Friday, October 10, 2008

In Defense of Bill Ayers the Educator

"The Bill Ayers that Barack Obama and I worked with was no 'domestic terrorist.'"

From "Barack, Bill, and Me" by David S. Tanenhaus at Slate.com:

"Approaches that Ayers helped publicize were being adopted in several states—including Texas under then-Gov. George W. Bush. Juvenile justice was, in fact, a cornerstone of Bush's "compassionate conservative" agenda. In his 2000 acceptance speech, he spoke movingly of a 15-year-old African-American boy he had met at a juvenile jail in Marlin, Texas, who had committed a 'grown-up crime' but was still a 'little boy': 'If that boy in Marlin believes he is trapped and worthless and hopeless—if he believes his life has no value—then other lives have no value to him, and we are all diminished.' The passage could have come directly from Ayers' book."

To see and sign a statement of support for Bill Ayers, go to supportbillayers.org

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