This will be much shorter, I promise.

I found this essay and appeal by Tom Hayden via Avedon Carol. Read it through.

In addition to calling on Barack to make clear his stands and distinctions in foreign policies, Hayden also cuts to the chase:

Your problem, if I may say so out loud, and with all respect, is that the deepest rationale for your running for president is the one that you dare not mention very much, which is that you are an African-American with the possibility of becoming president. The quiet implication of your centrism is that all races can live beyond the present divisions, in the higher reality above the dualities. You may be right. You see the problems Hillary Clinton encounters every time she implies that she wants to shatter all those glass ceilings and empower a woman, a product of the feminist movement, to be president? Same problem. So here’s my question: how can you say let’s “turn the page” and leave all those Sixties’ quarrels behind us if we dare not talk freely in public places about a black man or a woman being president? Doesn’t that reveal that on some very deep level that we are not yet ready to “turn the page”?

When you think about it, these should be wonderful choices, not forbidden topics. John Edwards can’t be left out either, for his dramatic and, once again, unstated role as yet another reformed white male southerner seeking America’s acceptance, like Carter, Clinton and Gore before him. Or Bill Richardson trying to surface the long-neglected national issues of Latinos. I think these all these underlying narratives, of blacks, women, white southerners and la raza - excuse me, Hispanic-Americans - are far more moving, engaging and electorally-important than the dry details of policy.

What I cannot understand is your apparent attempt to sever, or at least distance yourself, from the Sixties generation, though we remain your single greatest supporting constituency. I can understand, I suppose, your need to define yourself as a American rather than a black American, as if some people need to be reassured over and over. I don’t know if those people will vote for you.

You were ten years old when the Sixties ended, so it is the formative story of your childhood. The polarizations that you want to transcend today began with life-and-death issues that were imposed on us. No one chose to be “extreme” or “militant” as a lifestyle preference. It was an extreme situation that produced us. On one side were armed segregationists, on the other peaceful black youth. On one side were the destroyers of Vietnam, on the other were those who refused to submit to orders. On the one side were those keeping women in inferior roles, on the other were those demanding an equal rights amendment. On one side were those injecting chemical poisons into our rivers, soils, air and blood streams, on the other were the defenders of the natural world. On one side were the perpetrators of big money politics, on the other were keepers of the plain democratic tradition. Does anyone believe those conflicts are behind us?

I can understand, in my old age, someone wanting to dissociate from the extremes to which some of us were driven by the times. That seems to be the ticket to legitimacy in the theater of the media and cultural gatekeepers. I went through a similar process in 1982 when I ran for the legislature, reassuring voters that I wasn’t “the angry young man that I used to be.” I won the election, and then the Republicans objected to my being seated anyway! Holding the idea that the opposites of the Sixties were equally extreme or morally equivalent is to risk denying where you came from and what made your opportunities possible. You surely understand that you are one of the finest descendants of the whole Sixties generation, not some hybrid formed by the clashing opposites of that time. We want to be proud of the role we may have played in all you have become, and not be considered baggage to be discarded on your ascent. You recognize this primal truth when you stand on the bridge in Selma, Alabama, basking in the glory of those who were there when you were three years old. But you can’t have it both ways, revering the Selma march while trying to “turn the page” on the past.

It’s not just critical that Obama recognizes that, but every politician and every voter needs to come to grips with that, too.

The Republican Party politicians are extremely adept at exploiting divides in this country. Like the generational divide. Almost anyone born from 1960 on - voters now 18-47 - have few, if any memories of voters age 48-63 who were caught up in the thick of one or more of the Civil Rights, antiwar, Women’s Rights, UFW, reproductive rights, environmentalism movements, or the beginning of the GLBT liberation movement. Us boomers are not trapped in some time warp fighting the same battles, advocating the same tactics, or even suggesting we have all the right answers.

But what we do have are important memories. We’ve been the canaries in the current coal mine whose dust has darkened everyone’s future. Much of what we’ve seen in Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Powell and Armitage and Abrams and Perle and Wolfowitz and so many others tied to this White House is not new to us. Most of us spotted these phonies miles away, using old methods and old law violations to pursue policies and rights encroachments that are recycled failures, dusted off in pursuit of the same corrupt ends.

Our capacity to remember is your first line of defense. And in another three decades, yours will be necessary to warn and protect some future generations. We may not always know how to solve every problem. But we can see problems brewing. We can provide some answers. We can point to some things previous generations tried that didn’t work, too.

Back then, to gain ground on the needed reforms, we often did so with 52%-55% majorities in the general public. Which means there’s still a sizable minority of boomers who’ll be tugging you the other way. The worst approach of all is to try and aim for some middle between the two. Between right and wrong, for example, is half-right-half-wrong a better course than plain old right is? Now being liberal isn’t 100% right in every instance; I don’t mean to suggest that moderation is never apropos. And being thrifty - which used to be a conservative trait - certainly helps in spending decisions. Conserving resources (environmentalism) also had conservative support 30 years ago.

Tom Hayden directs his appeal at Obama, but I’m even more concerned that Hillary will ignore Tom’s advice, even though she’s a boomer. There’s so many issues where there is no good center. Is there a middle position on torture? On wiretapping? On civil liberties? For some issues, surrending the liberal position is always an unnecessary erosion that leads to no good.

Barack, like Reagan, begins as a centrist Democrat. . If you start there, a compromise leaves you always right of center. And on all but a handful of issues, that’s where Hillary will end up, just as Bill did. Us liberal boomers were shoved aside by Dukakis, Clinton, Gore and Kerry. And the last time a Democratic presidential candidate achieved 50% of the popular vote was 31 years ago when Jimmy Carter did it. He was a centrist and the center’s ben dragged rightward ever since. So keep moving well left of that, to restore a healthy balance.

And quit fretting so much about electibility. That’s like saying the missionary position is the best path to assure orgasm. The Republicans didn’t pull us so far right by riding the back of an electable centrist. That way leads to Reid and Pelosi politik.

Us boomers can be tiresome, lectureful farts at times. But remember, Al Gore invented the Internets. And us liberal boomers invented multiple orgasms. We think that should be championed as the mainstream, and most of our Democratic leaders are unecessarily settling for less.