Fugitive Days: A Memoir by Bill Ayers
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Book Reviews of Fugitive Days: A Memoir
Book Review: Bombs Away
Summary: 1 Stars
William Ayers was a founding member of the Weathermen, that home-grown terrorist organization that tried to end the Vietnam war by blowing things up in the United States. Their ideology was distinctly communist, and their goal was not just the removal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, but the overthrow of the U.S. government, a goal that Mr. Ayers calls "...lofty, if immodest". "Fugitive Days" purportedly deals with Mr. Ayers' life on the run after three of his comrades vaporized themselves in the infamous New York City townhouse explosion when the bomb they had built to place in an army installation detonated prematurely, but is in reality nothing more than a lengthy rehash of the Weathermen's skewed philosophy. Strange days indeed, particularly so since Mr. Ayers has long since morphed into his father (much belittled in "Fugitive Days") and taken his own place in the upper middle class. He writes from his tenured sinecure as a full professor at the University of Illinois. The Weathermen in general and Mr. Ayers in particular recognized the strategic value of striking at the heart of the country's institutions and cultural symbols. Thus they placed bombs in the Pentagon ,the U.S. Capitol, and numerous other government and quasi-government buildings. Mr. Ayers seems particularly proud that he blew up a statue in Chicago that memorialized police officers killed in the line of duty. When the Chicago police union (one union that Mr. Ayers apparently doesn't support) replaced the statue, Mr. Ayers blew it up again. The union replaced it again, but this time had it moved indoors and placed in the lobby of the Chicago Police Academy. Mr. Ayers' writing here gets downright chilling. In a post September 11th world, this self-confessed bomber who "...can't imagine entirely dismissing the possibility..." of bombing more buildings, blithely points out that the statue is still vulnerable "...from the air". Mr. Ayers is also capable of defiling monuments in a less explosive fashion, as when he makes a trip to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., the Wall that honors U.S. military personnel killed in Vietnam, an absolutely holy place to veterans and their families, and there scrawls the name of the woman who died in the New York townhouse exoplosion. The bomb she helped make, remember, was destined to kill American soldiers. Mr. Ayers is indeed, as he brags, "guilty as hell and free as a bird".
Doublespeak abounds and evasions and omissions proliferate. Cop killers are called "freedom fighters" and bombs were placed for "peace". Mr. Ayers writes of something called the "white skin privilege", and if by this he means that it is better to be rich and white in America than it is to be poor and black then he'll get no argument. However, he misses an opportunity to show the reader exactly what this means by omitting entirely the saga of fellow Weather alum fugitive Kathy Boudin (she is acknowledged on the very last page of the book; Mr. Ayers and his wife adopted and raised her son), a "freedom fighter" imprisoned for her part in the "expropriation" , i.e., armed robbery, of a Brinks truck that left two police officers and a security guard dead. The black men who took part in this were convicted and sentenced to 75 years to life; they will never get out. Ms. Boudin, the very white daughter of the very rich lawyer, negotiated a plea bargain of 20 years to life. She is now eligible and clamoring for parole.
Book Review: You don't need a Weatherman....
Summary: 1 Stars
Bill Ayers, former '60s revolutionary-turned-college-professor, offers us his memoirs of that tumultous time and explains to us why America is still a disgusting, fascist nation where dissidents are paid huge advances for preeening autobiographies and have to suffer the idignity of worshipful profiles in the New York Times. The Weathermen, as Ayers' comrades were known, were infamous for bombing what he calls "symbols" of American imperialism and capitalism. Don't mistake this for terrorism though, because terrorists try to kill innocents whereas Ayers was going after -- well, "symbols." Comments like that, in all their arrogance, are perfect examples of why -- following Ayers' "revolution" -- America made such an abrupt turn from the ultra-liberalism of the '60s and '70s to the ultra-conservatism of the '80s. Though nobody ever wants to seem to admit this, the radical politics of the '60s was built on a grad school elitism which left its proponents convinced of their own educated sainthood and, in their eyes, reduced the "working man" and minorities to the demeaning status of the "noble savage." And of course, since the radicals were all saints, anyone who disagreed with them had to be thoroughly demonic. Of course, a lot of other people who opposed the Viet Nam War or were outraged by Nixon didn't share these views and, once those afermentioned events took the "new left" to a position of power, they reacted to that overeducated ignorance by electing men like Ronald Reagan and further upsetting Bill Ayers.
But, anyway, politics aside, this is just a remarkably self-righteous autobiography. For a man who claims to have been fighting for the people, Bill Ayers comes across as remarkably self-centered. The centerpiece of the book seems to the dark day in 1970 when three of his comrades managed to blow themselves up while making a bomb in their Greenwich Village Townhouse. Ayers returns to the event but strangely, let's us know little about the martyrs in question except how their deaths related to him. (And, of course, it never seems strange to him that the Weatherman revolution was based in a townhouse that most "oppressed" Americans would never be able to afford.) The man comes across as a narcissistic sociopath who found, in radical politics, an outlet for a basically unbalanced personality. Ayers, at one point, brags that he's "guilty as sin, free as a bird." Yes, luckily for him, Bill Ayers doesn't live in the type of society that the Weathermen advocated; a society like Castro's Cuba where anyone showing dissent can be executed without trial. No, he lives in America, one of the few countries that will protect you even as you try to destroy it. One friend of mine told me that if Bill Ayers hates America so much, he should just leave it. Ayers, unlike other revolutionaries across the world, actually has the option of leaving if he wants to. He has that freedom and even if he's apparently too arrogant and, quite frankly, stupid to appreciate it, that still doesn't keep that freedom from being all the more beautiful and wonderful.
Book Review: Don't buy this book
Summary: 1 Stars
The chief virtue of this book is that it serves as a reminder, at this particular time, that not all terrorists are fundamentalist Islamic extremists. As least one of them is a spoiled rich kid who is now a tenured professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and who, five days AFTER the attack on the World Trade Center, was favorably profiled by the New York York Times on the occaision of the publication of this "memior" of his exploits in terror. In light of the events of Sept. 11, I am urging anyone considering purchasing this book to instead make a contribution to those affected by the tragedy, because I feel strongly that the author, a smug, unrepentant American terrorist, and his publisher, should not profit from its sale any more than Osama Bin Laden should get a book deal to give us his "memiors" of the trade center attack. In this book, Ayers, describes his participation, as a member of the "Weathermen" in the 1970s in bombings of the Pentagon, the Capitol Building and the New York City Police Headquarers. Read about his dispicable acts (and his cowardly attempts to evade being brought to justice for them) in the New York Times article, but please don't let the author profit from his crimes.
If the events of September 11 have shown us anything, surely it is that the killing of innocent people through acts of terrorism is pure evil, and indefensible no matter what political cause it is intended to serve. This is Ayers quoted in the New York Times on September 11: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Apparently nothing will cause Bill Ayers to outgrow his truly juvenile political philosophy, his arrested adolescent narcisism, or his chilling indifference to human life other than his own.
Book Review: For Ayers, honesty is just another word.....
Summary: 1 Stars
How interesting that the fans of this book should place such emphasis on its "honesty," "candor," "truth." Not that Ayers is a liar, exactly. Say rather that he has been very, very economical with the truth, omitting anything that might complicate and hinder his narcissistic agenda. For a certain class of reader, the stipulation that "memory is a mother-----" will be sufficient to license any spin that Ayers chooses to perpetrate. So yeah: memory is unreliable: that's why, when writing a book about your life, its necessary to check your memory against other sources. Like other peoples' memories, other historical accounts of the same events, contemporary documents, letters, news, etc etc. It's not like Ayers would have been short of memory aids to assist him in disciplining his memory, had he been sufficiently interested in truth to look at them.
In establishing his contract with the reader, Ayers doesn't even CLAIM to be telling the truth. In his own words, the stories in this book represent "what feels real to me." That's a cushy standard against which to measure one's self. That, my friends, is decadence.
So puh-leeze! defend the book on any grounds except "honesty."
You want to see what an honest autobiography feels like, read the searing "Growing Up in Black and White" by Brent Staples, an African-American contemporary of Ayers' who also passed through a phase of involvement with the Black Panthers in the 1960s. Then read Staple's splendid dismissal of "Fugitive Days" from the New York Times Book Review last winter. And then admit to yourself that you've been had, and that your ...badly needs recalibration.
Book Review: Ayers Reality
Summary: 1 Stars
"Ayers ends his book without even acknowledging that after the group broke up, several of its most important cadre - including the former lower level leader Kathy Boudin - ended up joining in terrorist actions in support of the ultra violent so-called Black Liberation Army. Boudin ended up in prison for life for her role in the 1981 Brinks robbery and murder, in which her comrades killed a black cop. The Weather Underground broke apart in a 1930s-style Communist purge, as old hard-line Stalinists Ayers and Dohrn had recruited took the group over, purging many for various deviations. Indeed, Dohrn and Ayers themselves were put on trial for promoting "crimes against national liberation struggles, women and the anti-imperialist left." Like the old Stalinists, they readily confessed to their crimes before the new Central Committee, of which Dohrn had taken Stalin's title as General Secretary.Many of them then joined the new May 19th Communist organization, which became a support group for the terrorist Black Liberation Army, the group which pulled off the Brinks robbery and murder with Boudin and Gilbert's participation. With these two in prison for life, Ayers and Dohrn agreed to raise Boudin and Gilbert's child as their own. Yet the actions of Boudin and Gilbert, who followed through on the logic and policy of Ayers' beloved Weathermen, are somehow not discussed. After all, Ayers admits that he sent support messages to the BLA, and let them know they "agreed" with them. Does not this make himself and Dohrn also responsible for their acts of murder?"