Ivy Profs Sign Petition to Destroy America
Just kidding. There’s no petition to destroy America. But professors from Columbia, Harvard, Brown, Cornell and many other schools have signed a petition to support Weather Undeground co-founder and McCain boogieman Bill Ayers. While Obama is trying his best to distance himself from this Columbia Teacher’s College ‘87 alum, 2150 professors, university-related people and plain, old normal people (like the National Review’s Jonah Goldberg!?) have publicly declared their support for Ayers. From the petition:
Dear friends and colleagues in the field of education,
It seems that the character assassination and slander of Bill Ayers and other people who have known Obama is not about to let up. While an important concern is the dishonesty of this campaign and the slanderous McCarthyism they are using to attack Obama, we also feel an obligation to support our friend and colleague Bill Ayers. Many, many educators have reached out, asking what they could do, seeking a way to weigh in against fear and intimidation. Many of us have been talking and we agree that this one gesture, a joint statement signed by hundreds of hard-working educators, would be a great first step. Such a statement may be distributed through press releases or ads in the future
What crime did Ayers commit, to so draw the ire of McCain and company? Well, he participated in bombings of the New York City police headquarters, the Pentatgon and the US Capitol building to raise awareness about Vietnam, among other issues. Nobody was hurt in these attacks. Ayers now teaches at University of Illinois at Chicago.
Did your professor sign the petition? Would you sign it? Write in and let us know.
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October 10th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Not to mention he stood on an American flag for a photo spread.
When will professors (especially those idiots at Columbia) realize that signing petitions doesn’t impress anyone? No intelligent, independent-minded person will think, “Wow, if some uber-liberal academics ’support him,’ then I guess I should too!”
I never though the Ayers connection was a major issue, since it just confirmed my opinion that Barry Obama is just a puppet. What scares me a lot more are things like this: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/10/021724.php
October 13th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Obama shouldn’t even have to distance himself from this now-respected human being, but election politics & McCain campaign fear-mongering makes it so.
Perhaps signing on to a petition linking you to a supposed “terrorist” is actually quite the strong statement in today’ landscape, and thus Ayers’ whole life deserves closer look, as do the contexts in which the the Weathermen and the McCain smear campaign have manifested.
Fact is, Ayers turned his life around and for 30 years has been walking around Chicago, married, living in Obama’s neighborhood & is tenured today and racking in accomplishments and awards in the field of education. He’s well respected in academia & with nonprofit organizations, as shown by the petition signers, most of which are probably direct colleagues. Of course Obama knows him – and I’d be wary if Obama didn’t seek his advice on education issues.
Ayers did commit crimes in response to the Vietnam War- bombings of buildings, evading police, etc. He did not commit crimes of murder and what we now consider terrorism, and yet the label has been placed on him and the public expects him to at least apologize for something. He doesn’t have to, and the McCain/Palin campaign is distracting/hurting itself in even bringing him up.