B-Fro to Nola: Drop dead

FranchiseBlade · Feb 24, 2009

basso said:

yes, he is:

http://drudgereport.com/flash1.htm
Click to expand...

This garbage has long since been blown out of the water.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/opinion/06ayers.html?_r=2
This is from the op-ed.

I was cast in the “unrepentant terrorist” role; I felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the “Two Minutes Hate” scene from George Orwell’s “1984,” when the faithful gathered in a frenzy of fear and loathing.

With the mainstream news media and the blogosphere caught in the pre-election excitement, I saw no viable path to a rational discussion. Rather than step clumsily into the sound-bite culture, I turned away whenever the microphones were thrust into my face. I sat it out.

Now that the election is over, I want to say as plainly as I can that the character invented to serve this drama wasn’t me, not even close. Here are the facts:

I never killed or injured anyone. I did join the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s, and later resisted the draft and was arrested in nonviolent demonstrations. I became a full-time antiwar organizer for Students for a Democratic Society. In 1970, I co-founded the Weather Underground, an organization that was created after an accidental explosion that claimed the lives of three of our comrades in Greenwich Village. The Weather Underground went on to take responsibility for placing several small bombs in empty offices — the ones at the Pentagon and the United States Capitol were the most notorious — as an illegal and unpopular war consumed the nation.

The Weather Underground crossed lines of legality, of propriety and perhaps even of common sense. Our effectiveness can be — and still is being — debated. We did carry out symbolic acts of extreme vandalism directed at monuments to war and racism, and the attacks on property, never on people, were meant to respect human life and convey outrage and determination to end the Vietnam war.

Peaceful protests had failed to stop the war. So we issued a screaming response. But it was not terrorism; we were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends.

I cannot imagine engaging in actions of that kind today. And for the past 40 years, I’ve been teaching and writing about the unique value and potential of every human life, and the need to realize that potential through education.

I have regrets, of course — including mistakes of excess and failures of imagination, posturing and posing, inflated and heated rhetoric, blind sectarianism and a lot else. No one can reach my age with their eyes even partly open and not have hundreds of regrets. The responsibility for the risks we posed to others in some of our most extreme actions in those underground years never leaves my thoughts for long.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but he's regretting the most extreme actions right there in his own words. To call him an unrepentant terrorist is to live in some time long ago if it ever was applicable at all.

FranchiseBlade · Feb 24, 2009

basso said:

just to be clear, i'm not suggesting that's why he won. i'm saying that's how (and why) he ran. Obama has admitted as much (before the campaign).
Click to expand...

Obama did not run as the black candidate. That's just stupid. He never brought race to forefront until after his opponents did. That includes his talk about him not looking like presidents on money.

It is in no way how he ran his campaign, or the issues he chose to bring to the forefront.

SamFisher · Feb 24, 2009

basso said:

I think it's really pretty simple, and since you're a clean and articulate guy (well, it's the internet so can't be too sure about the former attribute), it shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

in general, i strive not to make fun of other posters based on personal characteristics, ethnicity, sexuality, relative hirsuteness, neurodiversity, height, weight, etc. i feel no such compunction wrt public figures, although in general i try to keep it tongue-in-cheek. When a public figure has defined his whole persona by a particular characteristic, as Obama has with his race and his past associations w/ unrepentant terrorists, well then, the possibilities are endless (Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers). whether hilarity ensures is entirely in the eye of the beholder. if you find it offensive, you're probably in the wrong forum.

i also try to refrain from making fun of people who can't defend themselves. those with developmental disabilities fall into this category. i generally will call someone on such a post, or just add the poster to my ignore list.

if it crosses into the personal realm however, i take a different approach.

the occasional "**** you" aside, i refrain from personally threatening other posters. if someone threatens me personally, and it's clear it's not in jest, as a precaution, i will report them. if someone threatens my children, as at least one poster has done, i will certainly report them.

feel free to print this out and tape it to your monitor as a handy guide when trying to determine whether a reference to a hobbit should be construed as a racist taunt towards a black man w/ a buzz cut.
Click to expand...

that is the first substantive post you have had in this BBS for literally six months, anyway I thank you for it.

Forums

B-Fro to Nola: Drop dead

FranchiseBlade Member
Supporting Member

FranchiseBlade Member
Supporting Member

SamFisher Member

Share This Page

About ClutchFans

Rockets Content

Support ClutchFans!

B-Fro to Nola: Drop dead

FranchiseBlade Member Supporting Member

FranchiseBlade Member Supporting Member

SamFisher Member

Share This Page

FranchiseBlade Member
Supporting Member

FranchiseBlade Member
Supporting Member