Tom Hayden: A Man Who Gives ‘Opportunism’ a Bad Name
When Hayden turns his attention to SDS, he tries to present its original program as a vague call for economic democracy, far removed from the irrelevant bureaucratic forms of Marxism that plagued the Old Left. He acknowledges that many of the early SDS members “were shaped and informed in part by Marxist traditions,” but argues that they did not favor any “revival ceremony for Marxism.” Those who came from the Old Left and were children of Communists, he argues, “had concluded that moral values and democracy were more important than any ideological renovation of Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, or anarchism.”
If this was true, how does Hayden explain the sudden adoption of just these old sectarian paths by so many in SDS? He accomplishes the neat trick by leaving out of his account the well-known fight at the Port Huron meeting in 1962 between his side and the labor movement backers, including the Reuther brothers, who gave both money and the site of the meeting to SDS, and the leaders of The Young People’s Socialist League, including Don Slaiman, Michael Harrington, and their supporters. The issue dividing the group was the demand of young CPUSA members to be admitted to SDS. The YPSL contingent, whose titular head was the vociferous anti-Communist Max Schachtman, then close to AFL-CIO chief George Meany, argued that Communists were opposed to democracy in principle, and should be excluded from membership in or participation with SDS. Hayden and his supporters — many of them children of Communists — voted to accept Communists into SDS. Before long, the followers of Harrington pulled out and openly criticized SDS for its blindness.
Next, Hayden brings up a strategy called “political realignment,” which he describes as ending the “organized stalemate” in Washington and that would “open the possibility of a more progressive party.” He accurately writes that the strategy was “embraced by King, Bayard Rustin and Michael Harrington,” but does not let his readers know that he and SDS had broken with Rustin and Harrington, and in essence, were not supporting their tactical efforts. The strategy was in fact the one proposed by Shachtman and the YPSL group, and was meant to force the white Southern Democrats out of the Democratic Party,so that it would be a reform group that would commit itself to end segregation in the South and develop an alliance with mainstream conservative organized labor, led by George Meany and his associates.
It was definitely not meant by these people to be what Hayden actually favored: the ousting of the Meany labor group from the Democratic Party and the subsequent conquest by the left-wing forces, including radical feminists, the new young radicals, and elite intellectual groups in the universities. This group ardently supported the new McGovern rules which handed over power to these new elements and led to the McGovernization of the Democratic Party in 1972, a development heralded by Hayden and opposed by all those who had created the original realignment strategy.
What Hayden favored was attacking what he calls a “cold war mentality,” by which he means opposition to the bipartisan policy of opposing Soviet expansionism, and which most mainstream political leaders realized was a necessary fight against the Eastern totalitarian bloc. Again, he reveals his true feelings by noting his firm opposition to the social-democrats who wisely carried out a campaign against Soviet-style communism, which they recognized was the enemy not only of the United States but of a free labor movement. In a remarkable passage, he just about accuses the late Tom Kahn of being a CIA agent. Kahn was, in fact, a social-democrat who developed a program to fund labor unions in authoritarian states like South Vietnam, all of which Hayden disparages as part of CIA “covert operations” which he falsely asserts were run “through the AFL-CIO’s international affairs department.” In essence, even today, Hayden repeats the Soviet disinformation about Meany’s work used by the Communists at the time to fight anti-Communist labor unions.
Hayden leads movments the way a surfer leads a wave. He sees it, gets out in front of it, and rides it.
But surfers usually get a better ride.
It’s not just the SDS. Leftist ideology ALWAYS leads to totalitarianism. Always. It is incompatible with human freedom.
This is why it must be fought tooth and nail. NOT because we like the profits of capitalism better than the poverty of communism (and its kissing cousins fascism and socialism), but because it is ALWAYS totalitarian. It MUST be, because it seeks to compel behavior contrary to all human nature.
Kissing cousins is a great analagy. I have grown weary over the years trying to argue that Fascism and Nazism are not movements from the right but are overlapping each other with the multitude of ‘isms on the left. All are polar opposites of Adam Smith’s invisible hand.
Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin agreed that they were just using different words for the same form of government, perhaps a few cosmetic differences. I suspect that someone who knew where to look could find proof in writing, authored by those three.
In the late 1970s when I was a graduate student at Columbia, I photocopied some pages from Mein Kampf. I used white-out to remove the headers and footers indicating that the pages were from Hitler’s work.
I gave the pages to a fellow student who was a member of the CP-USA and a devout communist, along with his entire family going back generations. I asked wrote wrote the text. He was convinced its was taken from the Collected Works of Lenin.
Indeed. The differences are mere window dressing – they are the same at the core. Comprising an unholy trinity, they are one in essence.
Leftists will point to the historical conflict between the adherents of each cousin as proof that this assertion is false, but these are merely minor disagreements about the HOW and major disagreements about the WHO. They are never about the WHAT.
The WHAT is total state control. The STATE is elevated above the individual, and there are no RIGHTS, only privileges granted by the State, which may be revoked at the pleasure of the state.
Thus, none of these can ever be compatible with liberty.
VERY well put. Bravo.
Although, if I could add one thing….human nature is also endowed with envy, greed, apathy, laziness, cruelty, and hedonism. Communism is dependent on these human traits. What communism is, is contrary to POSITIVE human nature.
At 72 years old, he might think the OWS “movement” is his last best hope for a “hoorah.”
In reality, he is a narcissistic, stale Lefty has-been.
And speaking of narcissistic has-beens, he was married to Jane Fonda.
The “Occupy” movement appears inspired by Mao’s “cultural revolution” of the mid 1960′s. Tom Hayden and other Leftists must fantasize about being the leaders of the new “red guards”. I would recommend that all conservatives study that period of history it they really want to understand what is going on. You can be sure that the Leftists have already done so.
There’s nothing more pathetic than a doddering old Communist who still believes in the cause.
The only movement this fool should be is part of a Bears bowel movement
A question, Ron. How, exactly, does Barack Obama differ from Tom Hayden in terms of his associations & idealogy? My answer, for what its worth, is that Obama is at minimum a stealth Socialist. Hayden, clearly, is a stealth Communist who thanks to his age and the times, was not nearly as good at being stealthy as Barack. Just as much of a liar though. The really relevant question is not whether our president is a radical Socialist. That’s beyond doubt. The real question, based primarily on his associations and actions, is whether he is our first Communist president. I’m honestly not sure. I’d be curious to see whether these two ever crossed paths.
“The real question, based primarily on his associations and actions, is whether he is our first Communist president. I’m honestly not sure.”
Wonder no more, smokedaddy. What else could he be when his party of full of Communist Party members?
From the LA Times:
The voice of today’s GOP: Allen West says Democrats are commies
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-democrats-are-commies-20120411,0,1232324.story
You gotta love it!
By the way, it was the 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, not mis print 1974.
Hayden reminds me of nothing so much as the reprobate running through the streets of Paris during Robespierre’s “reign of terror”…whining “Where is the mob?…I must find them…they need me…I am their leader”..once again the adage that there is no fool like an old fool is most applicable in Hayden’s case.
Ron, tell me how Hayden gets John Dewey to be a hero of the New Left. (Or do I really have to read Hayden’s piece itself, God help me?) I recall relentless hostility to Dewey among New Lefites at the UW in the late ’60s (Evan Stark was one). I am almost sure I argued a lot with Evan about him. Not that I am a big fan of Dewey’s, but I sure do not recall him being in the New Left pantheon, even with regard to the earlier Port Huron phase. Am I forgetting something?
Anyway, this is a great article. A real trip down memory lane.
Jon,
Right you are. But Dewey was somewhat on the political Left. My Commie high school claimed to be Deweyite. And of course, he led the commission to defend Trotsky in Mexico. Nevertheless, I think Hayden just had to come up with would-be heroes that he made up on the spot. He never said anything about them at the time.
This guy’s still alive?
– go lie down in the middle of Market Street.
Is Tom Hayden dishonest with himself, or is he just in full camouflage?
The staggering thing about small c communists is how they hate to be “found out” or “outed”. They ALL say they are not “communists”. They are lying and the PALM Press covers for them as they attempt the “soft overthrow” of capitalism, but are they really fooling themselves? Really?
I kinda tend to doubt it.
When a small c communist (this is a term I use to tweak the ugly face of Bill Ayers and his wife of no soul), go into hiding in plain sight, they twist themselves into all manner of pretzel forms and shape-shifting disguises.
Alan West recognizes that the Democratic Party is now really a far left arm of small c communism, and true to form, CNN immediately and reflexively through out the “McCarthy smear”…which is as predictable as the sunrise.
If you call a Communist a Communist, you are going to get the McCarthy smear from the PALM Press (propaganda and lies ministry). And from the small c communists themselves.
Look, I don’t fear small c communism as a debate issue. Let’s call the question and see if the American people wish to overthrow capitalism and replace it with the most vulgar form or totalitarianism in world history. I’m all for that debate.
What I despise when being fed my daily dose of treason by the Daily Duranty or CNN or MSNBC or any of the other PALM Press liars club, is the pretending that they aren’t doing the very thing that they are doing.
Not only are they liars, they are cowards as well. If you wish to overthrow capitalism and destroy the free market, at least have the courage of your convictions.
Selling the American people a pack of lies and a mountain of propaganda in order to fool them into putting you in the position of destroying their country against their will and without their consent is to crawl under a rock and lie in wait like a snake.
So, is Hayden fooling himself? I sincerely doubt it. It’s just more of the lying and treachery that comes with the small c decoder ring.
WE ought to be pointing at this administration and the Democratic liars and cowards and having the guts to do exactly what Alan West did. Call them what they are and detail what they are doing and why…and let the chips fall where they may.
Very succinct! Bravo!
The “New Left”, less so Hayden, reminds me of a remark of Issac Asimov….
“Life unlike chess, continues after checkmate…….”
or words to that effect.
Is the old commie still collecting alimony from Hanoi Jane? What a freakin’ weasel.
Ron, I think you might be off on one supporting fact: I don’t think the Jane Fonda workout videos are of the same era as Hayden’s Indo-China Peace Campaign. The war was over by 1975. VCRs didn’t become a mass market item until the late ’70s, and the Fonda workout videos probably postdate that by a few years more.
But just a nitpick on an otherwise fine summary of the old commie.
I see Old Potato Nose around my neighborhood in Santa Monica, from time to time. I have had to restrain myself on occasion from wringing his neck. And once upon a time I called him a son of a bitch to his face. Why, you ask? His little group of SDS fire bombed my school in the summer of 1968 and in the fall I found myself safe and sound in a prep school hundreds of miles away from danger. When I returned home things were never the same, my parents were getting a divorce and many unpleasantries were to follow. I always felt he and his ilk, robbed me of a part of my youth and I have always hated the Left for that, among other things.