“Aren’t you beautiful!”
Those aren’t the first words you’d expect from a domestic terrorist turned childhood education specialist, but that’s what Bill Ayers said to me last week
He was surrounded by fawning St. Mary’s College students asking for autographs and then – there was me, standing directly behind him, tapping on his shoulder and asking how his life as a terrorist informed his career as an educator.
Perhaps he thought he’d disarm me; no doubt he knew I wasn’t a student. My question was more intelligent than any he’d been asked by students that evening.
But he quickly jumped from flattery to well-practiced responses: He wasn’t a domestic terrorist, never set bombs, no one was ever killed or injured in the bombings carried out by the Weather Underground organization which he founded. He says they never targeted people, only buildings and symbols (the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, banks, police departments) to make “a statement.”
He denies San Francisco Police Sgt. Brian McDonnell was killed and eight others injured in one police bombing.
He told me with sincerity they just wanted to stop the Vietnam War and had demonstrated against it to no avail, so “some of us joined the Democrats and went on to vote for George McGovern, some did nothing and, we did what we did – we had no choice. But we didn’t end the war.”
His pat answers to any challenges about his version of his history was first – that I’d “drunk the Kool-Aid” and second, that I “must be listening to Fox.”
The students cheered, believing the bad guy in all of this is Fox News.
What’s Bill Ayers doing on a Catholic college campus run by the Christian Brothers in northern California, getting paid for a lecture and striking gold with all the free publicity because of the explosion of public anger over his appearance?
I was told he was paid by campus organizations including the Disney Forum, an endowment from Walt Disney’s brother, Roy.
The school refused to disclose how much Ayers was paid or if any student body fees were used. Media relations Director Michael McAlpin said they “had to respect the speaker’s privacy.”
Funny, they’ve no compunction about posting general faculty salary ranges on their website. No privacy there.
The lecture was open to the public, and I attended because I wanted to know what a domestic terrorist turned childhood education specialist looked and sounded like. I was curious after having read so much about him because of his friendship and associations with Barack Obama, and of Michelle Obama’s association with Ayers’ wife and fellow terrorist (now law professor) Bernardine Dohrn.
Ayers is slick, smart and cool. He couched his politics in words that sucked the students in, playing on “social justice” and their inclination to have sympathy for poor minorities.
To them that’s what “social justice” is about. To Ayers, it’s about making students ashamed of their “privilege” and working to equalize everything in society. His activist “bring it all down” mentality hasn’t changed; now he does it by teaching teachers how to indoctrinate their students in socialism.
He constantly had subtle digs about “white people” and how they can’t relate to people who are “different.”
He asked how students react to being at St. Mary’s (where tuition, room and board is over $42,000 a year) when nearby San Quentin prison has so many black and Hispanic inmates?
No one told him that was a stupid question.
He made numerous references to his activism and that of Martin Luther King and how King found his calling, accomplished much and then – “went to sleep.”
Went to sleep?!?!?
The man was assassinated! Apparently the Bill Ayers couldn’t say the word.
He told some jokes and garnered some applause but the biggest reaction came when he said he fully supports a woman’s right to choose. At that, huge whoops, shouts, screams and claps came from a group of women students – no doubt some “good” Catholics among them.
Ayers should have paid St. Mary’s for the radio and TV publicity he got plus columns of newsprint. Two local papers alone ran more than 185 column inches – none of which hurt since he’s hawking his latest book, “Race Course: Against White Supremacy.”
Hmmmmm, the avowed socialist (and privileged child of wealthy white parents) has a capitalist streak.
The question about St. Mary’s is important when you know Ayers is unrepentant about his militancy.
I’ve no doubt St. Mary’s faculty and staff knew Ayers history when they invited him to lecture about education during the “January Term” program series.
However, they hid it from their students who were only told Ayers was a respected professor working to improve schools and education for the downtrodden.
The official speaker listing said Ayers is noted for his work in education reform and as a founder of the Weather Underground.
Nothing more.
The flyer given to the lecture audience had a page of information about his schooling, titles, activities and writings and in the midst of it, a sentence that started with: “After leaving the underground …” (no explanation of what that meant) and went on to describe his schooling.
A number of students admitted they knew nothing about Ayers background other than he was an educator; others who knew, said they didn’t care because he’d “repented.”
No. No apologies, no regrets. He told the New York Times after the Sept. 11 attacks that he regretted not doing more and said, “I don’t regret setting bombs.”
Local groups and individuals rallied to protest his appearance. Many were furious a Catholic school would host an unrepentant terrorist. Others were alums or parents of students threatening to stop donations.
The school responded that it was “academic freedom” and that a liberal arts school is the place for “opinions and ideas of all types to be examined, questioned and discussed.” That’s according to school President Ronald Gallagher
Sounds good but there was no examination of what Ayers said, no decent questions and no discussion of his ideas.
The audience was promised time for questions from students and the public. Ayers said he’d stay late to respond.
In fact, barely half an hour was permitted, only for students, and it was over.
When I asked the moderator why, I was told they “ran out of time” because “Bill’s ride was waiting.”
It was barely after 9 p.m.
One of audience members e-mailed me that he was standing near the security gate talking to someone after the speech ended.
He said a Prius, with Bill Ayers as a passenger, went past the gate as if to leave campus, but made a U-turn and went into the nearby parking lot.
A few minutes later, Ayers left the college grounds in a sports car!
Ayers and his wife are speaking in Berkeley in February, touting their book. They’re promoted as “social justice activists” and former leaders of the SDS and the Weather Underground.
They’re sponsored by the pro-Palestinian Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance.
What a surprise.
