AN APPEAL TO BARACK OBAMA By Tom Hayden

Kurt_and_Hunter

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Fri Nov-09-07 06:27 PM
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AN APPEAL TO BARACK OBAMA By Tom Hayden

Edited on Fri Nov-09-07 07:00 PM by Kurt_and_Hunter

This post is a recommendation and pointer to David Zephyr's remarkable post in GD
that is touching and well worth the read.
You should just go right to his post and read it (and recommend it) > > >

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2248793

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I've excerpted a very small part of Zephyr's post--the opening part of "Tom Hayden's appeal to Barack Obama"--here because it gets into a number of points that have been hotly debated in GD: Politics recently... but it's best to skip this excerpt altogether and go right to Zephyr's post and read the whole thing.
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AN APPEAL TO BARACK OBAMA
By Tom Hayden

“The Democrats have been stuck in the arguments of Vietnam, which means that either you’re a Scoop Jackson Democrat or you’re a Tom Hayden Democrat and you’re suspicious of any military action. And that’s just not my framework.” – Sen. Barack Obama

Barack, I thought Hillary Clinton was known as the Great Triangulator, but you are learning well. The problem with setting up false polarities to position yourself in the “center”, however, is that it’s unproductive both politically and intellectually.

Politically, it is a mistake because there last time I looked there were a whole lot more “Tom Hayden Democrats” voting in the California primary and, I suspect, around the country, than “‘Scoop’ Jackson Democrats.” In fact, they are your greatest potential base, aside from African-American voters, in a multi-candidate primary.

More disturbing is what happens to the mind by setting up these polarities. To take a “centrist” position, one calculates the equal distance between two “extremes.” It doesn’t matter if one “extreme” is closer to the truth. All that matters is achieving the equidistance. This means the presumably “extreme” view is prevented from having a fair hearing, which would require abandoning the imaginary center. And it invites the “extreme” to become more “extreme” in order to pull the candidate’s thinking in a more progressive direction. The process of substantive thinking is corroded by the priority of political positioning.

I have been enthused by the crowds you draw, by the excitement you instill in my son and daughter-in-law, by the seeds of inspiration you plant in our seven-year old kid. I love the alternative American narrative you weave on the stump, one in which once-radical social movements ultimately create a better America step by step. I very much respect your senior advisers like David Axelrod, who figured out a way to elect Harold Washington mayor of Chicago. You are a truly global figure in this age of globalization.

But as the months wear on, I see a problem of the potential being squandered. Hillary Clinton already occupies the political center. John Edwards holds the populist labor/left. And that leaves you with a transcendent vision in search of a constituency...