PrintFebruary 3, 2011
Bill Ayers's 'Crystal Chaos'
In doing research for my book, "Deconstructing Obama," which will be in the bookstores next week, I came upon a passage from Bill Ayers's 2001 memoir "Fugitive Days" that bears reflection in light of the madness that has settled on Egypt.
In the way of background, a little more than a year ago Ayers and 1400 of his radical pals from around the world descended on Egypt like a plague of frogs. Egypt was to be a staging ground for their proposed "freedom ride" to Gaza.
The Mubarak government allowed only 100 of the activists to board the busses, but the noisy 1300 left behind, including Ayers and wife Bernardine Dohrn, made Mubarak wish that he had gotten one-way tickets for the lot of them.
"Our direct actions and demonstrations seem to be awaking Egypt, a little," wrote activist-journalist Philip Weiss of the group's various protests, "and getting a lot of publicity."
Whether the organizers of Egypt's recent "Day of Rage" were paying homage to the Weathermen's notorious 1969 "Days of Rage" is unclear, but the sentiments Ayers expressed about those days could warm a Jihadist heart.
"The streets became sparkling and treacherous with the jagged remains of our rampage," wrote Ayers of his window-breaking spree through the streets of Chicago. He then waxed nostalgic, describing the mayhem as "crystal chaos."
Thirty years before the Weathermen did Chicago, Nazi thugs staged their own days of rage in Germany. They called their window-breaking spree "Kristallnacht" or "Crystal Night" in English. Ayers is too sophisticated not to know what he was saying.
The more important question is whether his protégé knew what Ayers was saying. President's Obama's actions in the next few weeks may just provide an answer.
