: : If you really want to join an organization like this, if only to observe and note its inner workings, I'm sure that many of the political organizations formed by Ralph Nader or Tom Hayden will suit you just fine. I'm not saying that reformism is inherently bad, in this era of conservative revolution, but I AM saying that the reformist organizational model is NOT one that radicals should be imitating. After all, it bears consideration that some of Nader's old organizations have been taken over by the Corporate Right and used for their purposes... : Criticize Tom Hayden all you want, but I'm not buying. Tom Hayden is one of the political figures of the 60s that I admire the most. Any move to the center he's made is a strictly tactical one. Someone as innovative and radical as he was could never, at heart, become a sellout. Tom Hayden, remember, was the guy who said anti=communism was 'the moral equivalent of rape'. And then he said the line that sums up my own feelings better than anything else.
: "We would replace power based on possession, privilege and circumstances with power rooted in love, reason, reflectiveness and creativity."
SDF: Read carefully, NJ. I'm criticizing Hayden's ORGANIZATIONAL MODEL.
Once upon a time I was a young adult in Sacramento, California with a lot of freedom, a tiny bike bought at a yard sale for $5, and about $1000 stuffed under my mattress which was the sum total of my earthly possessions. I dropped into the front office of Hayden's organization "Campaign California" because the Sacramento Bee advertised a job there. Turns out they wanted somebody with nice clothes and a car who was willing to work all day and all night doing canvassing and soliciting money for practically nothing.
Is this form of organization one that everyone can participate in? I don't think so.
None.
