Now that the election is over and President-elect Barack Obama successfully defeated Sen. John McCain, unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers has decided to break his silence and cash-in by promoting his books.
Although he described himself as "an unwitting and unwilling participant thrust up on stage" for the 2008 presidential election, he demonstrated his opportunistic traits by appearing at the All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 17 to promote his books "City Kids, City Schools: More Reports from the Front Row" and "City Kids, City Teachers: Reports from the Front Row." He criticized his portrayal by the media, calling it a "dishonest narrative."
"When I say a ‘dishonest narrative,' here's what I mean," Ayers said. "I mean the penalization of me, the creation of me as a fearsome person - somebody to be worried about and feared is false, and it's profoundly false. And, the big lie that gets perpetrate and perpetrated and perpetrated - that somehow I've killed people, that somehow I've been a violent person - all of it false and I didn't, I couldn't find a way to interrupt the demonization."
Ayers compared specifically the reporting about him on Fox News to an over-the-top scene in George Orwell's "1984."
"There were times I felt like that wonderful moment in George Orwell's ‘1984' called the ‘Two Minutes Hate,' where they would cast Emmanuel Goldstein's image on a screen up on a screen and the Party faithful would chant, ‘Kill him, kill him,'" Ayers said. "The only thing is George Orwell had quite an imagination - he couldn't imagine Fox News."
Ayers did tell the audience his father watched Fox News, but he himself didn't watch TV and was able to disassociate himself with the harsh treatment about his past. He explained he was able to deal with the spotlight by denying the image he felt he was portrayed as.
"Mostly I tried to distance myself from it since it was a caricature and a cartoon," Ayers said. "I tried to say, ‘That's not me, that's not who I am. He's has a remarkable similarity to me. He's got my name, but it's not me.'"
Ayers said he didn't welcome the spotlight and he even surprised himself by remaining calm for his recent "Good Morning America" interview Also, the University of Chicago professor said he two more books forthcoming - one a graphic novel and one about his and his wife Bernardine Dohrn's experiences in the Black Freedom movement.
