User:Tillman/Bill Ayers additions

Ayers is an active supporter of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian Revolution. Ayers' son Chesa Boudin worked as an intern on President Chavez's staff in 2005. According to Ayers, Boudin's book on the Bolivarian revolution "has played an important part in countering the barrage of lies spread by the U.S. State Department and the corrupted Northamerican media." Ayers has made at least four trips to Venezuela as an invited guest of the Chavez government.

Current political views, 2006 - 2008, v.4f
In 2006, Ayers referred himself as a communist and revolutionary, in an interview  for the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. Ayers denies ever having been a terrorist, stating in 2006 that the "US forces in Viet Nam were terrorists". Ayers opposes military recruiting in US high schools, arguing that military culture has a "corrosive impact on education." He believes that "Military schools and programs depend on logics of racism, conquest, misogyny and homophobia."

Ayers has criticized the Bush Administration's response to the September 11 attacks, writing that "they pulled out their most ambitious plans to create a new American empire, to remake the world to their liking, to suppress dissent, ... to scuttle aspects of the law that checked their power, to deliver the country ... into the hands of the radical right ..." In 2006, he proposed "to impeach the criminal heading up this cabal" and to "prepare for the criminal trials these domestic hijackers deserve." In 2007, Ayers described the Surge in Iraq as "a gang rape ... in progress."

Ayers is an active supporter of the educational reforms of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian Revolution, writing in 2006 that "education is the motor-force of revolution." Ayers has made at least four trips to Venezuela as an invited guest of the Chavez government.

Current political views, 2006 - 2008, v. 5d
In a 2006 interview, Ayers referred to himself as a communist and revolutionary. Ayers denies ever having been a terrorist, writing in 2006 that the "US forces in Viet Nam were terrorists". Ayers opposes military recruiting in US high schools, arguing that military culture has a "corrosive impact on education." In 2008, he wrote (with coauthors) that "military schools and programs depend on logics of racism, conquest, misogyny and homophobia."

Ayers has strongly criticized the Bush Administration's response to the September 11 attacks. In 2006, he rhetorically proposed "to impeach the criminal heading up this cabal" and to "prepare for the criminal trials these domestic hijackers deserve." In 2007, Ayers described the Surge in Iraq as "a gang rape ... in progress."

Ayers supports the educational policies of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian Revolution, writing in 2006 that "education is the motor-force of revolution." Ayers has made at least four trips to Venezuela as an invited guest of the Chavez government.

Praise and Criticism of Ayers
Now that the election is over, we need to add a section on notable criticism and praise of Ayers. The relevant BLP policy is here; specifically, ''Criticism and praise of the subject should be represented if it is relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to take sides; it needs to be presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. . .''

Anticipating that this could become controversial, here is a proposed draft for a new section to be added to our article:

Praise for Ayers and his work
In 1997 Chicago awarded him its Citizen of the Year award for his work on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge project.

William C. Ibershof, formerly the lead federal prosecutor for the Weather Underground case, wrote in 2008: "Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen."

Ayers was elected Vice President for Curriculum Studies by the American Educational Research Association in 2008. William H. Schubert, a fellow professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, wrote that his election was "a testimony of [Ayers'] stature and [the] high esteem he holds in the field of education locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally."

Wall Street Journal columnist Thomas Frank praised Ayers as a "model citizen" and a scholar whose "work is esteemed by colleagues of different political viewpoints."

Criticism of Ayers and his work
Radical bomber Jane Alpert criticized Bill Ayers in 1974 "for his callous treatment and abandonment of Diana Oughton before her death, and for his generally fickle and high-handed treatment of women."

In 2001, Ayers published a memoir, Fugitive Days, to mixed but largely negative reviews. For example, Timothy Noah's 2001 Slate Magazine review says he can't recall reading "a memoir quite so self-indulgent and morally clueless as Fugitive Days." By contrast, Studs Terkel called the book "a deeply moving elegy to all those young dreamers who tried to live decently in an indecent world."

Neoconservative education reformer Sol Stern is a long-term critic of Ayers; he has "studied Mr. Ayers's work for years and read most of his books." Stern has written three critiques of Ayers' career as an education reformer for City Journal. His criticism in a nutshell: "Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer." .

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What do you think?

Hopefully we can work out a consensus version here, and avoid edit wars at the article.