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It felt to me like I was living my life in a way that didn’t make mockery of my values. That’s what I intended to do. So, that became a very radicalizing proposition for me.

Bill Ayers

When [my dad] was at the University of Michigan, my mom was a social-worker. As he rose, he voted for [Adlai] Stevenson initially. Then he voted for [Dwight] Eisenhower. Then he kept voting Republican until he voted for Barack Obama.
BILL AYERS

Dad Mom Social Views Voted Worker
We should open our eyes, see what’s in front of us, and act.
BILL AYERS

Eye Fronts Should
Lyndon Johnson who was the president who was executing that war, announced in the spring of 1968 that he would not seek the presidency again. He would go to Paris and end the war in Vietnam. Well we were ecstatic.
BILL AYERS

Country President Spring War
In terms of my own behavior and activity, the funny thing about regrets and saying “I’m sorry,” is that there’s so much I would do differently and want to do differently moving forward.
BILL AYERS

Moving Regret Sorry
It felt to me like I was living my life in a way that didn’t make mockery of my values. That’s what I intended to do. So, that became a very radicalizing proposition for me.
BILL AYERS

Life Living Mockery.Way
I taught. I lectured at universities. I spoke to my students. I spoke in certain public forums. But what I didn’t do was respond to microphones being thrust in my face and saying, what is your relationship with Obama and are you an unrepentant terrorist?
BILL AYERS

Faces Students Taught
There was a sense of palpable relief that George [W.] Bush was leaving and that the Republicans had slipped back and that was a wonderful feeling.
BILL AYERS

Feelings Leaving relief
I suffer from a genetic flaw, which is that my mother was a hopeless Pollyanna.
BILL AYERS

Hopeless Mother Suffering
The president of the University said that night, congratulations to you the students, you’ve won a great victory, now the war will end. And I’m certain that he believed it that night and I believed it and we went away happy. Four days later, Martin Luther King was assassinated.
BILL AYERS

Assisted Congratulations Kings War
Education is the motor-force of revolution.
BILL AYERS

Force Motor Revolution
After I had known [Barack Obama] for a while, I remember saying to my partner, “You know, this guy is really ambitious, I think he wants to be Mayor of Chicago.” That was the limit of my imagination.
BILL AYERS

Guy Imagination Thinking
I’m different in the sense that every minute of every day, I change. I’m thinking. But the basic principles that have powered me forward are still there. They’re not different.
BILL AYERS

Different Principles Thinking
If you were against slavery in 1840 and a white person, you would have been against the law, the Bible, your church, your pastor, your parents, common sense, tradition, everything. You would have been against everything.
BILL AYERS

Common Law Sense White
It’s the height of the Cold War, but I grew up in apolitical family and politics wasn’t on the agenda.
BILL AYERS

Agendas Height War
I’m wary of government. Part of [the Tea Party] impulse is to dislike and be worried about the rich. I’m that way too. So I don’t find them to be as atrocious as most people do, as your liberals do. I’m not a liberal.
BILL AYERS

Government Party People
Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon.
BILL AYERS

Day Ideals Pentagon

It felt to me like I was living my life in a way that didn’t make mockery of my values. That’s what I intended to do. So, that became a very radicalizing proposition for me.

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It felt to me like I was living my life in a way that didn’t make mockery of my values. That’s what I intended to do. So, that became a very radicalizing proposition for me.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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