Bill Ayers, the man with whom Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama worked on Chicago projects, published his own manifesto during his years as an active terrorist and dedicated it to a list of people including Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
According to Fox News, Ayers – the Weather Underground terrorist who bombed the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, and stated recently he wished he could have done more – used his book, "Prairie Fire," to announce his intention to "attack from the inside" and "disrupt the empire, to incapacitate it, to put pressure on the cracks, to make it hard to carry out its bloody functioning against the people of the world."
When confronted in a debate, Obama described Ayers as "just a guy who lives in my neighborhood." But the campaign of Republican nominee John McCain has made much of of the fact that Ayers hired Obama to work on the Annenberg Challenge in Chicago and
shared duties with him on the board of the Woods Fund, charities that distributed millions of dollars to leftist causes.
The weblog Dakota Voice cited a passage from the book:
We are a guerrilla organization. We are communist women and men, underground in the United States for more than four years. We are deeply affected by the historic events of our time in the struggle against U.S. imperialism.
Our intention is to disrupt the empire, to incapacitate it, to put pressure on the cracks, to make it hard to carry out its bloody functioning against the people of the world, to join the world struggle, to attack from the inside.
Our intention is to engage the enemy, to wear away at him, to harass him, to isolate him, to expose every weakness, to pounce, to reveal his vulnerability.
Our intention is to encourage the people, to provoke leaps in confidence and consciousness, to stir the imagination, to popularize power, to agitate, to organize, to join in every way possible the people's day-to-day struggles.
Our intention is to forge an underground, a clandestine political organization engaged in every form of struggle, protected from the eyes and weapons of the state, a base against repression, to accumulate lessons, experience and constant practice, a base from which to attack.
"This book contains terrorist, Marxist, anti-American writings that should make the blood of any red-blooded American boil," Dakota Voice said. "Stop and consider for a moment that Barack Obama allowed this America-hating terrorist help launch his political career in his living room. That Barack Obama worked with this man on the board of the Annenberg Challenge and the Woods Fund. That they sat together on panels like the one over juvenile justice.
"How can we possibly consider electing someone with this wretched judgment (and possibly questionable sympathies) to the presidency?" the Voice said.
Sirhan Sirhan |
The publication said Democrats should be upset, because Robert Kennedy has been a hero to the party. Sirhan was convicted of shooting Kennedy June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where the candidate had just finished a campaign appearance.
According to several online biographies, Sirhan, who remains imprisoned in California, was an Arab who had emigrated to the U.S. and reportedly was disturbed by Kennedy's pro-Israel positions.
"Hannity & Colmes" co-host Sean Hannity said the book, which Ayers co-wrote with his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, in 1974, includes about 100 or so names described as "political prisoners in the U.S." on the dedication page.
Among those is Sirhan.
"That's right," Hannity said. "This college professor, who is just a guy from the neighborhood who never meant to hurt anybody, who bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, New York City police headquarters, dedicated his book to the man who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy."
According to a report from Matthew Vadum, a senior editor for the Capital Research Center, the organization's "shock troops" have been linked to or convicted of perjury, forgery, identity theft and election fraud, and are under investigation in a dozen states again this year.
His report, titled "ACORN: Who Funds the Weather Underground's Little Brother?" documents the troubled past and current problems facing the organization.
Obama also has been linked to several other individuals with known anti-American views.
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