Ayers, Revolution and Community Organizing

A PBS documentary on William Ayers, the Students for a Democratic Society, the Weathermen and then the Weather Underground is a fairly thorough history, and one told in large part by the revolutionary members themselves.

The entire program should be viewed in its 9 parts, each approximately ten minutes in length. Below is Part 1.

Weather Underground – Part 1

In Part 2 below, one of the most important segments of the entire documentary begins at the 5:30 mark. What is being described is how the Weathermen took control of the SDS student revolutionary movement. What is important is the perception that “working class youth outside the colleges would be more revolutionary than the students at the colleges.”

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Thus begins the William Ayers concept of “community organizers” as the Weathermen dispersed from campuses and into “working class” neighborhoods in several cities across America in order to foment discontent and recruit activists. Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, San Francisco, Cleveland and other cities were targeted for movement and communal houses established.

Weather Underground – Part 2

Weather Underground – Part 3

Below, beginning at approximately 6:40 into Part 4, the Fort Dix bombing plot is covered.

Weather Underground – Part 4

Below, the Fort Dix bombing plot continues in Part 5.

Weather Underground – Part 5

The documentary continues, each part with its own significance, and should be viewed and weighed carefully.

Weather Underground – Part 6

Weather Underground – Part 7

Weather Underground – Part 8

Weather Underground – Part 9

Inescapable in all of this is the soft-spoken spin from William Ayers as he attempts to weave honor into the Weather Underground’s intent of victimless bombings. Equally inescapable is the veneer of anti-war protest as the thrust of their rage. Yet, as one of the leaders explained, their intent, their goal, was a solidarity in purpose to achieve the overthrow of the government and the instillation of a universal communism.

They conveniently ignore the Killing Fields of Cambodia and Laos and fail to grasp that they are not protesting war, but an American war against communist aggressors in Vietnam. Communist aggressors who shared their vision and zeal, though with much more professionally developed lethality and maturation. The communist North Vietnamese and Chinese were not shouting communist manifestos on campuses through bullhorns and escaping into acid trips and orgies afterward.

They may no longer be planting bombs, attacking police, rioting in the streets and destroying the property of “the rich.” But their hatred for America still runs deep. They are the genesis of “community organizing,” as spelled out by their own description.

And William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn remain committed revolutionaries. These are the people befriended by Barack Obama, which raises –at minimum– Questions of Character.