FACEOFF: The legacy of William Ayers: Radical’s selfishness left trail of innocent victims

So we should forgive William Ayers his past because he is now a prolific writer, community activist and received a misguided “Citizen of the Year” award? And if we don’t we are “promoting a trajectory of hate?”

Ayers, a son of great privilege, may be highly educated and eloquent. That, however, does not give him a free pass in life. I take him at his word that he did not “intend to hurt anyone.” Narcissists rarely think of anyone else. But the fact is he did. And the people he hurt did not grow up with silver spoons and all the attendant advantages.

The ones he hurt were the everyday, middle-class, often-anonymous heroes, usually with little kids. The police officers who clock in and out every day saving lives, everyone’s, and protecting our world —- everybody’s world. All that the Weathermen’s “statements” did was injure at least 28 police officers and a handful of private citizens.

So that no one says I’m bending the truth, I am taking everything from Wikipedia. Look up the “Days of Rage” riot yourself. A Chicago lawyer was paralyzed by Weathermen, not Ayers, but Ayers apologized to him for his part in the action.

Not intent on leaving good enough alone, though, Ayers did have to add that he did not disavow his militant beliefs. How comforting to a man in a wheelchair.

In those Chicago riots, scores of police officers were injured as the protesters attacked “ordinary cars, a barber shop … and the windows of lower-middle-class homes as well as police cars.” Real symbols of an imperialist society, aren’t they? A couple of nights later, the Weathermen uncovered a police informant, who was then severely beaten by one member of the group (again, not Ayers). However, Larry Grathwohl, an FBI informant, stated, “Ayers, along with Bernardine Dohrn (his wife), probably had the most authority within the Weathermen.”

Ayers and Dohrn’s group also blew up a statue. The blast broke almost 100 windows and blew pieces onto the nearby Kennedy Expressway. I don’t think Pentagon bureaucrats came to the aid of the injured motorists then, either. This time I’ll wager it was the firefighters.

Police. Firefighters. They were not the high-level Cabinet officials that decided whether we should go to, or stay in, Vietnam. Many were probably just back from, or on their way, there themselves in the 1960s. Some might have lost friends or brothers in the conflict and were still in mourning, but risking their lives to protect their city anyway. Perhaps it was their only way to have life make sense for them.

Most were not prolific writers of erudite topics, with doctorate degrees, going to cocktail parties and holding forth on obscure topics. They didn’t win “Citizen of the Year” awards, unfortunately. Yet ensconced in his intellectual world of ignorance and privilege (as Ms. Breault seems to be), untouched by the dirty reality of the consequences of his actions, Ayers did not even give these men a second thought.

I guess they were just considered “collateral damage” to Bill Ayers’ right to self-indulgent self-expression.

> JoEllen Smith, an education activist in east Cobb, lives in Marietta.