The investigative report at Zombietime has uncovered an old, almost-forgotten book written by Barack Obama's associate Bill Ayers called Prairie Fire.
Ayers is the domestic terrorist that Barack Obama served on a couple of boards with in Chicago and who helped launch Obama's political career in his livingroom. Ayers is also the terrorist whose group the Weather Underground bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and many other locations.
Obama has at first claimed Ayers was just "a guy in the neighborhood," then claimed he didn't know about Ayers' terrorist past, then claimed he thought Ayers was "rehabilitated."
Ayers has not been "rehabilitated" as his recent writings and interviews show.
But this Prairie Fire is a shocking look into Ayers life and beliefs when he was a young 1960s and 1970s radical--beliefs which he obviously still holds.
Incidentally, Ayers proudly lists this book on his own blog as a part of his resume. (If I had repudiated beliefs I once held, I would no longer call attention to those beliefs).
Zombietime found a copy of this book after a long search and has made several high-resolution scans of the book available on his website.
Some of the excerpts tell exactly the kind of Marxist, anti-American individual Bill Ayers is:
We are a guerrilla organization. We are communist women and men, underground in the United States for more than four years. We are deeply affected by the historic events of our time in the struggle against U.S. imperialism.
Our intention is to disrupt the empire, to incapacitate it, to put pressure on the cracks, to make it hard to carry out its bloody functioning against the people of the world, to join the world struggle, to attack from the inside.
Remember that this was written at a time when the United States was in the middle of a terrible fight against communism worldwide and assaults against our allies by communists.
Interestingly, the book lists Sirhan Sirhan, Robert F. Kennedy's assassin, on the dedication page.
The book also states their intentions:
We need a revolutionary communist party in order to lead the struggle, give coherence and direction to the fight, seize power, and build the new society.
Sounds like Ayers really loves America and her noble foundations, doesn't it?
Here is who the book was written for:
PRAIRIE FIRE is written to communist-minded revolutionaries, independent organizers and anti-imperialists
Among the bombings by Ayers' group listed in the book:
- Haymarket police statue, Chicago
- Chicago police cars
- New York City police headquarters
- Marin County Courthouse
- Long Island City Courthouse
- Department of Corrections, San Francisco
- Office of California Prisons, Sacramento
- Department of Corrections, Albany NY
- 103rd Precinct of New York City police
- Harvard Center for International Affairs
- U.S. Capitol
- MIT research center
- The Pentagon
- Draft and recruiting centers
- ROTC buildings
- ITT Latin America Headquarters
- National Guard Headquarters, Washington D.C.
- Presidio Army Base and MP Station, San Francisco
- Federal Offices of Health, Education and Welfare, San Francisco
Some more interesting excerpts from Ayers' book
THE BANNER OF CHE
The only path to the final defeat of imperialism and the building of socialism is revolutionary war.
And
Revolutionary war will be complicated and protracted. It includes mass struggle and clandestine struggle, peaceful and violent, political and economic, cultural and military, where all forms are developed in harmony with the armed struggle.
Without mass struggle there can be no revolution.
Without armed struggle there can be no victory.
This is what Ayers had to say about the terrible turmoil of the 1960s (much of which he and those like him were responsible for):
The unique and fundamental condition of this time is the decline of U.S. imperialism. Our society is in social and economic crisis and assumptions about the U.S. are turned on their heads. These are hard conditions to live through. But they are favorable for the people and for revolution.
These conditions of constant change demand the weapon of theory. Like people everywhere, we are analyzing how to bring to life the potential forces which can destroy U.S. imperialism.
We are a guerrilla organization. We are communist women and men, underground in the United States for more than four years. We are deeply affected by the historic events of our time in the struggle against U.S. imperialism.
Our intention is to disrupt the empire, to incapacitate it, to put pressure on the cracks, to make it hard to carry out its bloody functioning against the people of the world, to join the world struggle, to attack from the inside.
Our intention is to engage the enemy, to wear away at him, to harass him, to isolate him, to expose every weakness, to pounce, to reveal his vulnerability.
Our intention is to encourage the people, to provoke leaps in confidence and consciousness, to stir the imagination, to popularize power, to agitate, to organize, to join in every way possible the people's day-to-day struggles.
Our intention is to forge an underground, a clandestine political organization engaged in every form of struggle, protected from the eyes and weapons of the state, a base against repression, to accumulate lessons, experience and constant practice, a base from which to attack.
Ayers' makes clear not only their wholehearted desire to destroy the United States, but states their resolve to stick with the effort for the long haul (and there is every indication--through his own words--Ayers is still working on that goal):
PRAIRIE FIRE is based on a belief that the duty of a revolutionary is to make the revolution. This is not an abstraction. It means that revolutionaries must make a profound commitment to the future of humanity, apply our limited knowledge and experience to understand an ever-changing situation, organize the masses of people and build the fight. It means that struggle and risk and hard work and adversity will become our way of life, that the only certainty will be constant change, that the only possibilities are victory or death.
Does this next quote sound like anything you have heard from Ayers lately--even, anything like you have heard from people in a certain political party today:
Our job is to tap the discontent seething in many sectors of the population, to find allies everywhere people are hungry or angry, to mobilize poor and working people against imperialism
Think back over things you have heard on television or read in the newspaper in the past year; I'm sure you'll recall things which bear a striking resemblance to this intent and this language.
Listen also to this, and see if you hear any resemblance between it and the kind of rhetoric coming out of the Left:
Our final goal is the destruction of imperialism, the seizure of power, and the creation of socialism. Our strategy for this stage of the struggle is to organize the oppressed people of the imperial nation itself to join with the colonies in the attack on imperialism. This process of attacking and weakening imperialism involves the defeat of all kinds of national chauvinism and arrogance; this is a precondition to our fight for socialism.
Thanks to Joe the Plumber, we're having the first real public discussion of socialism in America for a long, long time--and that's a good thing, because it has been creeping into our society and institutions for decades.
Here's what Ayers' Prairie Fire has to say about socialism:
Socialism is the total opposite of capitalism/imperialism. It is the rejection of empire and white supremacy. Socialism is the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the eradication of the social system based on profit. Socialism means control of the productive forces for the good of the whole community instead of the few who live on hilltops and in mansions. Socialism means priorities based on human need instead of corporate greed. Socialism creates the conditions for a decent and creative quality of life for all.
The book also has an anti-Israel section that calls for, among other things: ending Zionism, no "war for oil," stopping U.S. support for Israel, and so on. Have you heard this kind of smack recently?
A few key points Zombietime points out that I agree with and that people critically need to understand:
- Ayers was not simply protesting "against" the Vietnam War. Firstly, he wasn't against war in principle, he was agitating for the victory of the communist forces in Vietnam. In other words: He wasn't against the war, he was against our side in the war. This is spelled out in great detail in Prairie Fire.
- Ayers and his co-authors freely brag about their bombings and other violent and illegal acts
- Ayers is just as politically radical now as he was back then. He has never renounced the political views he professed in the 1960s and 1970s. The only difference is that now he no longer commits violence to achieve his goals. After his stint as the leader of the Weather Underground, he shifted to a different tactic: to spread his ideology under the aegis of academia. But the goal remains the same: to turn America into a communist nation. Ayers' contemporary writings contain many of the same ideas (and even the same phrases) found in Prairie Fire, just toned down to make them more palatable in polite society.
How does this all fit in with Barack Obama's association with Ayers? Zombietime says
And why is this relevant? Because if he believed it in 1974, and still believes it in 2008, then he almost certainly continued to believe it in 1995-2006, the period during which Barack Obama had his associations with Ayers. There is no evidence whatsoever that Ayers went through some "right-wing phase" (which would have been totally out of character) nor had any diminution of his political fervor. As far as anyone can tell, and according to Ayers himself, he has had a consistent and unchanged philosophy from the 1960s up until the present.
How very true.
It has also become clear that Barack Obama has associated with Ayers on various projects and on various levels over the past 13 years, and except for a stated denunciation when the association became public, Obama seems to have had no problem continuing to associate with this radical, America-hating individual who still seeks to subvert the people of the United States.
Do we really want someone who would associate with someone like Ayers to lead the United States?
Could we even survive such a proposition?
HT to Michelle Malkin for pointing out this piece at Zombietime.
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