Let’s begin with a principle, and with a life.
The principle—at the center of the thinking of Jesus and Hillel
and Mohammad and Confucius, of Plato and Homer, at the heart of the
Declaration of Independence—expressed here as Article 1 of the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free
and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and
conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of
brotherhood.” And we might add sisterhood.
And the life: Here is a woman living in the “global south.” She
is forty-two years old, mother of six children, three of whom are
still alive, and grandmother of eight. She subsists on $1 a day,
sleeps in a shelter without electricity or plumbing, arises each
morning to begin again the never-ending search for clean water, food,
and fuel. She is single and illiterate, and she has never seen a
doctor. She has recently developed a tumor in her neck that gives her
persistent pain.
How should we think of this woman in light of this principle? What should we do?
Bill Ayers 
HeyBill as per federal and state law, Shelters must have sanitation, water, heat ,electricity,provide food,and secfurity. You are absolutely lying about this woman, they don’t work that way. Only terrorists on the run live like thaqt. Remenber me? You wanted to kill me in 1970 at fort Dixx. Too bad about Terry Ted and yor ex. NOT! You could have done more, you could have been bolwn up also,gthat would have been good. You never ran a shelter, but I have.One of these days Billy boy we are gonna cross paths.
I love it how some right wing types attack Bernardine with blatantly sexist and racist slurs
Hey,I saw Bernardine speak at the Memorial Day Rally in Berkeley for People’s Park in May,1969.She had it going on.
Bill,we who knew you when have much love for you.I had my own issues with Weather but y’all “dared to struggle,dared to win”when many of us were scared to jeopardize our middle class comforts by taking the chances you did.
In Sept,1969.we did a “Days of Rage”at the International Industrialists Conference in San Francisco in which I took a bust and a beatdown.I always saw were we a precursor to the rumble in Chi-town the following month.
Keep on representing.The work of the Sixties is not yet over.
Dougie, you might be right. You and your ilk may yet destroy this nation. What lofty goals you have, flower child!
My flowers are THORNS.
Let me tell you something real as hell.What damage Bill Ayers,Bernardine and all the horrible terrible Weatherfolks did back in 1969-1976,completely PALES in comparison to what US Foreign policy did to the people of the world during the Vietnam era.
Its like the damage you get from a mosquito bit to being burned at the stake.
Bloggers,
This bickering sets a poor example for the little people. Everyone is trying to be a leader and it seems no one is following. We are all the subject of the opening proposition concerning the illiterate woman. We seek validation of our experience and moral philosophy, but virtually meager acknowledgement is posted by other bloggers.
It’s so obviously simple. The woman wastes her time searching for food and water when she could simply sign up for food stamps. Similarly, we poorly use our time in seeking validation of our identities on-line. Thus, the solution is easy.
Everyone sends money to Prof. Ayers. He in turn sends the money to me. I tour the southern states, especially New Orleans, and encourage the communities to pass an ordinance recognizing illiterate women as legal property with heavy fines liable to the property owner if his/her illiterate woman is found to be searching for food and water. Problem solved. C-B-and the rest can rest easy. The Prof. Ayers bloggers have solved the problem.
P.S. The stamp out illiteracy project will cost $300 bucks per performance for myself. Plus, around $700 for hall rental and ads. That’s very reasonable. I recommend free concerts. We’ll fix that illiterate woman’s wagon. The one with the six strange tattoo’s. Besides having a Masters in Mental Health, I’m also a pretty good blues axe player. Thanks for the forum.
Hey Timmy,
WTF are you talking about??????????????????????????????????????????
So, would the Christians please pay attention. The way we as a people treat the poor and the marginalized and the down-trodden is perhaps the most deeply considered question in the Scriptures. Distribution of wealth, the danger of money to our spirits and souls, takes up enormous space and thought. One third of the parables and a sixth of Jesus’ reported talk is focussed on this. Not a word from Jesus on the necessity of war and killing. So why are the fundamentalists and literalists not focussed on the poor, on the duty of all of us, individually and as a community, to do more to alleviate the unnecessary suffering? Surely we are all implicated in a system of militarism, war, killing, violence, usery, sweatshops, environmental degradation, and more. What should we do—on our own and as a group?