[Marxism] Alex Cockburn, Tom Hayden, Stan Goff

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.counterpunch.com/
The Antiwar Movement, Goff and Hayden (and Me):
an Admonition from Frank Bardacke

I hope we see the omens of larger resistance in the antiwar movement. No
doubt about it, the people are turning against the war. The Bush crowd is
truly on low ground, and the political levees are starting to crumble. They
feel it in Congress.

Already there are private meetings, both sides of the aisle, evolving new
positions on the war, exit strategies and so forth. Waiting in the wings
are impeachment inquiries, hearings on Bush's low balling of the
casualties, the lack of body armor. Once Bush's base starts to crumble
these matters will move center stage.

Right now there's a big argument going on about exit strategies and
schedules from Iraq. Cindy Sheehan and many say Out now. Then the
responsible politicos say, Be realistic. Start to leave at the end of 06.
Stan Goff took a few lusty swings at Tom Hayden on this site, on this very
matter of scheduling. He got attacked as being (a) nasty and abusive, and
(b) being divisive and unrealistic.

I wrote Stan a note, as follows:

    "Jesus Christ, this is like being suffocated by a dead ostrich.
There's nothing wrong with vigorous invective. The left doesn't get places
often because it's way TOO polite, too reluctant to air differences, too
polite about people like Tom Hayden when they are selling a pwog Democrat line.

    Tom has done some good things and he's done some bad things. In 1982 I
wrote in the Village Voice that in the National Gallery in Washington DC
there are 134 portraits of Benedict Arnold. None look alike. All resemble
Tom Hayden. Why did I write that? Because Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda flew to
the advance Israeli positions from which the Israeli gunners were
indiscriminately (NYT reporter Tom Friedman's word, censored at the time)
shelling Beirut, to show solidarity with Israeli forces and to bolster
Tom's political position in California. People who raised the issue of
justice for Palestinians were told year after year that it was a "divisive"
issue to raise, would rock the boat, set the cat among the pigeons, cause
ructions. So the Democratic Party never has dealt with it.

    I haven't the slightest idea what Tom H says now about Israel and
Palestinians, but like hundreds of others prominent in the DP through 70s
and 80s, he cost us all, most of all the Palestinians, very dear by his
prudence. I looked at the PDA site last week and saw a parcel of shredded
platitudes about internationalizing the occupying force. You were quite
right to make fun of that kind of blather. This "internationalization" line
reminds me of the prudent line back in 2002 and 2003, before invasion, when
a lot of people wrapped up the antiwar message in talk about a UN force.
Very polite, and totally unrealistic, since the UN is a wholly owned
subsidiary of the US.

    We aren't, thank God, a fascist country here, like Germany was in WW2,
but suppose the Germans had been able to speak freely, would they have been
talking in 1942 about a withdrawal of German forces from the Soviet Union
beginning at the end of 1943? No, by mid-42 any sane German would have been
saying AUS NOW. And they would have been realistic, because by the end of
43 most of the German soldiers were dead or captives. Do you want to tell
all those US soldiers sent to Iraq that they should ride around in their
Humvees waiting to get blown up till the end of 2006 when withdrawal can
commence on a schedule that preserves PDA credibility. If so, they'll have
a lot of explaining to do, to mothers like Cindy Sheehan."

Hardly had I fired this off to Stan, before I got a remonstrative note
about some sneers I'd made about vigils. It was from my friend Frank
Bardacke in Watsonville, my political consigliere on many things. Frank has
plenty of cred, not least in the area of antiwar organizing. He was one of
the Oakland 7, arrested and tried after the attacks on the Oakland
induction center in the late 60s. He's a very radical guy.


Bardacke said ... well, hell, I'll give him the stage.

(clip)


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