Obama has managed, for the most part, to avoid too much heat for his connection to Rev. Wright- and all the condemnations of American society that the pastor has made in past years. He issued a speech as intelligent and nuanced as any ever delivered to the American public, not for soundbites and easy news coverage, but to explain a piece of life and to engage in a dialogue that for too long public figures have been afraid to approach. Controversial topics and personalities are such- because of the danger and fear that accompany the discussion they provoke.
But Obama doesn’t shy from multi-layered topics, or individuals, as evidenced by the assorted company he keeps. The latest personal connection to bring him under fire- Former member of the 60s radical group The Weather Underground, current professor at U of I in Chicago, author, and political voice Bill Ayers.
Ayers, 63, spent 10 years as a fugitive in the 1970s when he was part of the “Weather Underground,” an anti-Vietnam War group that protested U.S. policies by bombing the Pentagon, U.S. Capitol and a string of other government buildings. Nobody was hurt in the attacks by the defunct organization, which the FBI labeled a “domestic terrorist group.”
Today, Ayers and his wife — fellow former Weather Underground fugitive Bernardine Dohrn — live in Hyde Park, where they moved after surrendering in 1980. Federal charges against the two were dropped because of improper surveillance, so they avoided prison.
Ayers and Dohrn have raised two sons of their own and adopted a third boy whose parents were Weather Underground members who went to prison. They’ve built stellar reputations as professors: Dohrn at Northwestern’s law school, Ayers as an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Ayers, a Glen Ellyn native who became active in SDS while attending the University of Michigan, is the son of late Commonwealth Edison CEO Thomas G. Ayers. Ayers has praised his dad for standing by him while he was on the lam.
A book Ayers penned about those years, Fugitive Days, landed him in hot water on Sept. 11, 2001. That morning, the New York Times ran a story about the book in which Ayers said, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Ayers’ statement was made before the World Trade Center attacks, but its timing led some to believe it was in response. “My book is in fact a condemnation of terrorism in all its forms — individual, group and official,” Ayers later said in a letter to the Chicago Tribune.
So the issue at hand is again- is Obama a patriotic American? Does he love his country, or is he some sort of domestic terrorist trying to destroy our government from the inside?
This is the kind of question other Presidential hopefuls want to keep on the tips of tongues and in the fronts of minds across the nation as they all jostle for position as the top dog. Obama is as patriotic as any of the others running for President, if not more-so- because it’s not purely symbolic like wearing a flag pin, or blind as voting for a war the President calls for without researching because to question the Commander in Chief would be “unpatriotic”. No, Obama’s is the kind of patriotism of our forefathers. A questioning, reasoning, never satisfied quest to better ourselves as a nation- seeking discussion with anyone who seeks that same goal, and listening to every voice, whether dissenting or like-minded. He’s a candidate not of black and white, but of multi-faceted nuance. And throwing the actions of everyone he’s ever met will not change that, and we can only hope and have enough faith in the general public to not be swayed by fear-mongering and name calling, but to look at every issues from every angle, and vote accordingly.
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