We are the biggest military behemoth ever created on Earth - Bill Ayers
Published: 15 December, 2009, 14:24
Edited: 11 January, 2010, 16:13
TAGS: Military, Protest, Politics, Budget, USA
The US can step down from a trillion military budget and stop being a militarized country, which does not fit with its self-image but is true by any objective measure, said US scholar Bill Ayers.
During the US presidential campaign, the name Bill Ayers caused quite a stir over claims he was Barack Obama's mentor.
He became known for radical activism in 1960s and used to be called a "domestic terrorist" for his radical opposition activities during the Vietnam War, but he is now a professor.
Bill Ayers said he had known Barack Obama for quite a while, being a former neighbor of the current president and serving on a couple of boards together with him, but this does not mean that one is “responsible for the other’s policies, politics history and so on,” according to Ayers.
“In reality, real Americans come in all shapes and sizes and political orientations and histories and I am one of them,’ he said.
“One of the things that is misunderstood about President Obama is he said, while doing a campaign, “I am a moderate, pragmatic, compromising politician. And people are right refusing to believe this to this day… He is a moderate politician in the American tradition and that means, that, for example, in the current situation, the general and whole weight of the American foreign policy since WWII is driving this insane policy in the Middle East and I do not think that anyone should be surprised. Disappointed – yes, but not surprised.”
Ayers pointed out that in the condition of a deep economic crisis, as the US currently is, the American people are not going to back multi-billion war expenses, “it is going to take a very short time for the American people to turn against it.”
“What we need to do now, is we need to build the biggest and widest and most profound anti-war force that this country ever seen. We need to force government not only to leave Afghanistan and Iraq but to begin to shut down military bases that we have scattered throughout the world, particularly in the Central Asia, to withdraw our trillion military budget and become a nation among nations.”
“We have to get the United States to participate in the world. The idea that we have been a force for good for the last six decades is nonsense. We won’t sign the most basic international treaties: for nuclear disarmament, against landmines, we won’t sign a children’s rights statement. Only the US and Somalia are in opposition to the declaration of children’s rights,” he concluded.
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this news piece seems to imply that it is up to the American people to change the status quo; didn't they just vote for Peace (obama)? Maybe if all americans voted this radical "democracy" theory of people ending the war might work. Or if the president actually had the power to wind down the war machine, which we all know he does not.












Stop fantasizing about Bill Ayres - he's a major creep, and he should have been for long in jail like Mumia Jabal. The only positiv thing about him is that his FBI file isn't closed and he night be anytime yanked from the street - the sooner the better . Bellow is a link to a good (and damning) recent piece about Bill Ayres from LA Weekly: "Weathermen’s Ticking Time Bomb/ The investigation into a cop killing in the ’70s leads to a Chicago law professor involved in the early stages of Barack Obama’s political career/ By PETER JAMISON/ LA Weekly September 15, 2009 at 2:49pm http://www.laweekly.com/2009-09-17/news/weathermen-s-ticking-time-bomb