Tom Hayden's Blog, page 50

Medea Benjamin's Good War on Predator Drones

After reading Medea Benjamin’s Drone Warfare, Killing by Remote Control, I can only wish she will invest more time in writing and less time getting arrested, because there are so few activists with her gifts of research, analysis and communication. But she wouldn’t be Medea without being arrested and pepper-spraying one front or another, because she is a true witness in both the Quaker moral sense and as a seeing journalist in the thick of things.

NBC Know-Nothings Trash Chris Hayes

I have always sensed that Chris Hayes was more centrist than a typical Nation progressive, and marveled at his ascendancy within mainstream media’s punditry. Looks like Chris crossed the secret but official line, however, when he spoke up for the freedom to voice anti-war views on NBC’s Memorial Day broadcast.

Alternate Focus: Farewell to Kandahar

After a detailed account of the history of the region, and how the US became involved in a protracted war in Southwest Asia, Tom Hayden and Johan Galtung weigh in on the implications of a US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Support Mounts for Salvadoran Gang Truce

Longtime gang peace process advocates in Los Angeles announced new support on Memorial Day for the 11-week truce called by incarcerated Mara Salvatrucha and 18th Street gang leaders which has sharply reduced homicides in El Salvador

Requiem for Len Weinglass

“It’s all there in Tolstoy,” Len told me as he lay dying last April. Stricken in the winter, lying now in a hospice in the Village, this would be his final spring. He was alert, watching the news of the Arab Spring, but was entering a deeper state where his friends could not go. When I asked if he was finding a spiritual meaning, he said he was reading War and Peace, adding, “It’s all there.” I didn’t get the page number in Tolstoy, and never saw him again.

Now, more than a year later, I was able to open War and Peace to the pages I believe Len was reading. These excerpts are to be shared with you all.

Appeal for Public Support for Salvadoran Gang Truce

Salvadoran representatives will appeal for public and government support for the ongoing gang truce in El Salvador at a press conference at 10:00 a.m. Monday, May 28 at La Placita Church, near Olvera: 535 N. Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012.

Ending the War on Yemen

With a Western withdrawal from Afghanistan “irreversible” according to NATO, the Pentagon and CIA’s military focus will concentrate on Yemen, where diplomatic or political solutions seem impossible anytime soon.

Torie Osborn Takes On Sacramento

Torie Osborn’s campaign for a West Los Angeles assembly seat (50th District) is stirring excitement and mobilizing grassroots volunteers like nothing else so far this year in dreary California, where budget deficits keep deepening and politics decays despite a Democratic governor and legislative majority.

After Chicago, After Afghanistan: The Complexities Ahead

The vast outpouring of protest in Chicago last week was a promising sign of health for progressive social movements, but still left big uncertainties about the future.

Nurses Union Advocating "Participatory Democracy"

National Nurses United (NNU), the union spearheading the drive for a Robin Hood Tax, also calls for a “participatory democracy,” evidence of the current vitality of a concept born at the Port Huron convention of SDS fifty years ago this June. Saying, "Democracy is not a spectator support,” a chart by the NNU envisions participatory democracy flowing into economic democracy, then political democracy, and finally into representative democracy.