Would Democratic anti-war activist Tom Hayden have voted for a stone-cold war candidate?
WE DON’T THINK SO
Democrats—think about it!
Tom Hayden was a great soul who had a great mission. His life was typical of the fiercely independent thinking, forever idealistic, and courageously countercultural Beat Generation. Think of it this way: Tom helped lead the non-violent ‘military wing’ of the indomitable anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s.
As a matter of historical fact, Tom Hayden was one of the many anti Vietnam war activists from the Beat Generation (born 1939) who were directly responsible for shutting down the Vietnam war. Yes, the Baby Boomers showed up in force, but they did so under the guidance and with the inspiration infused in them by their older Beatnik brothers and sisters.
Truly, the Beatniks were “The Greatest Generation” according to the metric of peacemaking and war-stopping. For it was through their extraordinary courage and unshakable resolve to terminate the Vietnam War that distinguished them as the very first generation — IN HISTORY — to force an end a major armed conflict by way of a popular movement. This had never happened before…and it has not happened since. (See the following essay for more background.)
The Feud that Dictated the Destiny of the World
Perhaps Tom is sending a message — through his timely departure just before this historic election — to his many Beatnik and Baby Boomer kin who support the perpetual war economy. Hopefully Generations X, Y, Z and all the Millennials, who also plan on voting for this election’s war candidate, will likewise get this urgent message.
As a very passionate California politician, Tom came to the understanding what very few Democrats will ever come to know. That “The World Wars Are Always Set Up And Prosecuted By Democratic Administrations“. So were the other major wars of the last century to include the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Yugoslav Wars. How is it that no one ever talks about this obvious and highly consequential reality?!
State of the Nation
October 24, 2016
N.B. See Tom Hayden’s BBC obituary below for more details of his exceptional life.
UPDATE: SOTN was just made aware that Tom Hayden was an avid anti-war Berniac. After Sanders lost the primary, Tom shifted his support to pro-war Hillary Clinton.
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Tom Hayden, famed anti-Vietnam war activist, dies aged 76
BBC
AP
Famed American anti-war activist Tom Hayden has died aged 76.
Hayden died in his home in Santa Monica “after a lengthy illness”, the Los Angeles Times reports.
He was a member of the “Chicago seven” charged with conspiracy over anti-Vietnam war protests in 1968 and eventually acquitted.
Hayden later served in the California state assembly and Senate for nearly two decades. He was married to actress Jane Fonda between 1973 and 1990.
Born in Michigan in 1939, he became an activist during his time at the University of Michigan, where he helped to found Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
While there, he wrote a policy document called the Port Huron Statement, which he styled the “agenda for a generation”.
Mr Hayden and the SDS went on to become a major influence on the 1960s protest movement, particularly against the Vietnam war.
“Rarely, if ever, in American history has a generation begun with higher ideals and experienced greater trauma than those who lived fully the short time from 1960 to 1968,” he wrote in the essay Streets of Chicago.
AP • Hayden married famous actress and fellow anti-war activist Jane Fonda in 1973
In 1968, Mr Hayden was part of a controversial anti-war demonstration in Chicago, timed to coincide with the Democratic National Convention.
The protest turned violent, with eight people – including Mr Hayden – charged with conspiracy and crossing state lines to incite a riot.
The so-called Chicago seven trial – originally the Chicago eight, before one defendant was tried separately – ran for years, with appeals and retrials. Mr Hayden was eventually cleared of all charges.
In 1973, he married actress Jane Fonda, who was herself an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. She was internationally famous and wealthy, while he was still seen in some quarters as an anti-establishment troublemaker.
AP • By 1988, Mr Hayden was an elected official at the California assembly, and writing his memoir, “Reunion”
He would go on to reinvent himself in the coming decades, moving away from the image of a long-haired student protester.
He turned his attention to mainstream politics in the late 1970s, earning himself a place in the California State Assembly in 1982. A decade later, shortly after his divorce from Fonda, he moved on to the California Senate.
He also became a prolific writer of books and essays, and served as a columnist for several outlets.
Fifty years after he wrote the Port Huron statement, about a generation “looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit”, he wrote that the concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite was a “mountain untouched” .
Writing in The Guardian in 2012, he called the Occupy Wall Street protests a “new force in the world”.
“The Occupy movement, and kindred spirits from the Middle East to China, is driven by young people who feel unrepresented by the institutions, disenfranchised economically, and threatened by an environmental catastrophe,” he said.
“The direct action movement of the early 1960s was similar in nature.”
Hayden married actress Barbara Williams in 1993, and had a son, Liam.
Image copyrightTWITTERTributes to the iconic protester-turned-politician emerged on social media following his death.
Clara Jeffery, editor of left-leaning investigative magazine Mother Jones, said: “Tom Hayden lived a cinematically full life; any one of these chapters worth a biopic.”
Mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, said “a political giant and dear friend has passed.”
“Tom Hayden fought harder for what he believed than just about anyone I have known,” he tweeted.