A comment by dan in this post about Ayers-Dohrn-Obama:
The older I get (I’m 31) the more I realize the greatest asset of our foreign enemies is that they have a lot of big voices in the USA who convince Americans that these enemies simply don’t exist, and in fact are only the manipulative fabrications of American conservatives. This apparently leads many, many Americans to believe that their only real enemies are their fellow citizens. If you hold such a view, ask yourself - as a preliminary matter - if you really think this makes sense. But secondly, look. I realize a lot of you Boomers - and my peers - got co-opted during your bright and effervescent youth to believe that “radicalism” just meant equal rights and freedom and a critique of materialism and more love and harmony. And I realize a lot of that emotion is good and genuine and one I share and I think most people share when they’re in their teens and in that first lovely bubble of irresponsibility. I also know that during the 60s over 50% of the country’s populace was under 25 years old, and can imagine what an impact all this must have made.
But the fact is, you have been miseducated or simply not educated about the nature of radicalism - you have been deceived and used, and you continue to be deceived and used, largely because you have been told and seem to believe that unless you espouse these views and cleave to these sympathies it means that you *can’t* love equal rights and more harmony and freedom and be suspicious of materialism. But mainly the problem is that it *blinds* you to the realities of the world outside our borders and especially of the nature of Communism, Socialism and of the USSR. It even blinds to you to wondering Hey - what *is* a police state, anyway, and why is it all the most Socialist governments are the most brutal police states?
Ayers-Dohrn are not just play-acting Commnist revolutionaries, they are actual Communist revolutionaries. Go Google “SDS KGB” and you will see a link to an FBI file released in 1976 per the Freedom of Information Act detailing SDS and Weathermen meetings in Czechoslovakia in 1967 and in Havana in 1969 and 1970. Read up on the Venona transcripts’ revelations about the CPUSA. Ask yourself weather Jeremiah Wright’s rantings don’t sound a little…well, Leninist, don’t they? Recall - as you will see photocpied in the 1976 FBI report - the “radicals’” regard for the significance of “black nationalism” in the USA as an instrument with which to subvert “US imperialism” from within. Recall Ayers’ and Dohrn’s actual activities. Ask yourself whether your belief that “well, people change” is really more important than the rational inference that maybe they *don’t* change - they just learn how to work within the system. Have you, dear Reader, changed so much? Perhaps you have. But consider: this is not a popularity contest that we will all be voting for this November, the winner will be in the seat of the power propping up all credible international peace, including the globalized economy. The winner - and his friends. Really, even if you love Obama - and he is a charming and impressive guy - go Google SDS KGB, and tell me you aren’t a little concerned.