Bill Ayers on Reforming Education

For the Monday 15 December 2008 edition of Subversity, we chatted with former Weather Underground member and Prairie Fire theoretician and current education professor (U of Ill. at Chicago) Bill Ayers. As Obama is about to name a new cabinet member in charge of education, we asked him what are the prospects for educational reform in the new administration, as well as to reflect his days under the national spotlight during the recent presidential campaign.

Ayers was last on Subversity 12 April 2002, promoting his book, Fugitive Days, which has just now been reissued by Beacon Press with a new afterword. After we re-aired our 2002 interview during the last month of the recent presidential campaign, the rightwing media "discovered" the audio. Unauthorized clips of the broadcast were aired by such conservative hosts as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, while text from the interview made it on to The National Review. The audio also showed up in a video that tried to smear Obama. The smear campaign, of course, did not stick.

The rightwing media seemed especiallly concerned that he revealed during his Subversity interview that "I'm as much an anarchist as I am a Marxist which is to say I find a lot of the ideas in anarchism appealing." The rightwing media made a big deal that later that week (of our 2002 interview) he served on an academic panel with Obama.

See also:

Bill Ayers blog: billayers.wordpress.com

Bill Ayers, "The Real Bill Ayers," New York Times, 5 December 2008 (op ed).

Beacon Press' Fugitive Days site: www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?SKU=3277

Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn on Democracy Now:

14 November 2008: Part 1

24 November 2008: Part 2

Rightwing video using Subversity audio: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xBlTdsnOh8 This youtube video has now been viewed over 82,000 times, most of the viewings before the election;at 5:32 credit for audio is given to "University of Irvine" Subversity show.

Blogger with clip from Fox News crediting KUCI-FM for Ayers quote: patriotroom.com/ayers-2002-radio-interview-i-am-a-marxist-i-am-an-anarchist-i-regret-nothing/

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