remained faithful to each other. When they surfaced, much of the evidence against them was thrown out due to prosecutorial misconduct. The Feds really wanted to throw the book at them. But his family was rich enough to do something about it. At least that was my take on it.

I didn't like the things they did. But I have always admired Ayers and Dohrn for being willing to take a stand for what they believed. I think they are still like that.

[treestar]

17. This year

From the John McLiar campaign

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. In history class back in the 1980s

[bunkerbuster1]

21. During the primaries.

Of course, I'd heard of the Weather Underground, but I didn't really know anything about the individuals in the organization.

[47of74]

22. Same here...

I heard of him earlier this year when the right wing was trying to make hay about Ayers, Wright, etc etc.

[devilgrrl]

25. I knew him as a toddler. He used to push Barrack and I on the swings at the playground

:sarcasm:

[JohnnyRingo]

27. Hahahahaha

Don't let Hannity hear that.

[Iggo]

26. I never heard of Ayers until this year.

I was a little kid in the 60's, though.