I am including some edited comments I made from another post to make clear some thinking here:
Grant,
First off let me welcome you to this site. While I will disagree with you you must keep in mind your opinion is welcome here.
Secondly, did you even read my post? There was a destructive agent involved, and it wasn’t Bush! Could it be… “SATAN?!” No, it was probably the 15,000 gallons of fuel in WTC-7. There are two important things to remember: there hasn’t been a building (1) like the Twin Towers Complex built that had (2) this amount of damage done to them. Keep in mind that the other buildings often used as “caught on fire and didn’t collapse” as proof that the Twin Towers or WTC-7 shouldn't have were never hit by large debris [and in the case of the TT, planes] and then caught on fire with their particular architecture, 15,000-gallons of fuel in the building, and no water to fight it.
Another important thing to remember is that in those other buildings always mentioned, there was sufficient water to fight the fires and put them out or stop them from spreading. Most of the sites you probably visit do not show the photos and video I will show.
I will first – in the “UPDATE” section – show the photo most see on conspiracy sites, and then show some video and shots that tell the whole story. But first, let’s review how this is different, than say a plane hitting the Empire State Building:
1) About 15,000 gallons of fuel, some of it high pressured “spouts of flames;”
2) Little to no water pressure to supply the firefighters hoses to fight the fire (damaged from the massive amount of debris);
3)Yes steel used in WTC-7... but no, not same design. The support structure of this building was wildly different than any other building's design. So the factors of debris, architectural design, and fuel all were a deadly combination to any and all of these buildings.
I watched a video by We Are Change Chicago, a group of 9/11 Truthers that believe that our government took down the Twin Towers, WTC-7, and the like. This is an idea I would have whole-heartedly agreed with about 10-or-so years ago. So after watching their video, I posted this on their site and it was not allowed to be posted. What they complain about in the video they in actuality practice. That is, censorship. So after I post their video and what I posted that was not allowed on their site, I will post some links and a video to respond to much of what these youngsters believe. Enjoy open debate, not on their site, but here, on mine. Allowing views that disagree with yours (like I do here at Religio-Political), merely shows that this is a man's site.
I was happy about this until the NWO stuff started. Too bad. I have about 4,000 books in my meager condo. I started out on my reading career by reading many of the top NWO authors and books. I even became involved in the John Birch Society for a while, met Ezola Foster and Ron Paul… yada, yada. This view seemed to fit my eschatology as well, however, after much deliberation, wrestling with the Conspiracy Show (every full moon for three hours — Michael Medved). Tracking down and the following through the many references used in these books as well as the ideas espoused by many of the charlatans (like bombs being planted in the Oklahoma Federal Building, both parties being the same, etc., etc.), to the most recent ones (the Twin Towers being brought down by this secret cabal, ala Bush, WTC-7, birth certificates for Obama)… proved to me that this idea is bankrupt of anything substantive or that it has explanatory powers that should be taken seriously, and thusly, I have totally rejected this idea. In fact, I would posit that this unstable belief may in fact be the destabilizing factor that undermines governments in the future — since the Left is now the leader in this “conspiracy” arena and anarchy circles as well. What you are seeing in Gore and the U.N. is simply people living out a worldview, an ethos. If they are statists and socialist in their core, then they simply function in that way and fashion their affairs as such. This isn’t a giant conspiracy; it is people living out their existence with a set of beliefs that are shown to not work by shedding truth on them. Bankers in Germany and the U.S. are not the bad-guys. Neither is the Council of Foreign Relations or the Trilateral Commission. Yes there are statists in all organizations (just more-so in the TC & the CFR), hell, there are liberal socialists in my church (the emergent movement ala Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, and other liberal influences). You see, it is merely people living out a reality they see… people like Alex Jones (who rubs shoulders with Marxists in case you didn’t know) merely distort the power behind influencing rightly these worldviews. If you do not even know what a worldview is, may I suggest you read a hefty book — you will thank me later in life — by David Noebel, “Understanding the Times: The Collision of Today’s Competing Worldviews.” Although I agree that Al Gore needs more confronting, not only for his skewed PowerPoint presentation, but also for his very left-leaning political views. For this I commend you. However, all the wind left your sails as soon as you connected this to Alex Jones type thinking.
Here is a short synopsis of my understanding as it stands now. Please read the comments as well, some more debate on my thinking happens there:
Here is a video response (about 3-hours long) to "Loose Change," a truther video:
Here is some input on the We Are Change movement from Screw Loose Change blog:
What Is We Are Change?
They may be getting sudden attention on the right side of the blogosphere with this confrontation with Al Gore, which (I have to admit) is entertaining as hell:
--- video posted near top ---
But anybody endorsing this action should understand the story behind We Are Change. It's actually nothing more than a splinter group of 9-11 Truthers. Initially based in NYC, it has gained national notoriety due to confrontations like those with Gore, usually involving some sort of argument about nanothermite or the like. But apparently they are on a new kick, and one that might gain them some fans due to the current ClimateGate scandal (about which I take no side here).
We Are Change is made up of crazy people. An early member of We Are Change Colorado (WAC-CO) murdered his own father. Another We Are Change member is currently serving 20 years in federal prison for his role in the Ed Brown tax evasion case. Here's a pic of Brown and WAC founder and president for life Luke Rudkowski:
March 31, 2005 An Audience with Saudi Arabia by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers
Victor responded to some questions from Idris A. Ahmed, editor of Al-watan Newspaper, a daily Saudi news paper.
1. How do you see the world Without the U.S.?
A descent into regional power blocks and zones of influence that would eventually impair the present global system of trade and commerce. The strongest would dictate to the weakest, whether a China becoming a player in the Persian Gulf, a nuclear Iran, or a North Korea antagonizing Japan. There are thousands of places in the world that the U.S. silently adjudicates in a manner that disputing parties respect but do not often report.
All this hinges on Americans willing to spend billions abroad—$100 billion in aid to rebuild Iraq, $50 billion in aggregate aid to Egypt since the Camp David Accords, billions to Jordan and the old Palestinian Authority—as well as saving Muslims in Kosovo, Bosnia, Kuwait, Somalia, and Afghanistan. Remember, it costs about $3-4 dollars a barrel to pump oil in most of the Middle East and it now sells for about $50—but only because the global system protects property rights, has free commerce and the sea lanes are open and safe.
In the shadows of all that is not the U.N., the Arab League, or the E.U., but the U.S. Without it we will see a world of Saddams, who simply invade a Kuwait and take what they wish when they wish.
2. Do you agree that the world was more safe before the U.S. declaration of war against the terrorism, taking into account that the radical groups have witnessed considerable increase in numbers and operations since then?
I disagree with your conclusion. Here in America we can chart a 25-year cycle, beginning with the Iranian hostage taking, moving on to Lebanon, embassies being bombed, Khobar Towers, first World Trade Center, USS Cole etc. whose ultimate logic and expression was 9-11. The theory of these attacks was to weaken insidiously U.S. resolve by harvesting a few Americans each year. But since the war in Iraq we have seen new transparency in Libya, revelations about Pakistan's bomb-making, elections in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the West Bank, and even calls for more openness in your part of the world.
3. If there were no U.S., is it probable that the conflict in the occupied Palestine territories might be settled in some other way, taking into consideration the blind support of U.S. to Israel?
Peace hinges on two democratic interlocutors who can work out the details of 5% or so of the West Bank. We are not talking about occupied Tibet, Russia's occupation of Japanese islands, or 10% of Germany still held by Poland. The area under dispute in the granting of Palestinian independence is not large and can be settled by reasonable people.
The problem is that the Arafat kleptocracy could not negotiate as a legitimate voice, given its absence of regular elections, a free press, and an independent judiciary. Now we feel that the new government is both more legitimate and might agree to settle the issue through diplomacy. The intifada was a tragic mistake and failed, and so in its detritus we all have more hopes for peace. A two-state solution is the only answer; if both are truly democratic then any existing problem can be solved.
4. How do you see the U.S. interventions in the internal affairs of many independent states, in the name of human rights and often in the name of democracy?
Much can be attributed to the Cold War: 7,000 nukes pointed at your country tend to curb idealism and thus resulted in some places with "pump oil, keep out communists" policies that did not encourage democracy. But in the post-Cold War, there are new hopes that the United States policy will be to foster democratic reform. And we will allow countries to be quite critical of us, like Turkey for example. It is their country, let them do as they please. But we all must be mature: a Germany, for example, cannot level such invective against the U.S. and then expect American bases and subsidized protection.
We in the U.S. were delighted about the pullout from Saudi Arabia. And by the way, given the end of the U.N. embargo of Iraq, will bin Laden now call it quits—since his two demands in his 1998 fatwa are now apparently met?
5. Is the U.S. really playing the role of the “world police”, and who authorized her to play such a role?
Well in 1917 we had kept out and were invited in to save Western liberalism. In 1941 we came in to save democracy from fascism, albeit reluctantly. In 1946 the Soviet Union was poised to take over much of the European continent. And in the Middle East, I think Baathism, Soviet inspired as it was, did far more damage than the U.S. ever did. As bad as the Shah was, Iran in 1975 was no worse, and perhaps much better, than in 2005. A Kuwait or Saudi Arabia was not like Syria or Libya—Sadat figured that out when he flipped in 1973. But in general, unless the United States is going to be consistent in its support for democratic reformers, we should stay out of internal affairs and deal with nations that wish to us harm in an external way.
6. The invasion and occupation of Iraq resulted in serious human, material damage and geopolitical change. Given that the proclaimed weapons of mass destruction—the reason that led U.S. to invade Iraq—were not found, how do you evaluate the stability of the world before and after the invasion of Iraq?
Read the October 11, 2002 Senate proclamation authorizing the use of force to remove Saddam: there were 23 clauses ranging from WMD to 22 other reasons like trying to assassinate a former US President, gassing his own people, attacking 4 countries, violating the 1991 peace accords, etc. WMD was only one writ-and remember Arab governments warned the US that Saddam would use WMD, hence the problems of outfitting thousands in chemical suits in Kuwait. Between 1979 and 2003 Saddam perhaps killed as many as 1 million Arabs or Kurds; that will not happen again in Iraq. And the U.S. did not set up a Shah-like figure. With these elections and more to follow, most Americans hope to be gone rather quickly, once Iraq is fully constitutional.
7. Do you agree that the crimes of war committed by the American troops against the Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison has extremely damaged trust in the U.S. to bring democracy and maintain human rights for the Iraqi people—an event that distorted its image in the world?
Somewhat. Since America must be perfect and when it is not, it feels it is not even good. Remember that what happened in Abu Ghraib was investigated, stiff sentences were handed down and the judicial process continues. But such roguery is a daily occurrence for political prisoners in the Middle East, and only transparency can bring these problems to light.
One final point, the image of the Arab world in the U.S. after 9-11 is also at an all time low. We saw dancing in Palestine on news of 3000 murdered, 15 of the killers were Saudis, Atta was not poor but middle class and Western educated. And now with all the translating of Arab speeches, documents, and TV news into English that is being done and printed freely on the Internet the American people are seeing a Middle East that they feel is violently hostile to the West and at odds with liberal values. We are seeing and reading uncensored things from the Arab world, and it has had a devastating effect here in the U.S. on our views of the Middle East.
The average voter in Kansas finally has read too many speeches by an imam or cleric calling Americans "pigs and apes" as well as infidels, and is asking very new questions: is it safer to open a mosque in Detroit or Church in Saudi? Is a Westerner safer on the street in Yemen or an Arab in Los Angeles? Can one more easily support Israel in a speech in Cairo or support the Palestinians in Washington? And out of this perceived imbalance, a new unease with the Arab Middle East has arisen. In your part of the world you talk easily about "Anti-Americanism" but that is old news and the wage of a superpower.
What is new, really new is what I would call "anti-Middle Easternism" in America. We have seen one too many beheadings, one too many burnings of the U.S. flag, one too many fist-shaking mobs, and collectively sighed, "Enough is enough, they really are different people and we must go our ways." Hence the brilliant tactics of the Iraqi terrorists who made themselves so grotesque that they hoped Westerners would simply say "all of these people are like that, let's not spend any more money or help in that part of the world."
Freedom and democracy alone will allow all this to recover and to renew our old friendship. But right now? I'd say we are waiting for the Arab world to democratize and join the other 4 billion who have, and until then, we are in a process of disengaging troops from Saudi Arabia, calls to cut aid to Egypt if it doesn't reform, cutting of all ties with Syria, almost no US tourism to the Middle East, hard look at visas and students coming to America, desperate efforts to look at non-petroleum energy, etc.
8.The U.S. refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocal, in favor of its industry, was regarded by many environment protection groups as a deliberate intention to pollute the world and threaten the human existence. Can you comment on this?
I think the reasoning was rather that since we run huge trade deficits with China (and now India) other countries were not subject to the protocols and would continue to use energy in a less responsible way than the West and thus find cheaper methods of production to undercut American competitiveness The key is to find a standard and then to apply it to all nations on earth in exactly the same manner. We all hope a protocol can be worked out. Also, it is imperative for the Middle East to build a middle class that is highly educated and can create wealth since a petroleum based global economy is under renewed scrutiny on all fronts.
9.The U.S. declared withdrawal from the treaty of nuclear arsenals reduction with Russia. How do you see the future of the world under such insane armament race?
I think you are talking about the renunciation of the ABM treaty? Since the Soviet empire no longer exists, the US felt the treaty did not either. An ABM system may give the U.S. leverage when countries like Iran and North Korea attempt to engage in nuclear blackmail, as Iran is presently with Europe and North Korea with Japan. Democratization is critical to ensure these growing arsenals are subject to consensual government.
10. The U.S. major pharmaceutical companies endangered millions of lives in the poor countries through its monopoly of the patents of life-saving drugs. How do you see this claim?
Well, the U.S. pledged $15 billion in AIDS treatment money for Africa, far more than Europe and the Middle East combined. Most of these drugs cost billions to make, and billions more to defend from expensive litigation, so the patents allow the companies to find profit on their investment. If the world ends the present system, I just hope that governments will be as successful in finding new drugs as private enterprise. Remember, there is nothing stopping the oil-rich Gulf States from getting together and creating a shared public consortium to make their own drugs that are free from Western protocols and overhead.
11. How do you see the legality of the economic sanctions imposed by U.S. on many countries, e.g. Sudan, Syria and Cuba?
Castro has killed thousands of his own people and denies freedom to all—hence their desperate effort to reach Florida. The Sudan is engaged in genocide in Darfur. Syria sends money and aids in transit terrorists trying to kill democratic reformers. Hamas was no accident either. So the U.S. Congress, precisely because it does not wish to use force, has decided to pressure those autocracies to free their people and hold elections.
12. How do you see the preemptive attacks on theory adopted by the U.S. administration and its reflection on the international security and peace?
It is not a U.S. theory but as old as the Greeks and Romans. The latest manifestations-Noriega, Milosevic, Taliban, and Saddam-show a new trend of taking out fascists and allowing democracy to emerge in their wake. Would you wish any of them to return? But the American people are tiring of the cost and the invective that follows, and have come to a sort of consensus "none of these people are worth it" which is a tragic misreading of the good the U.S. does, but will curtail it in the future. Saddam's fate was sealed by 9-11 when the decision was made to take a close look at all those who aid and abet terrorists from the Middle East.
13. How do you evaluate the risks of the globalization, many of which are U.S.-based companies, on the international relations, local cultures of communities and world diversity?
I am very worried about it, growing up on a small farm that was obliterated by cheap fruit imports from Turkey, Greece, South America, and South Africa. Local culture in the U.S. was not all Wal-Mart, so it hit us first. But we must be adults and mature—globalization has given the world cheap clothes, food, medicines, etc. that was impossible just 30 years ago and helped at least in a material sense billions of the world's poor. So a balance must be struck, but as you know tribal people the world over now have access to antibiotics, eyeglasses, and books in a fashion not possible before—so the key is find some balance between material benefit and cultural autonomy.
14. How do you imagine the Arab world 50 years from today?
I have great hope. I think it will follow the course of Latin America and Asia and embrace democracy and open markets, take a hard look at persistent problems such as religious intolerance, polygamy, and near gender apartheid in places, and allow the Arab masses the same level of free expression that is now increasingly found elsewhere.
Democratization we think is critical since many autocratic governments use state-controlled media to deflect popular angst over their own failures to provide decent housing, jobs, education and infrastructure onto the bogey-man America—often in an insidious relationship with terrorists like al Qaeda that were given tacit support and sometimes money as a sort of blackmail on the promises their fury would be directed at the West and not Arab monarchies, autocracies, and dictatorship.
Only democracy can end that harmful calculus. Remember also that millions of wonderful Arab people have found tolerance, religious freedom, and economic prosperity in America, without the ghettoization of Europe and without the worry of state coercion at home. We believe only freedom in all its manifestations can solve our differences, and thus many of us in the United States are working to ensure our government supports reform and democracy in the Middle East and ends the old realpolitik.
I for one would pray for a strong Arab world, fully democratic and free, proud, a partner with America on an equal basis in all areas that gives and takes advice and works shoulder to shoulder with us. But as along as there is not one truly free election in some 20 countries I see little chance of that happening.
The question after one reads the following is this: “Was Bill Ayers a terrorist?”
I will first put a portion of an article up sent to me by a friend, and then follow it with some small quotes and links to where the quotes are coming from (Imported from FreeRepublic), enjoy:
From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org: March 6, 1970: "three members of the Weather Underground accidentally killed themselves in a Manhattan townhouse while attempting to build a powerful bomb they had intended to plant at a social dance in Fort Dix, New Jersey -- an event that was to be attended by U.S. Army soldiers. Hundreds of lives could have been lost had the plot been successfully executed."
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6808
"The bomb was intended to be planted at a non-commissioned officer's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org: "On October 20, 1981 -- long after the Weather Underground had ceased to exist -- former Underground member Kathy Boudin and her soon-to-be husband, David Gilbert, were accomplices in the robbery of a Brinks armored car in Nyack, New York. In the course of that heist, one Brinks guard and two Nyack police officers [also a Brinks truck guard] were murdered. Also involved in the robbery was Judith Clark, who had served a prison term for her participation in the 'Days of Rage.' Boudin hired attorney Leonard Weinglass, a law partner of her father, to defend her in the case.
Weinglass arranged for a plea bargain whereby Boudin pled guilty to one count of felony murder and robbery, in exchange for a prison sentence of twenty years to life. She was paroled in 2003, however, over strong opposition from New York State police. Gilbert remains in New York's Attica State Prison, having refused to bargain.
In 1985, former Weather Underground members Susan Rosenberg (who also was implicated in the Nyack robbery) and Linda Evans were apprehended while transporting 740 pounds of explosives which they both acknowledged were slated for use in additional bombings. Rosenberg was sentenced to 58 years in prison, Evans 40; President Bill Clinton pardoned both women in January 2001."
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6808
The 1981 Former Weather Underground members/Black Liberation Army Brinks truck robbery/murder:
"David J. Gilbert, 37, rented the vehicle that same day in the Bronx. Gilbert was a long time member of the Weather Underground and a fugitive from the state of Colorado where he faced charges of assault and possession of explosives. The passenger in the front seat of the U Haul was Kathy Boudin, on the run from the law since the townhouse explosion in 1970. The couple had dropped off their one-year old child with a babysitter in the morning and was waiting for the return of the red van."
"In the back of the red van were Cecilio 'Chui' Ferguson, 35, Samuel Brown AKA Solomon Bouines, 41, Samuel Smith AKA Mtayari Sundiata, 37, and Donald Weems AKA Kuwasi Balagoon, 35. There were others present, but it has never been proven who, or how many. All the men in back of the van were members of a group they called 'The Family.' Most of them had ties to the Black Panthers or the Black Liberation Army, radical political groups that had many violent confrontations with police during the 1970s."
"At approximately 3:55 p.m., Paige, a 24-year Brink's veteran and his partner, Joe Trombino, 48, exited the doors to the Mall rolling out the moneybags on a hand truck. They walked over to the Brink's truck and began to load up the bags onto the rear deck. Simultaneously, the red van pulled up and the rear doors swung open. One of the suspects, armed with a shotgun, ran to the front of the truck and immediately fired two blasts directly at the bulletproof windshield. The guard in the front seat ducked just in time and was unhurt.
Another suspect, wearing a ski mask, opened up with his M-16 automatic rifle before his feet even hit the pavement, striking Paige in the neck, arm and chest. He was killed instantly.
Joe Trombino fired just one shot before he was hit several times in his upper arm and shoulder. The bullets all but severed his arm off his shoulder. "I've got no arm!" he screamed. But Trombino would survive that day, only to perish years later in another terrorist attack at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001."
Allies in War By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, September 17, 2001:
ON THE MORNING OF THE ATTACKS on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, along with a million other readers of the New York Times including many who would never be able to read the paper again, I opened its pages to be confronted by a color photo showing a middle-aged couple holding hands and affecting a defiant look at the camera. The article was headlined in an irony that could not have been more poignant, "No Regrets For A Love Of Explosives."
The couple pictured were Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, former leaders of the 1960s’ Weather Underground, America’s first terrorist cult. One of their bombing targets, as it happened, was the Pentagon.
"I don’t regret setting bombs," Ayers was quoted in the opening line of the Times profile; "I feel we didn’t do enough." In 1969, Ayers and his wife convened a "War Council" in Flint Michigan, whose purpose was to launch a military front inside the United States with the purpose of helping Third World [Maoist-communist] revolutionaries conquer and destroy it.
Taking charge of the podium, dressed in high-heeled boots and a leather mini-skirt – her signature uniform – Dorhn incited the assembled radicals to join the war against "Amerikkka" and create chaos and destruction in the "belly of the beast."
Her voice rising to a fevered pitch, Dohrn raised three fingers in a "fork salute" to mass murderer Charles Manson whom she proposed as a symbol to her troops. Referring to the helpless victims of the Manson Family as the "Tate Eight" (the most famous was actress Sharon Tate) Dohrn shouted:
"Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"
(big snip)
Today William Ayers is not merely an author favored by the New York Times, but a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
His Lady Macbeth [Bernardine Dohrn] is not merely a lawyer, but a member of the American Bar Association’s governing elite, as well as the director of Northwestern University’s Children and Family Justice Center.
[it's true! see: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/aclu/]
Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund's website. Obama served on the board with Ayers, who was a Weathermen leader and has written about his involvement with the group's bombings of the New York City Police headquarters in 1970, the Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972.
"I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough," Ayers told the New York Times in an interview released on Sept. 11, 2001, "Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon," Ayers wrote in his memoirs, titled "Fugitive Days." He continued with a disclaimer that he didn't personally set the bombs, but his group set the explosives and planned the attack.
A $200 campaign contribution is listed on April 2, 2001 by the "Friends of Barack Obama" campaign fund. The two appeared speaking together at several public events, including a 1997 University of Chicago panel entitled, "Should a child ever be called a 'super predator?'" and another panel for the University of Illinois in April 2002, entitled, "Intellectuals: Who Needs Them?"
The charges against Ayers were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance. Ayers is married to another notorious Weathermen terrorist, Bernadine Dohrn, who has also served on panels with Obama. Dohrn was once on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted List and was described by J. Edgar Hoover as the "most dangerous woman in America." Ayers and Dohrn raised the son of Weathermen terrorist Kathy Boudin, who was serving a sentence for participating in a 1981 [Brinks truck] murder and robbery that left 4 people [at least 2 police officers and 1 Brinks truck guard] dead.
"Sara Jane Olson and former fugitive Bernardine Dohrn chatted before Dohrn was to lead a panel discussion about conspiracy prosecutions of political activists in 2000. Olson (former Symbionese Liberation Front captor of Patty Hearst) has been sent back to prison for her role in a murder committed during a bank robbery, but **Dorhn and Ayers never had to serve a day in prison for their deeds in the Weather Underground, thanks to bleeding heart judges who threw the case out of court on a technicality."--source unknown
**"Dohrn once was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List. She served seven months in prison for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigating a 1981 armored truck robbery in Nyack, N.Y., in which two police officers were killed."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011101/aponline190504_000.htm
"All charges against him [Bill Ayers] were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct during the long search for the fugitives. They later became legal guardians of Chesa Boudin, the son of former Weathermen David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, after his parents were arrested for their part in the Brinks Robbery of 1981.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers
"During his fugitive years, Mr. Ayers said, he lived in 15 states, taking names of dead babies in cemeteries who were born in the same year as he. He describes the typical safe house: there were usually books by Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh, and Che Guevara's picture in the bedroom; fermented Vietnamese fish sauce in the refrigerator, and live sourdough starter donated by a Native American that was reputed to have passed from hand to hand over a century."
(snip)
"Mr. Ayers, who in 1970 was said to have summed up the Weatherman philosophy as:
'Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at,' is today distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
And he says he doesn't actually remember suggesting that rich people be killed or that people kill their parents, but 'it's been quoted so many times I'm beginning to think I did,' he said."
(snip)
"He also writes about the Weathermen's sexual experimentation as they tried to 'smash monogamy.' The Weathermen were 'an army of lovers,' he says, and describes having had different sexual partners, including his best male friend."
From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org: "FBI files from 1976, recently made public under the Freedom of Information Act, confirm the connections between Weatherman, Havana, and Moscow.
Weatherman leaders like Mark Rudd traveled illegally to Havana in 1968 to engage in terrorist training. There, camps set up by Soviet KGB Colonel Vadim Kotchergine were educating Westerners both in Marxist philosophy and urban warfare. "
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6808
"In July 1969, Dohrn, Eleanor Raskin, Dianne Donghi, Peter Clapp, David Millstone and Diana Oughton, all representing 'Weatherman', as Dohrn's faction was now called, traveled to Cuba and met with representatives of the North Vietnamese and Cuban governments."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn
Bill Ayers, TODAY, April 6, 2008, demanding to debate communism vs capitalism! Yet Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh and nearly every other conservative commentator FAILS to mention that these people were and still are revolutionary communists. Instead, they describe them as simply "domestic terrorists". Seems nearly everyone these days is afraid to use the 'C' word! Even in this extremely rare case where one of them actually admits it.
Bill Ayers, April 6, 2008: "Imperialism. I’m against it, and if Sean Hannity and others were honest, this is the ground they would fight me on. Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution—a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good —must win.
We begin by releasing our most hopeful dreams and our most radical imaginations: a better world is both possible and necessary.
Note: Ayers is very likely quoting Bob Avakian, chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, with the phrase 'both possible and necessary' in regards to a communist overthrow of the US government. See these Yahoo search results for "bob avakian" + "possible and necessary"--Eye On The Left
From wikipedia.com:
6 March 1970 – Another group blows themselves up when their 'bomb factory' located in New York's Greenwich Village accidentally explodes. WUO [Weather Underground] members Theodore Gold, Diana Oughton, and Terry Robbins die in this accident.
The bomb was intended to be planted at a non-commissioned officer's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
The Center for Public Intellectuals & The University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC)
April 19th-20th, 2002, Conference [Participants include: William/Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Sen Barack Obama]
April 19th-20th, 2002
Chicago Illini Union
828 S. Wolcott
This conference is part of the Center's mission of helping to create a more engaged civil society, working towards social change, fostering coalitions between theorists and activists, and combating anti-intellectualism in contemporary culture. It will be both a celebration of ideas and a rigorous examination of the roles and responsibilities that intellectuals play in society.
I. Why Do Ideas Matter? (a keynote panel)
We introduce the “meta” theme of the conference by hearing “success stories” from diverse voices discussing their experiences intervening intellectually.
Timuel Black, Chicago activist; Prof. Emeritus, City Colleges of Chicago
Lonnie Bunch, President, Chicago Historical Society
Bernardine Dohrn, Northwestern University Law School, Children and Family Justice Center Gerald Graff, UIC, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Richard Rorty, Stanford University, Philosophy
III. Lunch and Public Encounters
Alternative breakout tours led by Chicago activists. Tours of Bronzeville and other communities, and visits to organizations that are working on partnering theorists with activists.
IV. Intellectuals in Times of Crisis Experiences and applications of intellectual work in urgent situations.
William Ayers, UIC, College of Education; author of Fugitive Days Douglass Cassel, Northwestern University, Center for International Human Rights
Cathy Cohen, University of Chicago, Political Science
Salim Muwakkil, Chicago Tribune; In These Times
Barack Obama, Illinois State Senator Barbara Ransby, UIC, African-American Studies (moderator)
