> >My friend and co-counsel Len Weinglass is being quoted on AP as saying
> >that this action by the parole board "undermines respect for the
> >law." Exactly.
>
> But from the point of view of the bourgeoisie, she consorted with
> armed revolutionaries, and should therefore be treated with no mercy,
> no?
Here's how the Murdoch New York Post's Australian import, something called "Steve Dunleavy", articulates that reasoned position (no, we didn't place this piece through our high powered PR - where is Carl Remick when we need him?):
SHE REEKS OF '60S STENCH AND DESERVES NO MERCY - EVER!
By STEVE DUNLEAVY
August 23, 2001 -- THE snake has been put back in its cage and another nail firmly hammered into the coffin of the sickening '60s.
Kathy Boudin's supporters say she's changed. Sure - she changed a security guard and two cops from living to dead.
She had no weapon on that horrible afternoon on Oct. 20, 1981, and she looked scared as two cops pulled over her U-Haul truck. Brian Lennon, an ex-Nyack cop who saw Sgt. Edward O'Grady gunned down with cowards' bullets, got it right on how a terrorist operates:
"Acting frightened, she talked the officers into lowering their guns by saying she was unarmed."
Perfect. So when the six worms jumped out of the back of the U-Haul, they had the draw on the cops, with clear shots at their victims.
Boudin once told a court: "I didn't think anything was going to happen that day."
Sure, she goes for a ride with six mutts armed to the teeth - because she thought they were going to a turkey shoot.
Boudin had already survived an explosion in Greenwich Village, where her friends from the Weather Underground were making bombs.
Oh, yeah, she knew about violence.
"I was committed to a belief in changing a system as a way of helping people," she said.
Bombs and guns. A great help to people. Where was the enemy? Where were the Nazis, the communists, the dictators?
"The meaning of my life comes from a worldwide tradition for a just and humane world," she added
She left three families without husbands and fathers.
Real humane.
I get sick and tired of her supporters telling anyone who wants to listen about all the good work Boudin has done in prison.
Ask any con who has spent time in the slammer - and I've spoken to a few - what that's all about.
"If you don't get put to death for your crime, prison bores you to death, one guy in prison told me recently.
"Once inside, you get a job, any job, to stop yourself from going mad. Guys work on getting a law degree, become born-again Christians, and help out at church services, sweep the floors, rake the yard, anything. If someone gives you a job, you're grateful for it, and if you can't get a job, you invent one."
Many of the sandal-and-guitar brigade, some of whom are bankers or Wall Streeters today, will tell you they all had a passionate cause and were fighting against the system.
The late Abbie Hoffman, who helped stoke the 1968 Democratic convention riots said, "The truth is, we would all stand around shouting at cops, calling them pigs and talking about revolution, and, in fact, none of us knew what we were talking about.
"Truth was, mostly we sat around smoking grass, drinking wine and making it with anyone we could find."
Boudin was one of the true oppressed. Right. A graduate of Bryn Mawr and the daughter of a rich lawyer.
She'll be eligible for parole in another two years. I hope she stays locked up forever.
She was as guilty of those murders as any one of the shooters, and should be shown no mercy.