On Obama's big day, Bill Ayers speaks

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William Ayers turned back at Canadian border
January 19, 2009
Debra Black

An American education professor, one of the founders of a radical 1960s group known as the Weather Underground, which was responsible for a number of bombings in the United States in the early 1970s, was turned back at the Canadian border last night.

Dr. William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a leader in educational reform, was scheduled to speak at the Centre for Urban Schooling at University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. But that appearance has now been temporarily cancelled.

"I don't know why I was turned back," Ayers said in an interview this morning from Chicago. "I got off the plane like everyone else and I was asked to come over to the other side. The border guards reviewed some stuff and said I wasn't going to be allowed into Canada. To me it seems quite bureaucratic and not at all interesting ... If it were me I would have let me in. I couldn't possibly be a threat to Canada."

...Jeffrey Kugler, executive director of the Centre for Urban Schooling, is deeply disappointed in the turn of events. For him it's a question of academic freedom. "It's kind of ironic the day before Barack Obama is going to become president this is what the Canadian border security has done," said Kugler. "It seems ridiculous that one university can't have a professor from another university to come and give a lecture on an important educational topic."

Kugler waited for five hours at the Toronto Island airport for Ayers. He was with a lawyer, but the border guard refused to allow Ayers to see the lawyer.

"The entire four or five hours he was not allowed to have representation at all. To me this is an issue of academic freedom. He could not be a threat to anyone ever. Anyone who knows anything about this man – he's a distinguished scholar at the University of Illinois and he has been involved in education reform over the past 15 years. To imagine in any way he was a threat to Canada is really absurd."
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TheStar.com | Canada | William Ayers turned back at Canadian border
 
reba,

it's time to focus on the here and now with president obama. :D
 
Hear Again said:
reba,

it's time to focus on the here and now with president obama. :D
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It happened just yesterday when I posted it. That's current news.

This thread is about Bill Ayers, so it's pertinent.
 
Hey Lieblin', can you please get a link for me to read ? I tried to open a link that you provided on page one, it is not available. :ty:
 
Maria said:
Hey Lieblin', can you please get a link for me to read ? I tried to open a link that you provided on page one, it is not available. :ty:
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I just check the link after read your post here. I'm surprised that the article was gone quickly... I posted the link few weeks before Election 2008.

I would suggest you to check with google...

On Obama's big day, Bill Ayers speaks - Google-Suche

 
Reba said:
It happened just yesterday when I posted it. That's current news.

This thread is about Bill Ayers, so it's pertinent.
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I just cannot beleive that Canadian authorities cannot move on over that almost 40 years old subject. He haven't commit the crime since 1960s...
 
Actually, he was NEVER convicted of ANY felony crime.
 
Liebling:-))) said:
I just check the link after read your post here. I'm surprised that the article was gone quickly... I posted the link few weeks before Election 2008.

I would suggest you to check with google...

On Obama's big day, Bill Ayers speaks - Google-Suche
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Bill Ayers Speaks

updated 9 a.m., 11/5/08
By Peter Slevin
CHICAGO -- William Ayers, the former Weather Underground leader who became an issue in the 2008 campaign, said yesterday that he is not close to president-elect Barack Obama and that Obama's opponents had turned him into "a cartoon character."

Ayers, an author and education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said he thought the accusation by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin that Obama had been "palling around with terrorists" was absurd.

"Pal around together? What does that mean? Share a milkshake with two straws?" Ayers said in his first interview since the controversy began. "I think my relationship with Obama was probably like thousands of others in Chicago. And, like millions and millions of others, I wish I knew him better."

Republicans have tried to make Ayers into Obama's Willie Horton. A mug shot from Ayers's anti-Vietnam War days appeared in campaign advertisements across the country. The story of his radical past, as told by his critics, is a cable television fixture.

Yet Ayers, 64, said he does not "feel very victimized." Although he declined media interviews and received hate mail, he continued to teach and write, postponing the release of a book because of the controversy.

"I didn't do anything. It's all guilt by association. They made me into a cartoon character; they threw me up on stage just to pummel me," Ayers said. "I felt from the beginning that the Obama campaign had to run the campaign and I had to run my life."

Although Ayers served with Obama on the boards of two foundations, he said he had no contact with the Obama campaign. "That's not my world," he said.

On an uncommonly warm and sunny Election Day afternoon, Ayers came to the door of the Hyde Park rowhouse he shares with his wife, former Weather Underground partner Bernardine Dohrn, a Northwestern University law professor. Wearing jeans, running shoes, a T-shirt, and hoop earrings in both ears, Ayers greeted neighbors as they passed by.

"Palling around! You guys are palling around," he joked to a couple out walking their dogs. Referring to an open house he and his wife hosted for Obama during his 1995 campaign for the state Senate, he said: "Everybody, including you, wants to have a coffee here. I don't know what the [expletive] I'm going to do."

Across the street from Ayers's front stoop was the polling place where an eclectic group of neighborhood residents cast their ballots, among them Ayers, Obama and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. As Ayers spoke, groups of schoolchildren chanted "O-ba-ma!" and "Yes, we can!"

In the late 1960s, the Weather Underground, a radical offshoot of the antiwar movement, asserted responsibility for roughly a dozen bombings. Among the targets were the Pentagon, the Capitol, police stations, banks and courthouses.

Three of the conspirators were killed in the 1970s when a bomb exploded prematurely, but no one else was injured in a campaign described by one critic as "immensely bad ideas and dreadful tactics."

In a story that appeared in the New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001, Ayers was quoted as saying that he did not regret setting bombs. He told the reporter, "I feel we didn't do enough."

The depiction of Ayers as an "unrepentant terrorist" caught on.

Asked yesterday if he wishes he had set more bombs, Ayers answered, "Never." He also said he had regrets.

"I wish I'd been wiser," he said. "I wish I'd been more effective. I wish I'd been more unifying. I wish I'd been more principled."

History has shown of the Vietnam War that "those who opposed it were on the right side," Ayers said. But he said some of his early rhetoric was "juvenile."

Ayers blames the "liberal media" for failing to dismiss the Republican assaults. He called the media's performance "kind of shameful" and likened the situation to the 2004 episode when Swift Boat Veterans for Truth created a narrative that helped doom the candidacy of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

"The dishonest narrative," Ayers said, "is that guilt by association has some validity."

Ayers said he has "a lot of sympathy for Jeremiah Wright," Obama's former pastor, who was vilified as anti-American. "I felt he was treated grotesquely and unfairly."

One day this summer, Ayers said, two e-mail threats reached his office computer. One told him that a posse was coming to shoot him; another said a gang would kidnap and waterboard him.

A university police officer who had known Ayers for years arrived and joked, "Gosh, I hope the guy who's coming to shoot you gets here first."

Ayers described Obama's expected victory as an "achingly exciting moment" and said he would mingle with the crowd at the election night rally in downtown Chicago. He was not an invited guest.


He said he had no contact with the Obama campaign. "That's not my world," he said.

On a sunny election day afternoon, Ayers came to the door of the Hyde Park rowhouse he shares with his wife and fellow former Weather Underground partner Bernardine Dohrn.
Wearing jeans, running shoes, a t-shirt and hoop earring in both ears, Ayers called out to friends as they passed by. To one couple out walking their dogs, he called out, "Palling around! You guys are palling around."

Ayers talked about the fact that he and his wife, a Northwestern University law professor, held an open house for Obama when he first ran for the Illinois state senate in 1995.

"Everybody, including you, wants to have a coffee here," Ayers said. "I don't know what the (expletive) I'm going to do."

Across the street from where Ayers was standing was the polling place where he -- and Obama, separately -- both cast their votes today. As Ayers spoke, groups of schoolchildren chanted "O-ba-ma!" and "Yes we can!"

In the late-1960s, the Weather Underground, a radical offshoot of the antiwar movement, claimed responsibility for roughly a dozen bombings. Among the targets were the Pentagon, the Capitol, police stations, banks and courthouses. Beyond the three conspirators killed in the 1970s when a bomb exploded prematurely, no one was injured in a campaign described by one critic as "immensely bad ideas and dreadful tactics."

In a story that appeared by coincidence in The New York Times on September 11, 2001, Ayers was quoted as saying that he did not regret setting bombs and, "I feel we didn't do enough."

Obama served on a pair of foundations with Ayers and the couple held a gathering for him when he first entered state politics in 1995. The depiction of Ayers as an "unrepentant terrorist" caught on.

Asked Tuesday if he wishes he had set more bombs, Ayers answered, "Never."

He also said he had regrets.

"I wish I'd been wiser," he said. "I wish I'd been more effective. I wish I'd been more unifying. I wish I'd been more principled."

Ayers said he blames what he called liberal media outlets for failing to dismiss Obama's acquaintance with him as a case of guilt by association, likening it to the way the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth created a narrative that helped doom Sen. John F. Kerry four years ago.

"The dishonest narrative is that guilt by association has some validity," Ayers said, saying the performance of the media was "kind of shameful."

One day last summer, Ayers said, he received two threats on his office computer while he was in his downtown office. One said a posse was coming to shoot him; another said a gang would kidnap and waterboard him.

A university police officer who had known Ayers for years arrived and told him, "Gosh, I hope the guy who's coming to shoot you gets here first."

Ayers said Obama's expected victory is an "achingly exciting moment." He planned to join the throngs at Obama's election night rally in Grant Park.

He is not an invited guest.

Bill Ayers Speaks | 44 | washingtonpost.com
 
jillio said:
Old news. Very old news.
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I know. I am helpin' Lieblin' to add the article in this thread for others to read since her link on page one is not available.
 
Maria said:
I know. I am helpin' Lieblin' to add the article in this thread for others to read since her link on page one is not available.
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No, I offered my help because you asked me to. The thread with the link was created FEW WEEKS before Obama won at election (Please check the date of my thread). Reba updated my thread with new article few days ago over him and Canada issue which is not relate my link of first thread. You asked me for link of my first thread because the article in first link disappeared. I pasted the exact title of my thread to ask google for you because you asked me to .
 
Liebling:-))) said:
No, I offered my help because you asked me to. The thread with the link was created FEW WEEKS before Obama won at election (Please check the date of my thread). Reba updated my thread with new article few days ago over him and Canada issue which is not relate my link of first thread. You asked me for link of my first thread because the article in first link disappeared. I pasted the exact title of my thread to ask google for you because you asked me to .
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You did not ADD the article in your thread when a link that you provided is not workin' or unavailable. Yes, you did gave me a link when I asked you to and you STILL did not add the article in your thread so I have to ADD it in your thread to prevent another unavailable.

Please, ADD article in your thread next time to prevent unavailable. :ty:
 
Ayers killed innocent people and he broke the law. The Weather Underground was a left-wing terrorist organization who terrorized people in America. good gle them. one of the victim's son was on Fox News.
 
DURAY said:
Ayers killed innocent people and he broke the law. The Weather Underground was a left-wing terrorist organization who terrorized people in America. good gle them. one of the victim's son was on Fox News.
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Not according to the legal system, he didn't. He was never convicted of anything, only accused. Unfortunately, some appear to believe that accusation and conviction are the same thing around here.:roll:

He has also accomplished many postive things over the past 30 years. Funny how people ignore that, and concentrate on something that occurred 3 decades ago that he was never even found guilty of. All in a misquided attempt to discredit someone else.
 
jillio said:
Not according to the legal system, he didn't. He was never convicted of anything, only accused. Unfortunately, some appear to believe that accusation and conviction are the same thing around here.:roll:

He has also accomplished many postive things over the past 30 years. Funny how people ignore that, and concentrate on something that occurred 3 decades ago that he was never even found guilty of. All in a misquided attempt to discredit someone else.
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All good points.

And unlike Bush, Ayers wasn't indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of Iraqis and Afghanis as the result of two misguided wars.

No comparison.
 
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