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Est. 2015 · New York

Articles1 min read

The Erasure of Hillary Clinton – not smart or radical

I just read an article on a left website in which the author speaks of the overarching importance of defeating Trump and the rest of the right wing Republican candidates at the ballot box next week. But what is largely missing – one reference – is any mention of electing Hillary Clinton, not to mention any positive reason for doing so. At a moment when Trump and the right – with a big assist from the FBI – are viciously, relentlessly, and demagogically attacking her for the purpose of discouraging her supporters, confusing undecideds, and putting Hillary “in her place” and “behind bars,” to erase or damn her with no, or barely faint praise, as more than a few on the left do, is self-defeating, incredibly amateurish, and tone deaf to sexism. It raises a lot of questions, but a discussion of them should wait until after the elections.
 
At the core of this election struggle is the preservation of human and democratic values and rights. And the only way to preserve them – as well as extend them – is to elect Hillary Clinton the next and first woman president of the United States. And we should do that without apology, as we canvass, phone back, and talk to voters this week.
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Articles2 min read

An appreciation of Tom Hayden from afar

I didn’t know Tom Hayden, but I admired him from afar. He leaves a rich legacy of activism, leadership, and critical and complex thinking to people everywhere who desire to make the world anew. If he did nothing else, the Port Huron statement, of which he was the principal author, is a landmark historical document that will inspire generations to come who hope to create a democratic, egalitarian, and humane world. In its time, it constituted a challenge to bureaucratic, undemocratic, and productivist societies on both sides of a divided world and the thinking and practices that sustained them.

I like to think I appreciated Hayden’s non-dogmatic, non-sectarian political worldview and practice early on, but maybe I’m airbrushing my own political past and ideological commitments. At any rate, his appreciation of the socially transforming role of energized majorities, people of color, and the labor movement framed his approach to politics. His sustained opposition to racism and other forms of oppression and inequality was a constant.  His readiness to employ flexible tactics, engage the two party system, and challenge the conventional wisdom of the left stood stood him apart from many on the left. And, perhaps above all, his unflagging commitment to a peaceful, non-violent world was existential to his political being. More than most of us, Hayden was a reflective political thinker and actor, not reflexively bound to politically prescribed, rigid, and timelessly embedded modes of thinking and acting.

I couldn’t help but notice the portrait of MLK on the wall in the picture of Hayden below that appeared in the New York Times obituary. I don’t know why it was there, but I have to think that in King (and his legacy), Hayden found an exemplar of what a people’s movement with socially transformative aims should aspire to. It’s seems awfully unfair that he won’t experience the joy of what seems more and more likely – the election of Hillary Clinton – the first woman president in our nation’s history – and the drubbing of the extreme right’s apostle of hate, division, and authoritarian rule. If there is any consolation, it is that the rest of us can in his memory.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/us/tom-hayden-dead.html?_r=0

 

 

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