October 24, 2016

Tom Hayden died yesterday.

He was 76. Here's the NYT obituary:
In 1961, Mr. Hayden joined the Freedom Riders on interstate buses in the South, challenging authorities who refused to enforce the Supreme Court’s rulings banning segregation on public buses. His jailhouse draft of what became the 25,000-word S.D.S. manifesto was debated, revised and formally adopted at the organization’s first convention, in Port Huron, Mich., in 1962.

“We are people of this generation,” it began, “bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.” It did not recommend specific programs but attacked the arms race, racial discrimination, bureaucracy and apathy in the face of poverty, and it called for “participatory democracy” and a society based on “fraternity,” “honesty” and “brotherhood.”...
Much more at the link, including this, about the part of his life he shared with Jane Fonda:
Although Ms. Fonda was a wealthy movie star and financially supported Mr. Hayden’s early political career, she and Mr. Hayden lived for years in a modest home in Santa Monica, near but not on the ocean. They did their own shopping and laundry, cooked meals in a tiny kitchen with an old stove and shared child-care duties for Troy and Vanessa....
ADDED: I think I've only written about Tom Hayden once before on this blog, in this May 20, 2007 post "Roberts Rules of Order and 60s radicals." Yeah, Roberts Rules of Order....

From an essay by Rachel Donadio (which has much more about Roberts Rules of Order):
Todd Gitlin, a former president of Students for a Democratic Society who teaches journalism at Columbia, recalled using Robert’s Rules for early S.D.S. meetings, “sometimes with amusement,” as if these young radicals had “borrowed Mom and Dad’s decks of cards to play our game.” But by the mid-’60s its guidelines seemed restrictive. In his history “SDS,” Kirkpatrick Sale recounts a 1964 meeting at which the organization’s co-founder Tom Hayden began to question the value of procedural niceties. “Suppose parliamentary democracy were a contrivance of 19th-century imperialism and merely a tool of enslavement?” Sale quotes Hayden as saying. “Suppose we rush through the debate and ‘decide’ to do something by a vote of 36 to 33. Will we really have decided anything?” Hayden, Sale writes, “saw that S.D.S. was caught in the bind of trying to create a new world with the tools of the old.”

Today, Hayden, a professor and activist, is still skeptical of parliamentary procedure. “Robert’s Rules might suit a representative institution, but it doesn’t suit a fledgling social movement,” he said in a telephone conversation. “It institutionalizes a win-lose mentality, when often there are close decisions in which both sides need representation.” Hayden cites the example of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which in the mid-’60s voted to expel white members. “It was a one-vote margin that changed ’60s history fundamentally,” Hayden said. “I view it as an unfortunate way to try to settle a serious problem.”
I can't stand SDS... Did I ever tell you that SDS folk used to meet in the dorm room next to mine at the University of Michigan, circa 1969? They were really annoying when overheard through a wall. I don't know if it's the best way to form political opinions, but overheard through a wall, I couldn't stand them. It's the middle of the night, you're trying to get some sleep and they can't seem to agree about The Revolution. Must you yell about it 5 inches away from my bed?

Anyway, much as I can't stand SDS, I've got to give Tom Hayden credit for saying a lot of smart things there. (Though I don't agree with that new world/old tools part.) You know, I've chaired committee meetings, and I've never proceeded by taking votes and letting a narrow majority win. We've always talked to the point of consensus or until those in the minority position accepted the outcome. I accept that elections and elected legislatures ought to proceed by majority vote, but there are a lot of situations where the majority vote and Rules of Order games are best avoided.

64 comments:

rhhardin said...

It's common for rich people to live ordinary lives. They don't particularly want stuff.

Not the leftist stereotype at all.

Chances are there's a millionaire in your neighborhood.

buwaya said...

Im a millionaire in my neighborhood.
Granted, in San Francisco there are probably a few on every block.

As for Hayden, he was at least partly responsible for a great deal thats wrong in California.

Lauderdale Vet said...

Ace of Spades linked to this biography for Tom Hayden.

Curious George said...

Did he suffer?

Jupiter said...

Speak no ill of the dead, right?

Seen any good movies?

rhhardin said...

Nil sed bonum. The less said the better.

rwnutjob said...

Jane Fonda: Commie traitor bitch

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael K said...

He was a successful parasite. He never did anything constructive,

Not as successful as Obama, though,

James Pawlak said...

She is and was guilty of TREASON.

Martha said...

....Jane Fonda and Mr. Hayden lived for years in a modest home in Santa Monica, near but not on the ocean. They did their own shopping and laundry, cooked meals in a tiny kitchen with an old stove and shared child-care duties for Troy and Vanessa....

oh the horror!
a modest home in Santa Monica NOT on the ocean!

Then Jane Fonda tired of the gig and reverted to her Hollywood star life.

Fernandinande said...

"Tom Hayden died"

That's another step in a long-term goal of his: the peaceful, nonviolent disappearance of the white race.

Big Mike said...

@Althouse, you and rhhardin believe that business about Hayden and Fonda living the simple life. The rest of us are less gullible.

BudBrown said...

I wonder what kind of stove it was that was old. And how old? Can
you trust a stove over 30?

cubanbob said...

Hayden was a communist and now he is a dead communist which now makes him a good communist.

Michael K said...

Fonda transmitted the virus from Hayden to Ted Turner.

madAsHell said...

You don't buy a house in Santa Monica to show your modesty.

Hayden was a little like Hillary. He married his only accomplishment.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Oh, he lived with Jane Fonda? Was that before, during, or after she took treasonous actions against the United States, giving aid and comfort to an enemy military during wartime?

Such a lovely woman.

dreams said...

I know that at least one of the Chicago Seven, Jerry Rubin grew up and became a successful entrepreneur and businessman though he had an unlucky end to his life. It was all downhill for Tom Hayden and I'm including his marriage to Jane Fonda. Abbie Hoffman committed suicide and who knows what happened to the others.

Via Wikipedia.
"Rubin held a post-election party at his place in New York in January 1973, attended by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, after McGovern lost to Nixon. Soon, Rubin retired from politics entirely, and became an entrepreneur and businessman. He was an early investor in Apple Computer,[4] and by the end of the 1970s became a multimillionaire.[4]

In the 1980s, he embarked on a debating tour with Abbie Hoffman titled "Yippie versus Yuppie." Rubin's argument in the debates was that activism was hard work and that the abuse of drugs, sex, and private property had made the counterculture "a scary society in itself." He maintained that "wealth creation is the real American revolution. What we need is an infusion of capital into the depressed areas of our country." A later political cartoon portrayed Rubin as half-guerrilla and half-businessman."

Brando said...

He was the author of the Port Huron Statement. Not the original, but the compromised second version.

madAsHell said...

Mr. Hayden had been suffering from heart problems and fell ill while attending the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July.

Bernie broke his heart. I blame Hillary.

Lewis Wetzel said...

They did their own shopping and laundry, cooked meals in a tiny kitchen with an old stove and shared child-care duties for Troy and Vanessa...
This is how the large majority of humanity live. It is not a sign of virtue.
One of the best scenes in the television series Justified came in its final episode:

Raylan: You trying to talk me out of taking you in, or are you shootin' straight for sainthood?
Ava: You gonna take me in?
Raylan: You ran on me, Ava, three times ... once at gunpoint.
Ava: It's not like you find me here runnin' whores or robbin' banks.
Raylan: Every long-time fugitive I've ever run down expects me to congratulate them for not doing what no one's supposed to be doing anyhow.

jaydub said...

I've got a couple of fellow Vietnam vet friends in the local expat community. Tonight we will get together and drink to the worms that will soon be coursing through Hayden's rotting corpse. Pity Fonda didn't join him. We could turn that kind of good fortune into a three day fiesta.

lgv said...

Lot's of great comments.

He fought against racial injustice. Fine.

The rest of time he fought against the capitalist system that allowed him the comfort of affording a life fighting against capitalism without actually doing anything.

Socialists and communists want all the nice stuff that capitalism provides, but without the capitalism. They are clueless as to why it doesn't work. It appears that Rubin finally got a clue.


Unknown said...

The only sad part about this man's death is that he apparently didn't repent before he died. He directly caused lots of misery and heartache. He was a traitor, a worm, and the world is better for his passing. To those few who loved him (isn't it odd how few people actually love leftists?), it is a sad day... but that day comes for all of us. What will we be when that day comes?

--Vance

Darrell said...

Burn in, I mean rest in peace.

Bob Boyd said...

Tom Hayden's stove was a piece of shit...so he walked the walk...stove-wise anyway.
Good to know.
Lot's of lefties these days, you go their house and they have gorgeous kitchen appliances. I hate that.

CJinPA said...

I won't comment on the man at this time. But I can say with full confidence that his movement and its offshoots made the U.S. demonstrably worse.

Humperdink said...

The Chicago Seven is now down to the Chicago Three. Prolly still voting though.

Birkel said...

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Rick said...

CJinPA said...
I won't comment on the man at this time. But I can say with full confidence that his movement and its offshoots made the U.S. demonstrably worse.


Imagine him in hell getting the reverse George Bailey tour.

wildswan said...

California, unable to pay its promised pensions - did Hayden ever work to get the pensions funded?
If it was talked about in the Thirties by Communist supporters as a good idea Hayden supported it
If it was criticized in the Fifties by Soviet propaganda, Hayden continued the line of thought.
Like all our present lefties, he never really looked at real social change, at the consequences of American capitalism and American power in decline. He just worked to help shadow people, images from the Thirties, images from Fifties propaganda. Lefty feel-gooders.

William said...

This isn't much of a eulogy, but compared to the other leftists of his generation, he wasn't quite as annoying or enfuriating. He was true to his beliefs and, on occasion, showed real courage. I would put Timothy O'Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Eldridge Cleaver, et al in a lower pit of hell. The obit doesn't say, but was he the last surviving member of the Chicago Seven? There weren't that many of them who lived to old age......Who besides me thought of Marie Antoinette and her cow milking and pastoral folly whilst reading of Jane Fonda's Santa Monica adventure? I personally think Jane Fonda was the most annoying leftist of that era. Not evil, just annoying. She will live to extreme old age and die a rich woman. Is it any wonder old people become bitter and cynical. We live to see a world where Jane Fonda becomes revered and honored. Those Nobel pricks will probably give her next year's peace prize,.,,,,. I haven't read of any of the Fonda/Hayden kids committing suicide or going to rehab, so maybe, as a couple, they did a few things right.

richardsson said...

A shack in Santa Monica nowadays goes for $1 million at least.

mockturtle said...

When my cousin was teaching school in Santa Monica she had some of their kids in her class. They were apparently nice, normal kids [by SoCal standards, anyway].

damikesc said...

Socialists and communists want all the nice stuff that capitalism provides, but without the capitalism. They are clueless as to why it doesn't work. It appears that Rubin finally got a clue.

They also assume that the lack of anti-Communist groups in Communist countries were because of how darned awesome those countries were. If things were bad, SURELY, somebody there would protest.

John henry said...

Burn, baby, burn!!!

hawkeyedjb said...

"They also assume that the lack of anti-Communist groups in Communist countries were because of how darned awesome those countries were. If things were bad, SURELY, somebody there would protest.

Yeah, it's awesome, aina? If the socialist government is strong enough to suppress all dissent, that shows how great socialism is. If it's not (or not yet) like Venezuela, that shows how evil the anti-socialist dissenters are.

Thorley Winston said...

They also assume that the lack of anti-Communist groups in Communist countries were because of how darned awesome those countries were. If things were bad, SURELY, somebody there would protest.

Kind of like how the Berlin Wall was built to keep the West Germans out instead of the East Germans in.

SukieTawdry said...

One of Hayden's stated goals was the "peaceful, non-violent disappearance of the white race." The great irony of 1968 was that Hayden and his cohort and their antics in Chicago probably did more to elect Richard Nixon than anyone who was actually trying. But even after he started to work within the system he so disdained, he stayed true to his mission right up to the end, so I'll give him that. When he and Fonda were divorcing, he was asked how big a settlement he was getting. He said there was no big settlement, that he hadn't asked for one, that she had been extremely generous contributing to his causes through the years and that was more than enough. So I'll give him that, too.

On a side note, I love how Fonda went from marriage to an anti-capitalist, counterculture revolutionary to marriage to one of the country's premier capitalists and billionaires. From a modest house with a tiny kitchen and old stove to opulent townhouses and ranch houses and even an ante-bellum plantation. From radical chic political activism to the Tomahawk Chop.

traditionalguy said...

He found a way to bed the lefty girls. He was their trophy Marxist. Communism is a romantic ideal. And it is war.

BJM said...

Just a couple of nice, normal, down home traitors, eh?

Bad Lieutenant said...

Blogger Jupiter said...
Speak no ill of the dead, right?

So, speak only good of the dead?

Good, he's dead.

dbp said...

Back in the 1980's, something always bothered me about Tom Hayden. there would be a news story on TV and they would have a little snippet from assemblyman, Tom Hayden and I would think, Why are they asking the opinion of a California State Assemblyman, rather than a Congressman (or somebody of that rank)? It seemed like such small potatoes.

Now that I know about his early (and lasting) leftist radicalism, it completely makes sense that he would be the go-to guy for opinion on current events.

Mountain Maven said...

"courage?" he was a wealthy and powerful man, living far beyond his modest talents due to marrying up and doing the radical chic jig.
He was also a communist and a traitor, giving aid and comfort to the enemy. IIRC he never apologized as Fonda did.

MacMacConnell said...

Was Hayden pimping Fonda to the Black Panthers before or after Vadim was pimping her to everyone in Paris?

Z said...

I can vouch for the modest home in Santa Monica, but even that modest home probably costs 4 million today....it's got a huge hedge, very thick, all around it.
I have a feeling Saul Alinsky would have felt right at home there.
Here's Wiki's take "American social and political activist, author and politician, who was director of the Peace and Justice Resource Center in Culver City, California. Known best for his major role as an anti-war, civil rights, and radical intellectual counterculture activist"
All one can do is laugh.
May he rest in peace.....not war.

hawkeyedjb said...

"Kind of like how the Berlin Wall was built to keep the West Germans out instead of the East Germans in."

Quite a few of the workers' paradises of eastern Europe had extensive fortifications to keep all the starving and alienated workers of the west from overrunning them.

Bilwick said...

See the funny SCTV clip contained herein:

http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/2016/10/24/boomer-death-watch-tom-hayden-dies/

Big Mike said...

@jaydub, Fonda still doesn't get why she can't offer up a semi-sincere apology and everyone will just move on.

Thuglawlibrarian said...

About time.

donald said...

I ran into Jane Fonda at a Braves spring training. I told her she was a despicable cunt. She had no reaction. I think she is used to it.

I saw Ted Turner walking through the CNNcemtrr after a Hawks game in 1986 or so. He looked at and said "How ya doing sport)? We talked for about 5 minutes. He was so cool.

He blew off all of the festivities for the las game at Turner Field. He knew it sucked also.

Ted had been a commie for a while before he met her.

Skeptical Voter said...

I won't mourn his passing. Life is a terminal disease after all and he, while a political irritant with bigger dreams than capabilities was no worse than a lot of other California lefties. I might ship a load of coal to the Devil to help out with his welcome, but even that seems a waste of time. Must be getting soft in my dotage.

Lewis Wetzel said...

The Port Huron Statement is self-centered Lefty gobbeldy-gook. It is over 25,000 words. The word "we" appears 139 times. The word "our" appears 97 times. No authors use "we" and "our" that much unless they are writing about themselves.

Anonymous said...

Hayden and Fonda should have been lined up against a wall and shot. They were treasonous and anti-American to the core.

Joan Baez, who I saw in concert last week at 75, was anti-war, not anti-American. After the Viets overran Saigon and the Khmer Rouge took Cambodia, Joan spoke out against the Communist camps, and killing. She took out ads in the papers. When reached for comment Fonda and Hayden said that there was no evidence of human rights violations in either country by those nice people.



lazlo toth said...

I will try to be silent here for a bit....this reminds me of when I wrote my older brother and said I was having trouble avoiding being happy that Pete Seeger was dead because of all the harm he had done supporting the likes of Joseph Stalin, and my brother immediately wrote back that he had much the same problem thinking about Maya Angelou.

Last thing I read from Tom Hayden he was upset that the Vietnamese were embracing materialism instead of doing the communist dictator thing he thought they should do because he wanted to be a communist dictator.

Rest In Peace, Tom. Please, just rest.

rcocean said...

Another Commie bites the dust.

But he was a good commie, cause he liked black folks or something.

Fen said...

I'm glad we are no longer playing the fake civility game. Last week I watched liberals trash a History Channel segment on Ronald Reagan, pissed all over his grave.

Tom Hayden was marxist scum. Glad he is dead. Wish he had died sooner. Where is he buried? He bones should be dug up and dumped in a landfill. Along with his traitor wife.

[ah much better now, thanks]

Fen said...

He fought against racial injustice. Fine.

And even then, now that we have a better read on the modern marxism of groups like BLM, you have to ask if he really cared about racial injustice or was just using it as a prop to promote marxism.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The punk was a Hillary supporter/apologist - which I'm quickly learning, is becoming a handy litmus test for separating decent, progressive, pro-working class folk from destructive anarchist douchebags who are just addicted to acquiring power, as long as it's in the form of a loud and hopefully violent contest.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

A Marxist apologist for the Wall Street candidate.

Folks, it doesn't get any more incoherent than that.

There is a disease on the left, a mental disease of ideological derangement. And treatment will have to be drastic.

An amputation, if necessary.

Fen said...

There is a disease on the left, a mental disease of ideological derangement. And treatment will have to be drastic. An amputation, if necessary.

uh huh. And that brings up another matter. If everyone will please turn to p213 of your manual re infiltration and moles. Section 2 which starts "In any cell containing more than one of us, assume the others are FBI agents or informants..."

Remember, quiz on Friday. Bring your own C4.

narciso said...

recall there was a mole in the sds which revealed ayer's plan to liquidate 25 million counterrevolutionaries,

Jon Burack said...

Tom Hayden was part of a larger movement, it is true. So it's hard to say he personally did this or that. Having said that, it is very clear to me that Tom Hayden was far more important, had a far greater impact - some positive and mostly destructive - on American society than Rush has - also some positive and mostly destructive.