Comments on: Why Ayers matters

By: Luigi Vespuce

Luigi Vespuce — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:23:39 +0000

Ayers is a red herring! After 8 years of mostly total Republican control, we teeter on the brink of a Depression-and you’re hung up on some radical from the 60′s! You need to do what Palin says and look forward, not backward! McCain associated with skniheads & Palin sleeps with a Secessionist! BIG DEAL! Oh yeah, Biden assocaites with McCain–AND LEIBERMAN!!!!!

By: Kris Kendrick

Kris Kendrick — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:40:12 +0000

Ayers did NOT select nor appoint Obama to his position on the Annenberg Challenge Board, and that is well known. You can find this information in any number of places. Please quit cooking up crap and do some simple research.

By: BHO close friend: “…largest blood bath in America.” « GOODNESS WORLD LIFE BLOG

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:14:12 +0000

[...] http://neoneocon.com/2008/09/06/why-ayers-matters/ [...]

By: Mike Sweet

Mike Sweet — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:39:51 +0000

It’s October 8 today … I applaud your insight.
Your article was the first I heard this angle. Now I’m hearing this everywhere.

By: Steve Diamond

Steve Diamond — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:26:45 +0000

There is a very simple explanation for the presence of mainstream figures on the CAC board next to Ayers protege Obama.

The CAC was a “teacher bashing” (as one prominent teachers union activist put it) group set up to bolster Local School Councils and other organizations against the power of the Chicago Teachers Union.

The classic mistake that neo-con and the right fall into is seeing Ayers as a leftist. He is not, he is an authoritarian who came out of the New Left. The New Left had many good democratic activists in it but it also had a strong authoritarian current. They joined with the Black Panthers, for example, to fire teachers in NYC in 1968 setting off a controversial strike by mostly white teachers.

In Chicago in 1987 another strike, this time by black, hispanic and white teachers, led to the formation of an Ayers and Obama backed watchdog group called Local School Councils in 1988. Ayers got the Annenberg money to bolster the LSC’s among other project. Business groups, including one founded by Ayers father, prominent CEO Tom Ayers, supported the establishment of the LSCs.

By the mid-90s however student achievement had not improved, and the LSCs were faltering. Ayers saw the CAC money as a chance to prop them up. But the CAC board actually fought over this with Ayers and Obama on one side and mainstream board members like Arnold Weber, former President of Northwestern University, on the other. Meanwhile Ayers, Obama and Ken Rolling, the ED of the CAC (who had been at the Woods Fund where he funneled money to the LSC reform effort in the late 80s) were also up against Mayor Daley who wanted to gut the LSCs’ power and recentralize control over the schools in his hands (which he largely succeeded in doing by 2000).

Ayers’ “social justice” agenda is a recasting of his earlier neo-stalinist authoritarian world view. He still advocates violence and supports the authoritarian populist regime of Hugo Chavez.

By: Raptor Jesus

Raptor Jesus — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:59:28 +0000

Wouldn’t Axelrod’s position in his campaign be more like secretary of state? In the end, Obama’s at the helm.

By: Silent Running » Blog Archive » Too clever by half

Silent Running » Blog Archive » Too clever by half — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:54:26 +0000

[...] and Obama’s much deeper, much more extensive partnership (no, not in a legal sense) with William Ayers than he’d like everyone to believe, with greater scrutiny placed upon the agenda that Obama [...]

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:24:40 +0000

James: I think this will clear up the confusion.

By: James

James — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:53:02 +0000

I’m a little confused. Was there a NATIONAL Annenberg Challenge Foundation and a separate Chicago Annenberg Challenge Foundation, or was there only one foundation? It would be very odd indeed if the NATIONAL Annenberg Foundation allowed a 33 year old novice to take the reins of the organization and dole out the money to his Chicago cronies. On the other hand, if the Chicago Challenge Foundation was a SEPARATE from the NATIONAL Annenberg Foundation then the theory that Ayers appointed his own bumbling Elmer Fudd to guard the proverbial hen house from the Chicago Fox Machine makes a lot of sense.

Excellent post by the way and the comments have all been very insightful as well. Can anyone clear up the confusion I mentioned?

By: Carol in Oregon

Carol in Oregon — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:47:24 +0000

Thank you for this post and the links. I have been surprised and frustrated at how lean the sources are on this subject.

How can it be that the New York Times has only mentioned “Annenberg Challenge” once in 18 months, and that just in passing?

There is something criminal in the silence of “the Fourth Estate”. Otherwise, such a sexy, tantalizing story like this would have long ago been hammered out over months, and then, like “Romney is a Mormon”, echoed in a gazillion soundbytes and “insert Background paragraph here” copy blocks.

Something is really wrong here.