Sunday, October 12, 2008

Quick Thought About Ayers

I've been in contact with someone who, though he never bought any explosives for the purpose, began a book with the sentence, "Every morning when I wake up, I ask myself if I should write or blow up a dam."

The idea that everyone should separate themselves from people whose views differ wildly, even dangerously, from their own (exemplified not only by the Ayers thrust, but by McCain's anger at Obama's desire to talk with unfavorable leaders) isn't just absurd, it's xenophobic enough to be dangerous in its own right. Fits right in with McCain's inability to look at Obama in the first debate, when you think about it. So I'm happy that the Ayers attacks, if anything, have backfired for the McCain campaign.


I think it's also worth pointing out that the attack probably would have worked six years ago. Its miserable failure among anyone who isn't a loyal soldier in the right-wing machine represents the emergence of new values, and, to a certain extent, a different country from the one we've (mostly) lived in for the past eight years. Who knows what this new place will be like, or whether it will last, but things already have changed.

1 comment:

  1. I think this means that the original branding of the 'war on terror' is not only tautological but meaningless. The thoughtlessness it has engendered is just an echo chamber for the untethered fantasies of the religious hard right.

    How about prosecuting global economic terrorism?

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