Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left

The 5-star and 4-star reviews of this book are excellent commentaries on this book. Braudy does a great job of dissecting the personalities of the members of the Boudin Family, their relatives, and friends including Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. I just finished reading the Obama Nation, by Jerome Corsi and used this book to refresh my memory of the horror that Boudin, Ayers, Dohrn and company inflicted on this nation during their tirade of bombings and ultimately the murder of two Nyack Police Officers (one of the police officers was the first African-American on the Nyack force). Obama is an associate, friend and colleague of both Ayers and Dohrn. Reading Family Circle will make you wonder about how someone who is running for the President of the United States would even consider associating with Ayers and Dohrn. One of the most telling incidents is the book about Ayers deals with Chesa Boudin, the son of Kathy Boudin and fellow Weatherman David Gilbert. Chesa Boudin was two years old when Kathy and David were sentence to prison for their involvement in the Nyack robbery/murder. Kathy Boudin had to give custody of Chesa to Ayers and Dohrn. Chesa Boudin experienced great emotional trauma due to his mother's incarceration. His separation from his mother caused Chesa great difficulties, including mild epileptic seizures, fighting, and tempers tantrums. Of course, what would any expect from a young child who is separated from his mother? It seems, however, that Bernadine believed that Chesa would be better off not seeing his mother and would forget Chesa's scheduled visits with his mother. Bill Ayers said of the situation that the visits were "a pain in the a$$". This comes from Ayers and Dohrn who are now involved in children's education. Ayers created the Annenberg Challenge, and school reformation project and Obama sat on the board. One can only shudder at the thought of confessed bombers being involved with the "education of children"

This fascinating book will make uncomfortable reading for committed progressives, so I am not surprised by the many negative reviews. Progressives no doubt also loathe David Horowitz's book RADICAL SON, which was a thoughtful description of the underside of the idealistic 1960s and its aftermath. FAMILY CIRCLE covers similar material and provides much food for thought. What both books make clear is that it was not a coincidence that idealistic progressives with a particular group of personal qualities and beliefs morphed into violent domestic terrorists, despite their early idealism and desire to help make a better world. The key elements seem to be: (1) Legitimate, but blown out of proportion, social grievance The terrorists who formed the Weathermen Underground: Boudin, Dohrn and Ayers and their comrades were initially motivated by legitimate issues. Their original issue was the shameful treatment of black Americans by the white American majority, and subsequently their other major focus was their opposition to the Vietnam War. But what was the connection between the awareness of legitimate social issues and the decision to kill other human beings? The link is by no means obvious, and few individuals who shared similar outrage over the same injustices took the step of turning to violence. (2) Family values that justify treason or violent revolt One of the best predicters of an individual's political party affiliation is the political affiliation of their parents. This is a somewhat humiliating confirmation of Schopenhauer's contemptuous (but overly sweeping) dismissal of the idea of free will, and it turns out to be particularly important when the political behaviour involved is extreme. When an individual decides to set out to kill people and become an enemy to one's society and government, it apparently helps to have deep, subconscious confidence in the support of loved ones for those violent acts. Kathy Boudin's parents (like David Horowitz's parents) were Communists and her father Leonard was a famous radical lawyer who defended many Communists and traitors who have subsequently, since the opening of KGB files after the fall of the USSR, been proven to have been guilty--a fact that Leonard, who was hostile to his adopted USA, probably knew when he was defending them. Tragically, Leonard Boudin went from defending Fidel Castro in the late 1950s to unsuccessfully defending his daughter Kathy in the early 1980s from charges that arose out of her participation in the violent robbery of a Brinks truck and the murders of a Brinks guard and two policemen. So just as Microsoft founder Bill Gates' father was a prominent and wealthy Seattle lawyer, it seems that that treason and terrorism often reach full flower in the nurtured next generation. But what were the values that these families specifically inculcated in their children? (3) Heroic immortality and hedonism Boudin's father was a materialist and a Communist who was flagrantly

I enjoyed reading this book very much, and recommend it to all readers. It was a fascinating look at Kathy Boudin and those radical student leftists known as the Weather Underground who declared war on America in protest to the Vietnam War.Kathy Boudin's treachery resulted in the killing of two policemen, for which she served 22 years in prison. That may not matter to the leftist readers who have given this finely written book low ratings. Ignore their hateful rantings, and judge for yourself how a bright young woman of privledge could make such a bad choice to pursue terrorist goals.Kathy left her baby with a sitter to drive a getaway van full of Black Panthers who robbed a Brink's armored truck, and actually expected to return on time to pick up her child! Instead, she was captured after the two policemen were killed, and her child was abandoned.The picture on p. 353 of one of the Weathermen stomping on an American flag gives the reader an indication that these radical leftists have no remorse for their past behavior.There is ample material on the internet concerning how leftists were able to get Kathy released on parole in 2003. Her victims left behind families that will never forget her treachery.

I found "Family Circle" a richly anecdotal and compelling view of a fascinating and complex family that happened to be at the center of radical politics in the U.S. for four decades. Through the patriarchs -- Louis Boudin and his nephew Leonard, and the clients they represented -- I came away with a vivid, though succinct, history of such celebrated causes as the denial of a passport to Paul Robeson, Daniel Ellsberg's release of the Pentagon Papers, and Benjamin Spock's anti-Vietnam war protests. With Lenoard's brother-in-law Izzy Stone and the mostly leftist New York political and cultural elite of those years in the mix, Braudy deliciously captures their machinations and sexual liaisions.But it is the author's insightful portrayal of the relationship between Leonard Boudin and his daughter Kathy that nailed me. Why such a well-educated and intellectually gifted young women would turn to violence becomes plausible as Braudy unravels the father-daughter dynamics. Perhaps if Braudy had not known Kathy as a classmate at Bryn Mawr and not had access to a candid Jean Boudin, Kathy's mother, the pyschologizing about father and daughter would not be so convincing. But Braudy's argument that Kathy sought her father's attention against stiff odds -- his workoholism, his appreciation of the legal genious his son was becoming, and his womanizing (which often targeted Kathy's friends) -- is strongly presented. Braudy's analysis shows Kathy's descent into violence as the means to not only implement her radical idealogy but to capture her father's attention, even to eventually becoming the kind of client on which he lavished almost every waking hour.This book is also a well investigated look at the workings -- and pathology -- of the Weather Underground. Their strange deprivations, harsh self-criticism, and alternating sexual promiscuity and abstinence makes engrossing reading. Braudy effectively exposes Kathy's (and the surfaced Weathermen's) strategy to downplay her role in '70s bombings and in the Black Liberation Army's murderous Brink's robbery of 1981 that resulted in her incarceration. Even if Braudy sees through the revisionism as a platform for Kathy's parole, she is not judgmental. "Family Circle" has the objective eye of a journalist also giving credit to Kathy's enormous personal strengths and leadership and her pioneering good works in prison.

I hate to say it but the real life story of the Boudins reads like a soap opera of the aristocratic left, really gives you a clear idea where moral people fighting for the oppressed really are at, makes you wonder what kind of lives they wish for others since they can't carry on a normal love or family life or abide by the laws that gave them privilege. fascinating and disturbing.