A Conversation with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Berkeley, 2/22/09: photos and audio

On Flashpoints on KPFA on February 19, 2009, these 2 bourgeois idiots admitted they were wrong about the Weather Underground's tactics. Never once in their interview did they bother to discuss labor organizing, the key to any change in a capitalist society. For those who were not around in the 1970s, one could easily live one's life and know nothing and have nothing to do with this gang of middle class kids blowing up things. It is insulting to the peace movement that these two idiots and their reactionary organization are now glorified while ignoring those who organized the demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people, and those who refused to be drafted (which ended in 1973, ending most of the protests), who often served at least a year in prison. Blowing up things only serves the captialist class as it makes the peace movement appear to be terrorists when it is the capitalist class that is a gang of terrorists. It certainly does not organize anybody nor put an end to capitalism., and that was obvious at the time. The excuse that thousands of Vietnamese were dying each week is also insulting; millions of people die at the hands of US imperialism everyday and have been doing so for decades, at least all of the 20th century, and thousands died before the 20th century, every day. The way to put an end to the genocide is to organize labor to get rid of capitalism, which profit motive is the cause of all these wars. There were organizations and millions of people who had a labor focus, and those are the people and organizations that make a difference.

This is coming up with Ayers in Colorado
http://wardchurchilltrial.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/bill-ayers-derrick-jensen-ward-churchill/

Ok so the first questioner was a right wing Evangelical type . But what did more serious questioners have to say ? Did any one challenge them re their pretty much uncritical support for Obama ? Did any one point out that if supporting the death penality is racist how do they explain Obama supporting it ?
They (Dohn/Ayers ) pride themselves on being ''anti imperialists '. Good . But Obama has already '' made his bones '' by authorizing Missile strikes in Pakistan, increaing troops in Afghanistan, and supporting Israel 's state terror in Gaza . So once again ---

listen for yourself

yeesh

who said they are symbiotic with Obama? the corporate media maybe

and just to spoonfeed you a bit, they did say they are against escalating military actions in central asia

listen, don't assume or trust secondhand sources

To equate the destruction of private property with violence is a poorly thought out position.
Pacifism supports the state.

They admitted they were wrong
by =
Monday Feb 23rd, 2009 8:05 AM.

There may be valid criticisms against Ayers & Dorhn -- for example, they claim to be against white-supremacy and racism but, in spite of their opposition to Israel's mass atrocities, "sociocide", and wanton war crimes in Gaza, they both openly and actually SUPPORT the state of Israel as a Zionist/Jewish-supremacist state (WILL SOMEBODY ASK THEM ABOUT THAT!!?) -- but your criticisms, "=", are simplistic, diversionary, knee-jerk and demagogic.

Have YOU done any American labor organizing "to get rid of capitalism"?

U.S. labor actually supports capitalism and was -- and is -- often on the side of the state during American imperialist wars. U.S. labor is even financially invested in Israel. In fact, it was especially the white ethnic, typically racist (i.e., loves to kill people of color in U.S. wars or in police departments), blue collar workers in the U.S. that long supported the Vietnam war (and all other U.S. imperialist wars) -- the whites whose very sons would be the first, and most (even if not the most disproportionately), to go to war.

I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with _intelligently, clearly and strategically_ attacking the instruments and facilities of U.S. imperialism, militarism and, so-called, 'law enforcement' when the STATE is behaving in a wantonly &/or mass terroristic way, and when the STATE is not behaving peacefully.

There's nothing wrong with, for example, then, blowing up or fire-bombing military recruiting stations or ROTC centers that provided the naive young mass murderers and cannon fodder for a U.S. imperialist wars or, then, breaking in late at night and destroying military draft record files (as some people did), or breaking into military bases and vandalizing or disabling war planes, submarines or missiles (as even some pacifists did) -- to stop, jam or interrupt the machinery or process of imperialist wars -- or exacting an armed consequence (especially against FBI or police facilities) when the FBI or the police wantonly shoot &/or kill unarmed protesters or assassinate key activists.

The Weather Underground exacted these kinds of consequences -- directed against the facilities of STATE terror and imperialist militarism - that's NOT terrorism -- during a vicious imperialist war. The WU did not purposely direct their actions against civilians (or any people).

If you, "=", don't really want to directly take on the state, or if you just don't have the stomach for it (to even just support it), even in just the armed symbolic protest of the PROPERTY destruction of the instruments of state militarism and terrorism, even in extremely urgent times, then why don't you JUST SAY SO, instead of saying -- instead of, by any appropriate means necessary, trying to stop IMMEDIATE mass suffering and wanton mass murder at the hands of the state or its client states or proxies -- that FIRST we have to destroy worldwide capitalism.

YOU, "=", are the one being "bourgeois", because immediately suffering people, in the meantime, CANNOT WAIT, unlike you, for your far off fantasy.

Thursday Feb 26th, 2009 8:57 AM: "There may be valid criticisms against Ayers & Dorhn -- for example, they claim to be against white-supremacy and racism but, in spite of their opposition to Israel's mass atrocities, "sociocide", and wanton war crimes in Gaza, they both openly and actually SUPPORT the state of Israel as a Zionist/Jewish-supremacist state (WILL SOMEBODY ASK THEM ABOUT THAT!!?)..."

I don't know if Ayers & Dorhn still *CLAIM* to be "radicals" or "Marxists", let alone just "leftists", but they (on KALW's Your Call radio program, 2.19.09, audio archive), certainly said THEY SUPPORT THE STATE OF ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO EXIST (in some 80-85% of historic Palestine) AS A JEWISH STATE: i.e., THEY SUPPORT THE STATE OF ISRAEL -- A WHITE-/JEWISH-SUPREMACIST STATE!!

I WONDER, WOULD AYERS & DORHN HAVE SUPPORTED OTHER WHITE-SUPREMACIST COLONIAL STATES, THEIR COLONIAL NAMES, AND THEIR "RIGHT TO EXIST"?:

Would Ayers & Dorhn have supported APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA as a white-Christian-supremacist state and "ITS RIGHT TO EXIST"?

Would Ayers & Dorhn have supported an imperialist apartheid solution to that conflict -- a bantustan division of South Africa into a geographically mostly white-Christian-supremacist state with a multiply divided black bantustan state?

(And I've heard on good word that South Africa's colonial name change is just a matter of time.)

Would Ayers & Dorhn have supported "THE GOLD COAST's" "RIGHT TO EXIST"?: now Ghana (Africa's first independent post-colonial state).

Would Ayers & Dorhn have supported "THE EAST AFRICAN PROTECTORATE's" "RIGHT TO EXIST"?: now Kenya.

Would Ayers & Dorhn have supported "SOUTH WEST AFRICA's" "RIGHT TO EXIST"?: now Namibia.

Would Ayers & Dorhn have supported "BECHUANLAND's" "RIGHT TO EXIST"?: now Botswana.

Would Ayers & Dorhn have supported "UPPER VOLTA's" "RIGHT TO EXIST"?: now Burkina Faso.

Would Ayers & Dorhn have supported "RHODESIA's" "RIGHT TO EXIST"?: now Zimbabwe.

Would Ayers & Dorhn have supported "THE DUTCH EAST INDIES's" "RIGHT TO EXIST"?: now Indonesia.

Would Ayers & Dorhn have supported 'THE BRITISH EAST INDIES's' "RIGHT TO EXIST"?: now much of it Malaysia, among other independent states.

Would Ayers & Dorhn have supported "PORTUGUESE / DUTCH FORMOSA's" "RIGHT TO EXIST"?: now Taiwan.

Did Ayers & Dorhn have supported "FRENCH INDOCHINA's" "RIGHT TO EXIST"?: now Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.


Israel, a white-/Jewish-supremacist colonial state, ISRAEL IS IT'S WHITE *COLONIAL* NAME, a colonial state younger than many Palestinians' *mothers*, has no more of an inherent moral right to exist than any of those other white-supremacist state (white Christian, or in the case of apartheid South Africa, white Christian and Jewish). *JEWS* who wish to live in peace, justice & equality -- the same thing most Jews rightfully demand everywhere else -- have an inherent moral right to exist -- *NOT ISREAL*.

SO **WHY** IS IT THAT *ONLY* WHEN IT COMES TO AND FOR WHTIE/EUROPEAN JEWS:

DO WHITE SO-CALLED --- AND OFTEN LED BY WHITE JEWISH SO-CALLED --- "RADICALS/MARXISTS/ANARCHISTS/LEFTISTS" ---

FROM CHOMSKY ON DOWN ---

EAGERLY SUPPORT *ISRAEL'S* SO-CALLED "RIGHT TO EXIST"--- IN *85%* OF HISTORIC PALESTINE ---

ESPECIALLY AS A ZIONIST/JEWISH-SUPREMACIST STATE ---

AND SUPPORT ONLY A WORLD IMPERIALISTS' APARTHEID (BANTUSTAN) "SOLUTION"?

I SMELL WHITE **HYPOCRISY** -- AGAIN.

I just want to clarify that I have nothing against Ayers & Dorhn, or their speaking in Berkeley (or anywhere else). I've had cordial relations with them (especially Bill, whom I've privately met before) and, ndeed, I would have morally and politically supported the Weather Underground and probably all their activism since then. I went to hear them speak in San Francisco at Modern Times Bookstore (even though they only took two rounds of 4 questions at a time: I think that leading leftist political activists and former/current "radicals" owe us more than that).

I just think that people who call themselves "radicals/Marxists/Anarchists/leftists" should *not* be supporting Israel's (an ideologically racist, foreign, white-/Jewish-supremacist colonial state's) right to exist -- especially as "a Jewish/Zionist state" -- any more than they'd support any other white-/religioethnic-supremacist state. If they call themselves any of the above, then they just need to check their politics and moral consciousness on this point.

"=" writes: The excuse that thousands of Vietnamese were dying each week is also insulting; millions of people die at the hands of US imperialism everyday and have been doing so for decades

The total number of human deaths worldwide hovers around 55 million per year. So even if every death could be blamed on U.S. Imperialism, that would be about 1.6 million deaths per week, or 150,000 deaths per day. And, unless there's some secret of immortality that the imperialists are hiding from us, we can assume that most of those people would die anyway, although a substantial number of them would live a lot longer.

Probably a reasonable way to estimate the number of excess deaths caused by world imperialism, of which the U.S. is the backbone, would be to estimate what the total deaths worldwide would be if mortality rates everywhere were the same as those in an average country with decent welfare and social services. I would suggest using Cuba as a reference, except that Cuba's mortality rates are certainly somewhat higher than they would be without the U.S. imperialist blockade.