When did Bill Ayers turn dangerous?

Bill Ayers, mugshot from 1968.

~*~

The current red-baiting of Senator Barack Obama, using the figure of (EXCUSE ME!?) Bill Ayers, is patently hilarious.

Palin Turns to NYT, Citing Article on Ayers:

At a fundraiser this morning in Englewood, Colo., Palin cited an article in today's New York Times as evidence that Obama "sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country." The Alaska governor was referring to William Ayers, one of the founding members of the Weathermen and someone who once served on a charitable board with Obama in Chicago. The group conducted bombings in the 1960s in protest of the Vietnam War; Obama has denounced Ayers' involvement in the group.

"Well, I was reading my copy of today's New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack's friends from Chicago," Palin told the crowd. "Turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man who, according to The New York Times was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.' These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes. This is not a man who sees America as you and I do -- as the greatest force for good in the world. This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country. This, ladies and gentlemen, has nothing to do with the kind of change anyone can believe in -- not my kids and not your kids."

OMG! Bill AYERS! I suddenly feel like an insider, all in-the-know as an ex-hard-lefty.

The Yippies used to talk about Bill Ayers.

Back then, Bill was hardly known as the dangerous man he is today, hosting scary coffees for black men who might be president. No sir, back then, he was usually being roasted as the boring and besotted-with-Mao author of the interminable Prairie Fire Manifesto (1974), publicly credited to the nebulous and shadowy "Prairie Fire Organizing Committee"--Weatherman operating underground throughout the 70s.[1]

"A single spark can start a Prairie Fire!" the first page of the bright red (and what color did you expect?) book reminded us. And boring it was, with lots of programmes and Dr Feelgood socialist ideas, all tediously written in committee-vetted gibberish. Telltale sloganeering sentences would appear seemingly out of nowhere, and (as a survivor of many ideological slug-fests over the written word) I could see that this one bizarre sentence/non sequitur was probably the result of some torturous meeting in which copious bloodletting had occurred; accusations of bourgeois childhoods and summer homes flying left and right. (Even now, I shudder to think.)

Bill Ayers was mostly known as a boring writer, and such a dork he almost got himself blown up with the rest of the kids-playing-with-matches (see below).

Bernadine Dohrn, from the film
Weather Underground (2003)

Bill was widely regarded as hapless and devoted follower (Linus of the Left, they called him) of beautiful Bernadine Dohrn [2] love of his life, center of his world, the Queen of his Revolutionary Universe. Bill took heavy hits all through the 70s among people I knew in radical-left circles who called him a pussy-whipped, lovesick fool. They shook their heads and hooted in derision when his name came up. Bill AYERS??!!

And so, I find myself doing the same thing: That Bill Ayers?

In fact, no less than David Horowitz and Peter Collier, in their landmark sellout book Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties (1989), quoted some Weatherman groupie as saying "All of the power in Weatherman flowed out of Bernadine's cunt," which is one of those lines you simply never forget.[3]

I find it interesting to see interpretations of historic events, once again changing to fit the times. Bill Ayers was once perceived as an ideological lefty theory-nerd all romantically hung up on wild Bernadine, who then got all mixed up trying to light a fuse (KAPOW!--Marxism by the Marx brothers!)... and NOW...what? huh!? ...he is this big dangerous "terrorist" in a Sarah Palin speech ... while his wife Bernadine, the one always running the joint, isn't mentioned at all, is she?

And the pump don't work cause the vandals took the handle.


~*~



[1] This PFOC claims to date from 1975, and so apparently is connected to Ayers, Dohrn, et. al. Good luck finding the connection on the website, though!

[2] Best fiction about Bernadine Dohrn is Marge Piercy's novel VIDA (1979), which is a fabulous feminist soap opera about the Weather Underground, highly recommended. Also, I believe this novel captures the melodramatic, passionate personality of Dohrn very well. (The Bill-character doesn't rate too well, as might be expected, and the Diana Oughton-character emerges as a vicious little android-bomber.)

[3] This would have been after the death of his first girlfriend, Diana Oughton, in the infamous Greenwich Village Townhouse Explosion. Pop culture freaks will appreciate the excellent TV-movie based on Oughton, titled KATHERINE (1975), featuring the amazingly talented Sissy Spacek, looking exactly like Oughton. Hapless-Bill is played by none other than Henry Winkler, a dangerous radical if there ever was one.

What was especially creepy about this movie title: At the time it was made, the remaining Weather Underground members who escaped the explosion were still at large, among them Katherine Boudin. Also at large was radical Katherine Ann Power. The title of the movie must have scared them both to death.

Also see Underground (1976), a documentary directed by Emile de Antonio, Haskell Wexler and Mary Lampson, later subpoenaed by the FBI in an attempt to confiscate film footage for information on the Weather Underground, then still in hiding.

[4] The 80s movie inspired by Ayers/Dohrn, adding some kids and domestic problems, was Running on Empty (1988).

EDITED TO ADD: Ayers script hopes to gain from Obama (Politico)

Sex, drugs and rock and roll

The oddest thing just happened. I was browsing blogs, and trying to find people I used to know. I didn't find the person I was looking for, but instead found his daughter. YOW! (Ain't middle-age GREAT?)

The thing is, computing this person's birthday, I realized it is likely I was THERE when she was conceived. YES! I was there! (Or, at least there is an even chance.)

And at the time, I joked about it. I wasn't particularly upset or anything.

In my political collective, it seemed that there were two people who simply could not keep their hands off of each other, and fucked like bunnies. (So, you see, I might NOT have been there for her actual conception, but anyway...) On at least four occasions, they decided to copulate in space I shared with them: twice inside a tent, once in a motel room that housed 7-8 people, in DC for a mass demonstration (yes, we were trying to save money, okay?), and once in a non-converted loft in New York City, provided with limited mattresses. On that last occasion, I was actually ON THE SAME MATTRESS WITH THEM--which was what brought the jokes later. They said, hey, can we sleep here? Of course, the question was a mere formality, I would have been bourgeois and fucked-up to say no, and it would never have occurred to me anyway. They plunked down on the mattress, and within seconds, I could feel the mattress rocking. I remember thinking, Oh boy, these people need a fucking break! They were fairly quiet, although on at least two of the four occasions, she ordered him to SLOW DOWN! and he'd reply in a mumble sorry! and that was it. Pretty quick, and THANK YOU, so I could go back to sleep.

And now, I see this young woman's blog. She looks just like her dad!

As Joan Didion's fantastic book THE WHITE ALBUM (required reading!) made clear, the 60s and 70s were something else. What a long strange trip, etc. The situation above, also described well in Marge Piercy's VIDA (where the two political comrades end up having sex on a pile of dirty laundry--I loved that!), was not uncommon. Not at all. The whole idea was that everyone was supposed to be "less uptight." And yes, I am fully aware that this usually/often translated into women not being uptight, and therefore expected to put out on demand. I know that; I was there. But in the above-referenced example, I also know that the headstrong female activist who fucked the guy in my tent and on the mattress I was already occupying, was not forced by any man (least of all, that guy) to do it. I can also see, from the blog I discovered, that her daughter is as headstrong and into sex as she is, which is not surprising.

I also know that the "put out or you aren't helping the revolution" was a factor in early feminism and separatism, and I got as pissed off over that as any other feminist. Nonetheless, many of these early feminists were very sexual, as the aforementioned Marge Piercy was and is.

And so, I ask: what the hell happened? (One of my friends always blames Nancy Reagan, Just say no!, and the reactionary puritanism of the Reagan Revolution.)

Children saw people fucking. Like, right there, in front of them. This was live, not on DVD.

Children saw people fucking in the middle ages, too, if they were serfs and lived 12 to a room. I daresay, this is pretty common throughout the world in impoverished areas. Children live through the shock of the primal scene, really they do.

Keeping this in mind, what exactly is the fear of porn? Is it because it is highly stylized? The clothes? Rubber? Close-ups? I think the kids have probably seen a few close-ups already, if they are sharing a bed. I sure did!

During the 70s, it was not uncommon to hear people talk about children's rights, even "sexual rights for kids", etc. I'm not kidding! It HAPPENED, yes, right here in the USA! I heartily recommend Judith Levine's HARMFUL TO MINORS, which takes on the subject much better than I could:

Anthropologists concur that America is an exceedingly "low-touch," high-violence culture. But America's diversity, mobility, and high immigration probably belie any biological relationship between the first characteristic and the second. A more likely interpretation of these facts and Prescott's other findings is social. A culture that lavishes gentle attention on its young also may encourage tolerance of the vulnerable and discourage physical power-mongering. People brought up to be aggressive and suspicious of intrusions against their own body's "boundaries," on the other hand, will be more self-protective and territorial and thus more belligerent, both socially and sexually.

I am far more "shocked" by a customer's young child's report that they had actually seen a movie like HOSTEL. Certainly, violence towards women in media is at an all-time high, but this violence is not considered by the mainstream to be pornographic, and they give these movies R-ratings, despite how disgusting, over-the-top grotesque and misogynist they are.

Is porn the problem? I think not. However, I am not "pro-porn" by any means. But I must be honest here: I am more upset by the cookie-cutter appearance of women in mainstream porn (are there any flat-chested gals in porn????) than I am upset by anything they are doing, which I've probably done too. Or I've seen other people do. Certainly, my above example is far from the ONLY casual sex I've ever witnessed. (Are you kidding???) I only mentioned it because it is the genesis of this post.

I am far more upset by misogynist torture-horror movies like CAPTIVITY and SAW, than I am by blow-jobs, butt-fucking and so on. I'm just old-fashioned that way!

Since I have recently been excommunicated* from radical feminism, decided to take on the porn issue, which I have never felt comfortable with as a feminist crusade.

No reason to hold back now!

*as William F Buckley used to say, more about which in due course.