[Peace-discuss] Fw: Tom Hayden: "liberal-left radicals" upsetw/Obama sell-outs are "blind" racists
Jenifer Cartwright
jencart13 at yahoo.com
Sat Sep 8 17:43:44 UTC 2012
Am positive I recently heard Chomsky repeat what he said in 2004: too much at stake not to vote for the Dems (b/c the Repubs are far far worse), but I can't find a link to that... and yes, he did endorse Stein during the primaries.
--- On Sat, 9/8/12, David Johnson <dlj725 at hughes.net> wrote:
From: David Johnson <dlj725 at hughes.net>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Fw: Tom Hayden: "liberal-left radicals" upsetw/Obama sell-outs are "blind" racists
To: "Peace-discuss" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>, "Jenifer Cartwright" <jencart13 at yahoo.com>
Date: Saturday, September 8, 2012, 9:01 AM
Chomsky ?
If I am not mistaken, Chomsky is voting for Jill
Stein of the Green party.
David J.
----- Original Message -----
From:
Jenifer
Cartwright
To: Morton KBrussel
Cc: Peace-discuss
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 8:06
PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Fw: Tom
Hayden: "liberal-left radicals" upsetw/Obama sell-outs are "blind"
racists
I feel as you do about Obama, but I'm w/ Hayden, Chomsky,
and many others on the necessity for his beating Romney/the Repubs --
hopefully enuff others do as well, so you/we don't have to find out how
much worse it can get. Those four years would be just the tip of the
tipping point for the US and the world...
--- On Fri,
9/7/12, Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu>
wrote:
From:
Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu>
Subject:
Re: [Peace-discuss] Fw: Tom Hayden: "liberal-left radicals" upset
w/Obama sell-outs are "blind" racists
To: "Jenifer Cartwright"
<jencart13 at yahoo.com>
Cc: "Peace-discuss"
<peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Date: Friday, September 7,
2012, 7:04 PM
Jenifer,
I stand by my statement. I've reread Hayden and scanned
the attached commentary.
The system is corrupt, forcing people to vote for someone they
know has committed, and is committing, horrendous harm, one who has
subverted international law and what remains of much of our
so-called democracy.
Hayden is trying to square the circle. He's grasping at straws
(if I can heap on the metaphors). I wish him well in his efforts to
mobilize constituencies to exert pressure on the power elites, but I
am deeply pessimistic for the world and this nation. I certainly could
never vote for Obama knowing what he and his cohorts have done in the
last four years and how he has protected past war criminals from being
brought to justice.
If people like me do the same, Obama might lose the election.
Then, who knows what will happen? For at least for four more years,
most common people the world over will probably suffer the
consequences. Maybe then, things will change. If Obama wins,
some bad things may be put off, but I 'll guess that the general trend
he has followed will continue.
Our society and our biosphere is in for a slow and
persistent decay on many fronts. I believe it will take a
cataclysm for this country, and the world, to be turned around, to
realize what is happening and how to change course. This does not mean
as individuals we will stop advocating and fighting for what we
believe: It is in our nature to continue doing what we can. After
all, we know we are here on earth for only a short time, but that
doesn't prevent us from doing our thing.
With our corrupt political and economic system, backed up by a
media largely in cahoots, with or without Obama as president, I cry
for the future. Obama does not deserve a pardon. Our grasping empire
does not deserve a pardon.
--mkb
On Sep 7, 2012, at 4:16 PM, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
Pls take another look Mort. Hayden does touch
on the things you said he overlooked, some in the first half
of the article. Anyhow, here's the last part of the article,
plus a Q and A at the end:
In
summary, Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq has been clouded in left
disbelief and overshadowed by criticism of his policies in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and beyond. On the merits, these
criticisms are entirely justified. When they lead to opposing
Obama’s re-election, they help Romney and the return of the
neo-cons.
WHERE
TO GO FROM HERE
The white
liberal-left, however modest in numbers, is hugely important
in a close presidential election, where the margin of
difference may be one percent or less in states with large
progressive constituencies. If Obama loses, it will be unfair
to blame the left, but they will be blamed nonetheless. As a
consequence they will become more marginal, far less able to
connect with the progressive constituencies and mass movements
with vital stakes in Obama’s re-election.
The potential
toll can be glimpsed already in the current decline of the
radical left amidst the greatest economic meltdown in seven
decades. Of course radical movements will rise again, but more
likely from the activist networks who tried to stop Romney and
re-elect Obama, not from those who sat on their hands and
believed it was all another circus.
There is plenty
of time to still make a difference. First, some people on the
left will have to become used to the idea that partial power
only brings partial results. While we can establish
enclaves for dreamers from Mendocino to Brooklyn, from Madison
to Austin, we have to win support from the center in
battleground states or risk losing decades.
The second
lesson is for self-defined radicals to be immersed in the
everyday problems of the mass constituencies that depend on
presidents to make a small margin of difference in their
lives.
One small
example of how it works: there would be no federal consent
decrees over brutal police departments were in not for Al
Sharpton hammering at Bill Clinton to include lawsuits for
unconstitutional “patterns and practices” in his otherwise
draconian Omnibus Crime legislation in 1994.
Third, election
seasons are perfect organizing moments when large numbers of
people are open to persuasion on public issues. It may be
springtime before the next cycle of activism comes around
again. Now is the time to build local lists and structures for
voter turnout in November and street turnouts thereafter.
This particular
election offers the perfect moment to build opposition to
Citizens United and “corporate personhood,” for renewed
movements for a constitutional right to vote, the deeper
regulation of Wall Street, and a constitutional right to vote
for campaigns down the road. Does anyone seriously believe
that the Dreamers and marriage-equality movements will accept
a return to second-class status without the fight of their
lifetimes?
It can be time
to begin a realignment of the electoral left as well. The
active Green Party networks need to shed their reputation as
“spoilers” just as the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
needs to shed its appearance of only “tailing” the Democrats.
Labor insurgents like National Nurses United, and even the
formidable SEIU, are demanding a more independent role in
coalition politics. One can almost feel a new politics trying
to be born in the so-called womb of the old, a third “party of
the people” both inside and outside the two-party system. What
if the Green Party decided to invest in places of the richest
electoral opportunity instead of campaigning vigorously where
the stakes are 50-50? Why not a negotiated merger of the
Greens and PDA in the close races, and PDA support for Green
candidates where they are most viable? It is entirely possible
to visualize creative leaps out of electoral traps while
strengthening an independent left within the institutions of
state power. Protestors in the streets should serve as a
permanently challenging - and threatening - disruptive
presence in constant orchestrated interaction with forces on
the inside, too, not simply serve as occasional “street heat”
to be enlisted when pressure is needed by the insiders.
Now through
November, the radical left can be the effective One Percent.
The 99 Percent will be appreciative.
For a
thoughtful left perspective, please see also Bill Fletcher and Carl Davidson's
August 9, 2012 essay.
Update on
Thursday, September 6, 2012 at 2:06PM by Tom
Hayden
My "Saving
Obama, Saving Ourselves" commentary is being circulated widely
in the blogosphere, which I am thankful for. Let me share my
responses to some of the many comments I have received in
their various incarnations.
PATHOLOGICAL
“Your
fraud-man Obama is the ultimate slick suave lick-spittle
corporate tool not just content to keeping the MIC/Pentagon
well oiled and lubricated whilst greasing his greedy grubby
outstretched palms throughout the obscene duration of his
four year tenure.”
Get a grip and
let's be in touch. If you include your email address next
time, then I’ll gladly write.
RADICAL
DISAPPOINTMENT
"Hayden now
says our expectations were unreasonably high for Obama. But
I and a friend heard Hayden speak a couple weeks (at Metro
State in St. Paul) before Obama's 2008 election and were
surprised, even then, at how absolutely enthralled he was.
He could not gush enough."
Yes, I was
emotionally moved to see Obama win the primaries and the
presidency, achieving something I never imagined possible when
I lived in Georgia during the civil rights movement. But I
also founded a network in 2008 called "Progressives for
Obama," which stipulated that we would continue opposing him
on Afghanistan, NAFTA and other issues, while strongly
supporting his election as a victory for his progressive and
multi-racial constituency.
I have an
African-American child and it moves me deeply that he is
growing up in Obama's world. I strongly identify with the
women, the LGBT community, and the student Dreamers who have
so much at stake in this election. So much. The left should be
on their side.
At the same
time, every day since 2003, I have written and spoken out
against the Long War, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan-Pakistan
War, the Yemen War, and their terrible domestic consequences
in terms of budgets and civil liberties. Until we end those
wars, and the Drug War as well, it will be next to impossible
to protect civil liberties from constant erosion. There is no
reason to think our cause would be advanced under a Romney
presidency.
SUBSTANTIVE
DIALOGUE
"I think Mr.
Hayden racializes the question too much in order to discount
why radical progressives view the Democrats and Republicans
as a two-party tyranny even though there are obviously great
differences between the two wings as to how the tyranny of
the corporate feudalism is to be enforced. Hayden sets up a
straw man fallacy that the argument against the two-party
dictatorship is based on the notion that "there is no
difference between the two major parties." That is not an
argument anyone is making, except in the most rhetorical
fashion of saying when it comes to the issue of the power of
wealth controlling the nation the differences are
negligible.”
Good points
all, including the rest of the comment and those similar.
I know the
"straw-man" argument seems made up, but Ralph Nader in 1990
and the Green Party this year argue that there is no
difference between the parties, that they are a "duopoly" of
one ruling system. The apparent difference between the
parties, in this view, is only a difference in ruling methods.
So there is no way the rank-and-file can ever take over the
Democratic Party.
On the latter
point, based on my experience, I think the critic is right.
But I am not sure I have ever believed or written that the
rank-and-file can "take over" the Democratic Party. The critic
holds to a top-down analysis of the two parties as different
"wings" of the lords who rule; the Democrats try to buy off
the middle class in order to serve the same corporate
interests. Maybe, but middle class achievements like Social
Security were won by mass movements who secured valuable
concessions from those "lords" in the 1930s, and there is more
than a small difference between Social Security and No Social
Security.
My point is
that the critic entirely ignores the role of rank-and-file
social movements in forcing important improvements in everyday
life from the political class. These should not be dismissed
simply as ways to keep the rulers in power - if that was so,
why were those rulers so madly opposed for so long to women's
rights, civil rights, labor rights - as some of them still
are? Social movements influence the climate of civil society,
which influences voter beliefs, which forces some politicians
to sometimes make concessions that matter to us all.
We can threaten
the stable rule of the power elite with popular movements. We
can ally on issues with the one hundred or so progressive
Democrats in Congress or statehouses across the country. We
can continue strengthening immigrant rights, women's rights,
labor rights, and limiting the freedom-to-maneuver of the war
makers and Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street was a starting
point. The great fight ahead is likely to be against the power
of great wealth over our political freedoms. It is good for
our organizing that Obama stood up to the Supreme Court
justices in front of the country, and good that he favors a
constitutional amendment to roll back Citizens United. That
provides a favorable climate for organizing - but we have to
make it happen.
As for
"racializing the issue," I do not understand all the causes
but facts are facts. White radicals are the leading critics of
Obama. Polls have shown African American voters favoring him
94 percent to zero, Latinos around 70 percent, along with a
majority of women. Okay, Cornell West, Tavis Smiley and Glen
Ford, all black, attack Obama. I do not know their intended
vote. But including their dissent, black opposition still
rounds off to Zero.
--- On Thu, 9/6/12, Brussel, Morton K
<brussel at illinois.edu>
wrote:
The errors, omissions and distortions in Hayden's piece
in general praise of Obama are extraordinary. You've got to
be kidding!!
Nothing about climate change, nothing about
Israel-Palestine, nothing about national security, military
and related budget issues, nothing about Iran, nothing about
the murder by his administration of innocents, Americans or
not.
I guess I can understand people voting for Obama as the
lesser evil, fearful of the religious and radical right, but
to praise his administration as truly worthy, in any
humanistic sense, of another term is mind boggling. It
just shows that the political system is totally
corrupt.
Plain and simple, Obama is, and should be treated as, a
war criminal and betrayer of commonly recognized civil
rights.
Just thought I'd get this off my chest.
On Sep 6, 2012, at 4:59 PM, Jenifer Cartwright
wrote:
What a great article from Tom Hayden
-- could have been meant for some on this list
(probably not racist accusations part). Not to be
missed!!!
--- On Thu, 9/6/12, Carl G.
Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
wrote:
http://tomhayden.com/home/saving-obama-saving-ourselves.html
"Or it could even be a white blindness in
perceptions of reality on the left. When African
American voters favor Obama 94 percent to zero,
and the attacks are coming from the white
liberal-left, something needs repair in the
foundations of American
radicalism."_______________________________________________
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