The mother of all bail-outs is upon us– approaching a trillion dollars in federal funds, that is, in tax-payer’s money, to get the big gamblers and hustlers and sharpies off the hook– and it’s way beyond global. Let’s call it galactic or stratospheric. It is awesome, and the questions just keep on coming:
When the big guys were raking in super-profits, we were not invited to the table to share the wealth, so why are we now told we must share the pain?
Isn’t this socialism for the rich?
If “government is the problem” and the genius of the “free market” the solution to everything from health care and education to national defense and public safety, why are the marketeers in line with their hands out?
We were told repeatedly by the powerful that there wasn’t enough money for decent health care for all, wonderful schools for poor kids, and support for a life of dignity and purpose for the elderly, so how did a trillion dollars suddenly materialize?
Further if full and generous funding for education and health care would turn ordinary, hard-working citizens into lazy, dissolute louts– that’s what they said– then what can we hope for the moral well-being of the financial wizards?
Is the government of the people, by the people, for the people, or has it finally become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Finance, Big Oil, and Big Pharma?
We were reminded that our patriotic duty required that we support a war-of-choice costing $500,000 per minute, but who profits, and who suffers in war?
I’m just asking…
Bill Ayers 
This hatred is embarrassing, and is of no surprise in the current political climate under the influence of Atwater/Rovian politics. Just embarrassing. The Republican Party, and I’m going to be kind here, is a necrotic wound of a party, eaten inside out of its principles and dignity by bigots and oafs. I beg a few questions there, but I said I’d be kind.
I think this is a time where the older definitions of socialism etc. are starting to shift. They’re changing under the duress of history. No need to get too technical here, but I think this is partly due to political perversion of language. It’s the sort of Orwellian Newspeak that’s essentially anti-social as it destroys consensus meaning–the most difficult thing we can attempt to do is communicate. Without going into too much here, I think it’s definitely an outgrowth of a consumerist culture that devalues our core beliefs. Packages them. However, that doesn’t really matter much. Not right now.
I just want our language to be executable. I want it to retain something of reality. With our current neoliberal economic model, I see that as nearly impossible. I hope for a renaissance, not a revolution. For economic justice and solidarity. I hope for education so that we can end the contemptuous manipulation by the upper class. I feel like we have this in common Mr. Ayers and I’m sorry that the American people, a people who professes to believe in redemption, who professes to side with the underdog, cannot see the good you have accomplished.
Kelly
Socialism is always for the rich. It taxes income but not wealth. This stops mobility up or down and locks in the classes. forever.
You should be executed for treason. I hope I live to see that day, you pig. You are no different than Timothy McVey. He got what he deserved, now it’s your turn. Enjoy your 15 minutes now. One day the courts system will remember you and you cowardous acts AGAINST your own country.
Bill Ayers world view is harmful to the US……yet he continues to live in a country that provides him a platform for “free speech”. He dedicates his book to Sirhan Sirhan!!! He is a professor…….why?
You, Bill Ayers, have been dupped……Yes, you have been dupped!!! By whom, you ask? Read your Bible and you will discover that Satan is alive and well and is determined to kill and destroy……………I pray for your soul.
Thanks for all you did to the end the war. If more people had been willing to make the sacrifices you made, and take the stand you took, the war would have been over much sooner. It’s stunning after all these years to hear people talk as though they have no idea what went on during the Vietnam War. I guess that explains why it was so easy to take us into Iraq and why we can’t get out. I’m sorry you have been vilified by the media and the right in this country.
Kevin
I’ve read excepts from Professor Ayers book on John Locke, and thought he might appreaciate this quote: “…Whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command to compass that upon the subject which the law allow not, ceases in that to be a magistrate, and acting without authority may be opposed, as any other man who by force invades the right of another.” –John Locke
Hi Professor Ayers,
I saw the documentary,”The Weather Underground” and was overwelmed how those in “power” at that particular time frame suppressed any idea of revlolution and how they attempted to neutralize leaders and free thinking individuals. I find it ironic and problematic that as human beings in the U.S. were encouraged to stand up for what we believe is right and how in the Decalaration if Independence cleary states that it is our fundamental civil duty to overthrow the existing government when there is concrete oppression and it has lost the faith of the people, then if we do Congress has the exclusive right to raise an army and has the right to suppress rebellions. Now in this time frame, if you choose to step up to the plate and do anything politically active, I encourage those who feel flustered and aggravted as myself to re-exanine the revolutionary tactics practiced in the American Revolution and other forms of violent approaches to remember what Gandhi said,” An Eye for and Eye will only make the whole world Blind” and to listen to John Trudell’s DNA Descendent Now Ancestor Spoken word CD for additional insight. Yes we are in a revolution, if we approach the arena with open minds and open hearts, we will evolve and solve these problems at a more accelerated and productive rate. I am well aware of the New World Order and the brutual forces that exist on this Earth, incedently it does have a begining and will have an end. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE, THE ANIMALS, and THE EARTH!!