Not politics - Pynchon (bombs)

[Mark Kohut]

The interviewer also quoted some of Ayers' own criticism of Weatherman in the foreword to the memoir, whereby Ayers reacts to having watched Emile de Antonio's 1976 documentary film about Weatherman, Underground: "[Ayers] was 'embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way. The rigidity and the narcissism.' "[14] "We weren't terrorists," Ayers told an interviewer for the Chicago Tribune in 2001. "The reason we weren't terrorists is because we did not commit random acts of terror against people. Terrorism was what was being practiced in the countryside of Vietnam by the United States."[2] However, Gitlin, the former SDS member and author of "The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage," doesn't buy Ayers' reasoning. "OK, let's give them a medal for not killing anybody besides themselves," he says. "But they wanted to be terrorists. They planned on being terrorists. Then their bomb blew up and killed
 several of them and they thought better of it. They were failed terrorists." The bomb in this case was packed with nails demonstrating clear intent to inflict human casualties.

In a letter to the editor in the Chicago Tribune, Ayers wrote, "I condemn all forms of terrorism — individual, group and official". He also condemned the September 11 terrorist attacks in that letter. "Today we are witnessing crimes against humanity on our own shores on an unthinkable scale, and I fear that we may soon see more innocent people in other parts of the world dying in response."[23]


[edit] Views on his past expressed since 2001
Ayers was asked in a January 2004 interview, "How do you feel about what you did? Would you do it again under similar circumstances?" He replied:[24] "I've thought about this a lot. Being almost 60, it's impossible to not have lots and lots of regrets about lots and lots of things, but the question of did we do something that was horrendous, awful? ... I don't think so. I think what we did was to respond to a situation that was unconscionable." On September 9, 2008, journalist Jake Tapper reported on the comic strip in Bill Ayers's blog explaining the soundbite: "The one thing I don't regret is opposing the war in Vietnam with every ounce of my being.... When I say, 'We didn't do enough,' a lot of people rush to think, 'That must mean, "We didn't bomb enough shit."' But that's not the point at all. It's not a tactical statement, it's an obvious political and ethical statement. In this context, 'we' means 'everyone.'"[25][26]


[edit] Ayers' political views


--- On Wed, 10/8/08, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Not politics - Pynchon (bombs)
> To: "Michael Bailey" <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> Cc: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2008, 8:53 AM
> They shot a cop in a bank robbery about two blocks from
> where I'm typing
> this.
> 
> On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 3:32 AM, Michael Bailey
> <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com
> > wrote:
> 
> > there are a lot of good books reviewing the Weather
> Underground
> > and a couple of videos
> >
> > what I came away with from looking at a few of them
> was
> >
> > they managed to not kill a lot of people (I'm
> thinking zero, but that
> > could be wrong)
> >
> > they got some impressive targets
> >
> > their statements indicate they were reacting from
> understandable
> > outrage at the unimaginably
> > evil bombing of Cambodia
> >
> > they didn't accomplish a whole heck of a lot
> >
> > they could easily have been provocateurs, in that
> their actions justified
> > draconian enforcement AND took attention away from
> Amerikka's SE Asia
> > murders
> >
> > oh, a-and that Mark Rudd went on to become a community
> college math
> > teacher!
> >
> >
> >
> > On 10/7/08, Glenn Scheper
> <glenn_scheper at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > > From a political email...
> > >
> > >  During The Time Obama And Ayers Served Together
> On The Woods Fund, Ayers
> > Was
> > >  Quoted Saying "I Don't Regret Setting
> Bombs ... I Feel We Didn't Do
> > Enough." "'I
> > >  don't regret setting bombs,' Bill Ayers
> said. 'I feel we didn't do
> > enough.' Mr.
> > >  Ayers, who spent the 1970's as a fugitive in
> the Weather Underground,
> > was
> > >  sitting in the kitchen of his big
> turn-of-the-19th-century stone house
> > in the
> > >  Hyde Park district of Chicago." (Dinitia
> Smith, "No Regrets For A Love
> > Of
> > >  Explosives," The New York Times, 9/11/01)
> > >   -- file://PastedText/854250
> > >
> > >  ==========
> > >
> > >  BTW, a hiatus in my help(?) on the TMoP read:
> > >
> > >  I got a local apt w/o web access yet;
> > >  I fled work when the wife showed up.
> > >
> > >  I'm in a small town that is sooo cool!
> > >
> > >  I saw a town parade, and knew two people in it.
> > >
> > >  I dropped in at a van there to give blood for
> the
> > >  first time (although postponed due to
> anitbiotics).
> > >
> > >  I'm walking around in a relaxed, loving
> spirit,
> > >  and people are very cordial.
> > >
> > >  A scary looking bulked ethnic flashed me
> "peace".
> > >
> > >  I got my first real cheeseburger at a local
> joint.
> > >  "I've been victimized by McDonalds all
> these years."
> > >
> > >  A local emporium--not Walmart--has everything.
> > >  I even saw a pair of welding googles.
> > >  I got a wine bottle opener, and other needful
> things.
> > >
> > >  Some friends with a business set me up in a
> spare office with Internet.
> > >
> > >  A man gave me a guava off his tree this morning.
> > >
> > >  I'm checking out Toastmasters tomorrow
> evening.
> > >
> > >  Yours truly,
> > >  Glenn Scheper
> > >  http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
> > >
> > > glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
> > >  Copyleft(!) Forward freely.
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "He ain't crazy, he's a-makin'
> pottery" - Finley Pater Dunne
> >