Answer to Tom Hayden writing in The Nation to endorse Hillary for president: I used to support Bernie but then I changed my mind
https://www.thenation.com/article/i-used-to-support-bernie-but-then-i-changed-my-mind/
httpss://www.laprogressive.com/tom-hayden-wrong/
by Charles Fredricks
Because Tom fears the alternative is Lucifer, he opts to support Lucifer’s minion instead. Hyperbole? Hillary is working to export fracking technology globally, supports GMO companiesí efforts to control the food supply, is down with continuing to hold the US healthcare system hostage to private medical insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and never saw a war or weapons system she couldn’t justify.
She’s an imperialist; she makes no bones about continuing the failed fiction that American military preeminence equals the right to impose the will of corporate capitalists on all corners of the Earth that have not yet succumbed. She mistakenly believes we can continue such misappropriated investment of our energy while allowing our social base to wither and die. She is backed by the banks because they know her noise about reform is election year propaganda, as her idea of representing everyone means maintaining the status quo for the few who own half the wealth of the country. Viewing her through a global lens, she is a kinder, gentler, less misogynist, less racist (notice I did not say “not -” etc.), fascist.
Tom, you’re not even waiting to support her as an alternative to Trump or Ted Cruz or Paul Ryan, but are willing to ditch the possibility of choosing something other than the lesser of two evils, out of the fear that rooting for anything truly transformative could lead to a Republican victory.
This type of thinking is killing us, Tom. Climate change has raised the stakes. If we don’t support renewables, and tax carbon now (maybe even if we do), soon hundreds of millions will not have a place to live.
You conclude by re-playing the tune of your more radical roots, and say it will take all of us, but in this context you are implying we should succumb to our fears rather than work for our dreams. The young Tom Hayden would’ve seen it differently, I believe. America will get the leadership it deserves. The times require more courage than you are exemplifying here. We need to work for Bernie, up to the convention, and then for those same priorities he (and others more radical) choose to represent, regardless what face is put on “the reigns of power.”
We need systemic change. Hillary will not give us that.
Charles Fredricks, Santa Monica
Charles Fredricks is a documentary filmmaker, a member of the KPFK-LSB, the Southern Calif. Federation of Scientists, and Converging Storms Action Network, on the editorial staff of Change-Links, and a core member of Democratic Socialists of America, Los Angeles
