Overnight Open Thread [Update]
By SusanUnPC on September 28, 2008 at 10:35 PM in Current Affairs, Economy, Open Thread
This is an open thread. Check the Asian markets- which are now open — via CNBC. I hear it’s down 450. [Update: C-Span 1 is carrying the House session, which is still going on as of 9:30 p.m. PT. House members are debating the bill, and new rules that would aid quick passage.]
Then, let’s contemplate a comparison, a possibility — especially you who have tonight gazed at Larry Johnson’s profoundly soul-wrenching photographs of the graves of those who gave their lives so long ago and who we know were heroes. We never knew them. We can never thank them. But bless them for what they did for us.
Let us compare those heroes, long silent, to another man’s history, to Bill Ayers for whose cause many died (but not as heroes). A man who has been closely associated with Barack Obama for over two decades, not just in Chicago but also who lived within a shout of Obama in New York City during Obama’s secretive years at Columbia University (those years which Obama rarely writes about or recalls). A man who but for a freak accident would have killed, with utter cruelty and for no good reason, more of our nation’s heroes:
The Ayers-Weatherman Terrorist Attack as It Might Have Happened
“Just some guy in the neighborhood” who almost blew up the Fort Dix NCO Club.
In less than the blink of an eye, the blast of eight tightly-bound sticks of dynamite shattered the brittle wooden shell of the building hastily constructed during the Second World War, adding jagged splinters and rusting nails to the shrapnel that ripped through cheap tables and chairs, taffeta and chiffon, uniforms, and flesh.
Before the concussive shock waves reverberated off nearby buildings, half a dozen human beings closest to the outside wall of the NCO Club became mist.
The roof, lifted skyward by the explosion and suddenly absent a supporting wall as it returned to earth, crashed down on the dead and dying. Leaking bottles from the shattered bar fed the rapidly spreading flames, and deafened, dazed and bleeding survivors crawled or stumbled towards escape in ones and twos.
As soldiers from nearby buildings ran to help the bleeding and burned, a carefully-crafted 12″ pipe-bomb studded with roofing nails hidden in a nearby trash can went off, turning rescuers into additional victims.Just outside Fort Dix confused onlookers sat in stunned amazement, as a pair of nondescript young women nervously laughed and counted ambulances for a half hour before losing count and heading back to the townhouse in Greenwich Village. The message had been sent.
Though he would have no way of knowing it at the time, the Weatherman’s attack on the non-commissioned officer’s dance would stand as the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil for 25 years, 1 month, and 13 days, until Timothy McVeigh drove into Oklahoma City and infamy.
Of course, that isn’t how history unfolded.
Instead of counting ambulances as a measure of their handiwork on the night of March 6, 1970, a dazed and panicking Kathy Boudin was running from police, and the remains of Diana Oughton were scattered in the rubble of the townhouse basement, as the bomb she was helping build went off, killing her, Terry Robbins, and Theodore Gold.
A careless movement, inadvertent twitch, poor design, or perhaps an act of God stopped the Weathermen from carrying out their attempt to dramatically and lethally escalate their war against the United States. … (Read all.)
And now, an open thread:
by Ronald Scott
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