[Peace-discuss] Call for co-sponsors Tom Hayden Talk March 30

[C. G. Estabrook]

I have no objection to co-sponsorship, but I do suggest we look 
carefully at the actual positions of those who are suddenly finding it 
appropriate to label themselves anti-war.

We have the slippery Barack Obama proclaiming himself the anti-war 
candidate, when he's not, at all.  See his bill, which he calls "The 
Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007": he supports the achievement of 
Bush's war aims by means of tactical readjustment.  And according to 
Anne Miller, the head of New Hampshire Peace Action, he refuses to vote 
against the supplemental appropriation for the war.

Hayden's views on the war seems to have changed a good bit recently, 
too, and we perhaps should be only a bit disquieted by Gore Vidal's jibe 
from long ago: "Tom Hayden is the kind of politician who gives 
opportunism a bad name." We might be able to judge how his views have 
changed in his upcoming talk if we note what Alex Cockburn wrote about 
him in CounterPunch a year and a half ago:

============

Right now there's a big argument going on about exit strategies and 
schedules from Iraq. Cindy Sheehan and many say Out Now. Then the 
responsible politicos say, Be realistic. Start to leave at the end of 
'06. Stan Goff took a few lusty swings at Tom Hayden on this site 
<http://www.counterpunch.org/goff08252005.html>, on this very matter of 
scheduling. He got attacked as being (a) nasty and abusive, and (b) 
being divisive and unrealistic.

I wrote Stan a note, as follows:

"Jesus Christ, this is like being suffocated by a dead ostrich. There's 
nothing wrong with vigorous invective. The left doesn't get places often 
because it's way TOO polite, too reluctant to air differences, too 
polite about people like Tom Hayden when they are selling a pwog 
Democrat line.

"Tom has done some good things and he's done some bad things. In 1982 I 
wrote in the Village Voice that in the National Gallery in Washington DC 
there are 134 portraits of Benedict Arnold. None look alike. All 
resemble Tom Hayden. Why did I write that? Because Tom Hayden and Jane 
Fonda flew to the advance Israeli positions from which the Israeli 
gunners were indiscriminately (NYT reporter Tom Friedman's word, 
censored at the time) shelling Beirut, to show solidarity with Israeli 
forces and to bolster Tom's political position in California. People who 
raised the issue of justice for Palestinians were told year after year 
that it was a 'divisive' issue to raise, would rock the boat, set the 
cat among the pigeons, cause ructions. So the Democratic Party never has 
dealt with it.

"I haven't the slightest idea what Tom H says now about Israel and 
Palestinians, but like hundreds of others prominent in the DP through 
70s and 80s, he cost us all, most of all the Palestinians, very dear by 
his prudence. I looked at the PDA site last week and saw a parcel of 
shredded platitudes about internationalizing the occupying force. You 
were quite right to make fun of that kind of blather. This 
'internationalization' line reminds me of the prudent line back in 2002 
and 2003, before invasion, when a lot of people wrapped up the antiwar 
message in talk about a UN force. Very polite, and totally unrealistic, 
since the UN is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US.

"We aren't, thank God, a fascist country here, like Germany was in WW2, 
but suppose the Germans had been able to speak freely, would they have 
been talking in 1942 about a withdrawal of German forces from the Soviet 
Union beginning at the end of 1943? No, by mid-42 any sane German would 
have been saying AUS NOW. And they would have been realistic, because by 
the end of 43 most of the German soldiers were dead or captives. Do you 
want to tell all those US soldiers sent to Iraq that they should ride 
around in their Humvees waiting to get blown up till the end of 2006 
when withdrawal can commence on a schedule that preserves PDA 
credibility. If so, they'll have a lot of explaining to do, to mothers 
like Cindy Sheehan."

==============

And a similar judgment from another blogger, less than a year ago:

==============

Tom Hayden finds the center vital

Once again Tom Hayden (a man who gives opportunism a bad name, as 
somebody once said) shows us -- at The Nation, where else -- what a very 
awful place SDS/Port Huron types can get themselves into, given enough 
time and thwarted ambition:

     "Democrats are slowly but surely uniting around a plan for military 
withdrawal designed by the Center for American Progress, a think tank 
linked to Clinton-era Democrats and headed by former White House Chief 
of Staff John Podesta.

     "Not all the party leaders agree. Senator Hillary Clinton continues 
to posture as a military hawk. Senator Joe Biden wants to dilute and 
divide Iraq into three sectarian enclaves. Neither Senator Charles 
Schumer nor Representative Rahm Emanuel, who are charged with winning 
November's elections, have a coherent message on Iraq....

     "The core propositions of the CAP paper point to a nearly complete 
US withdrawal in the next eighteen months:

         "* Immediately reduce our troop presence at a rate of 9,000 per 
month to a total of 60,000 by the end of 2006, and to 'virtually zero' 
by the end of 2007
         "* Bring home all National Guard units this year"

Okay -- but watch closely now as the re- comes into re-deploy:

         "* Double the number of US troops in Afghanistan, place an Army 
division in Kuwait, an expeditionary force in the Persian Gulf and an 
additional 1,000 special forces in Africa and Asia"

There's a lot more window-dressing, but this is the meat of it. So what 
does Tommy take away from this?

     "All disrespect aside, there is a significant acceptance of the 
peace movement's message buried in this centrist proposal."

Hey, we won! So for now

     "The peace movement should also be planning now to make it 
virtually impossible for presidential candidates to campaign 
successfully in 2008 without committing to a speedy withdrawal from Iraq."

Total, final, complete, absolutely no one in a helmet left by... 2009! 
That's "speedy", Tom? Why yes: anything speedier would be, as Tommy 
says, "a phantom extreme of 'immediate withdrawal.'"

... <http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/pwogwessives/>.


Jan & Durl Kruse wrote:
> AWARE:
> Siobhan from ICPJ has asked for our cosponsorship of the Tom Hayden talk 
> as listed below. Any objections or concerns? Siobhan hopes to hear our 
> response soon. Let me know ASAP otherwise I will communicate AWARE's 
> cosponsorship.
> JAN Kruse
> 
> On Feb 13, 2007, at 8:51 AM, Siobhan Kolar wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>     I'm helping plan the Tom Hayden talk at Holiday Inn in Urbana March
>     30. I was going to work on a flyer and wanted to know if your groups
>     would want to be listed as cosponsors?
>     The only requirement would be helping spread the word.
> 
>     Send me an email if you are interested with your group name as you
>     would like it to appear on the flyer, contact info and any other
>     details.
> 
>     I will send the flyer out soon.
> 
>     The public talk is the night preceding the IL Coalition for Peace
>     and Justice conference. If you haven't and want to, register at
>     www.ilcpj.org or contact me for more info.
> 
>     Siobhan Kolar
>     Fox Valley Citizens for Peace & Justice
>     Elgin IL
>     and
>     on behalf of Conference Planning Committee
>     ICPJ
>     www.ilcpj.org
>