The Justice

No, the Ayers group did not end the Vietnam War. North Vietnam did.

If the "rules" in Vietnam had been applied to the Middle East, the Arab-Israel War might well have long been ended.

It would probably be useful if we followed constitutional procedure and had Congress determine if we are to go to war. Vietnam followed, I believe, the precedent of war with congressional declaration.

Too bad Democrats were in the White House. Have a hunch that if a Republican had done what Presidents Truman and Johnson did, the media would have taken note and Congress would likely have drafted articles of impeachment.

Consider: measures were taken against the Branch Davidians that were fairly unpleasant and with a Republican as president might well have been decried as "torture." Oh yes -- and some 70 people were killed.

At a congressional hearing, then Rep. Schumer focussed on ...the NRA, which had, I believe, nothing at all to do with David Koresh. Perhaps my memory is flawed, but I do not recall much criticism of the Clinton administration -- certainly there was no outcry from the media. (I would have written "firestorm," not "outcry" but for the tragic end of that siege.

It is all well and good for commencement speakers and others to urge involvement, responsibility, questioning. In practice, we seem to have less diversity of thought than the speakers of this season would seem to
advocate. But then, Justice Brennan, in New York Times v. Sullivan, pointed to our free speech tradition which allowed for robust debate and "unpleasant" criticism. Seems to me that kind of talk would, coming from a conservative, be denounced for meanspiritedness, even hate speech.

I do not recall, my Brandeis days, much criticism of FDR's NRA program.
Back then, FDR was, I believe, untouchable, in the academic communnity.
Dean Leoonard W. Levy indicated in a con law class I attended that
reaction to Supreme Court decisions "depends on whose ox is gored."

In our day, this observation has, I believe, become a fortiori.

Bill Ayers asked the audience "what you did this morning for peace"

Well, I did not blow up any police stations or military dance halls, or loose the life of my girl friend because a bomb I had asked her to build blew up.

Bill, what dis you do for peace this morning?

Bill Ayers asked the audience "what you did this morning for economic democracy"

Well, I went to work at my own privitely owned company and made a profit selling goods and servies to my customers who freely chose to buy from me in the free market capitalic demicratic economy. This profit allows me to pay my workers, their health care benifits, pay taxes, buy more supplies from other privitely owned companies so they can make a profit for all these same reasons.

Bill, what did you do to generate any wealth this morning?

Ayers did something I respected very much at this event: he admitted that his generation had the great shame of failing to stop the Vietnam war. I don't want to come off as gloating that an old man conceded defeat, because I'm not a jerk, but, for the longest time I've heard people worshipping the 60's ("the music was better, the activism was better, even the sex was better," Ayers said, poking fun at the phenomenon), when in the end, what did they do but elect Nixon, right? They did fail to stop the Vietnam War.

And because that admission has been made, I feel like I can move forward. Yes, they failed, Nixon continued the war, there were so many more Vietnamese deaths, but when in the world had their been real protest to war? They started something; speaking for myself, I think I'm up to finishing it.