Thursday, November 24, 2005

Happy Thanksgiving to me (and everybody else, as well)!

As something for which I may be thankful, Ira Smolensky has published another of his silly columns in the Daily Review Atlas,* and I have transcribed it for all to read, at Friday's Klips: Again, on Ayers at Monmouth (and other things).

I rather expected Ira to not see the subtext to my words, when I gave him a really spiffy quote. I was not disappointed. I guess he assumed that he had caught me out in a sort of hypocrisy, for saying that Ayers and his ilk and his times, and those who would pay to bring him here, should be brought into the light. For reasons known best to the far left, he believed that meant I should accept that it's a good thing to pay a terrorist to come and propagandize to our youth, because it deserves discussion.

In fact, he missed the primary point, which was, nobody in this community but me had bothered to tell the public who Ayers really was. They tried to present him as "an activist who is also a respected instructor and leading voice in progressive education" more or less. (The whole part where he and his pals conspired to blow up Americans... well, that was just a youthful indiscretion, and has no bearing on his current status as an activist/teacher. Uh huh.) It was THEY who tried to keep secrets, by not presenting his full background.

I'm still offended that they paid Ayers. One can discuss the times fully well without hiring one of its more famed terrorists to defend himself. And, worse, he didn't defend himself. He came here to sell his message to the new generation. The leftist faculty -- Ira included -- bought it, hook line and car bomb.

Poor Ira also missed a few points when he decided that Ayers was a better man than Robert E. Lee, "because Ayers killed fewer people", and that was (in Ira's estimation) why Ayers was unforgiven, while Lee had passed into the hallowed halls a Great American Patriot (or some such). Well, Ira, I want to thank you for giving me the biggest laugh since Andy Kaufman's "Oklahoma" performance on SNL. For starters, people forgave Lee after... uh... lessee, about three generations. He was respected as a general, but reviled by northerners in textbooks until well into the 20th century, as a defender of slavery (well, duh! didn't you just say the same about him, Ira?). But, we, as a nation, could afford to forgive him because he surrendered. He sacrificed everything he held dear, in order to protect his country, Virginia, in much the same way that the "new Europe" is going to have to fight, when joining the EU, becoming the property of France. At the end of the War to Preserve the Union, Lee lost all but his title. His home was turned into the largest cemetery in the country, wherein lie the remains of our bravest. For the rest of his days, he looked out upon the thousands of tombstones his armies had brought to being. Lee didn't get off easy for his actions, and he bore his punishment with a grace few modern men could muster. More than that, though, Lee is forgiven because he asked the rest of the armies to do the same, to put down their weapons, forgive their enemies, and begin to heal this nation.

I don't recall Ayers suggesting any such notion.

Ira concludes that "Ayers, tactics aside, was on the right side. I think that's just too painful a pill for some people to swallow."

Wow. "tactics aside". That's one helluva big issue to toss in the dustbin. Might we go from there to, "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?" Something is hard to swallow, Ira, but I don't think it's the same pill you think it is.



*whose editors have kindly printed my weekly column, at no cost to me



Update: It has been brought to my attention (over a fine holiday feast, no less), that, while no one else from the community mentioned anything about Ayers' shady past, there were at least a half dozen rational voices, within the faculty of Monmouth College, to object to this misuse of college money and reputation. My alma mater is not completely overrun by fuzzy-thinking leftists. For that, too, I give thanks.

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