Birds of a feather http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/feb/23/birds-feather/
Churchill and Ayers teach us nothing about academic freedom Rocky Mountain News Published February 23, 2009 Perfect. One historical fiction writer and fantasist, Bill Ayers, is coming to the defense of another, Ward Churchill. See it in person on the University of Colorado campus at 7 p.m. on March 5. The event, breathlessly titled "Forbidden Education and the Rise of Neo-McCarthyism," is the idea of student groups who believe professor Churchill was fired for his political views and not because he committed "multiple acts of plagiarism, fabrication and falsification," to quote CU's privilege and tenure committee from two years ago. The university's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct had previously concluded that Churchill engaged in "repeated, intentional misrepresentation." No matter. The student groups want this fraud and falsifier back in the classroom and they've recruited a former member of a domestic terrorist group to make the case for him a radical who of late has taken to promoting historical falsehoods that, if anything, are even more breathtaking than Churchill's. Ayers of course became a lightning rod in the recent presidential campaign because he is an acquaintance of Barack Obama. Unlike some publications, we never tried to paint that relationship in lurid colors and have no desire to dwell on it now. But if Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is coming to Colorado to portray Churchill as an academic hero and victim, it's important to examine what kind of man he is, and to calibrate his honesty. One month after the election, The New York Times published an Op-Ed by Ayers in which he described his past as a harmless civil-rights and anti-war activist who co-founded the Weather Underground "after an accidental explosion that claimed the lives of three of our comrades in Greenwich Village." "We did carry out symbolic acts of extreme vandalism directed at monuments to war and racism," Ayers wrote, but the attacks were "on property, never on people." Moreover, what the Weather Underground did "was not terrorism; we were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends." Ayers is full of it. The Weather Underground was a viciously nihilistic group whose members celebrated violence. As Emory Professor Harvey Klehr once said (as quoted by The New York Times), "The only reason they were not guilty of mass murder is mere incompetence. I don't know what sort of defense that is." The "accidental explosion" in Greenwich Village occurred because Ayers' fellow terrorists had converted a townhouse into a bomb factory and were making explosives they intended to plant at a dance attended by recruits at Fort Dix, N.J., and in the Columbia University library. The group did proceed to bomb several other sites, including the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, although no one was killed. In 1969, Ayers and hundreds of Weathermen rioted in the streets of Chicago during the Days of Rage, leaving more than two dozen police officers injured. The riots also left a city official, Richard J. Elrod, crippled for life. Rather than reacting with shock and remorse, one of Ayers' Weatherman colleagues penned a ditty that began, "Lay Elrod, lay; Lay in the street for a while," to the tune of Bob Dylan's Lay Lady Lay. Such venom was typical of the Weatherman outlook. Indeed, the Weather Underground's fascination with mayhem and carnage is difficult for sane people to fathom. Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers' wife, once offered a lunatic tribute to Charles Manson at a gathering of radicals in Flint, Mich., which years later she tried to explain away as a joke. Some joke. On the very day terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center, The New York Times published an article titled "No Regrets For A Love Of Explosives" an ill-timed promotion of Ayers' book Fugitive Days. "I don't regret setting bombs," Ayers told the Times reporter in 2001. "I feel we didn't do enough." In his post-election Op-Ed, Ayers complained that "I was cast in the 'unrepentant terrorist' role" during the presidential campaign. "Now that the election is over," he continued, "I want to say as plainly as I can that the character invented to serve this drama wasn't me, not even close." No, of course not. And professor Churchill isn't a plagiarist. No wonder the two will be appearing soon on the same stage. . --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
