Todd Gitlin? Tom Hayden? Mark Rudd? Michael Kazin? Paul Buhle? So now that they’ve got the signal what are they going to do with it? How much weight do they really carry? And how much more will they bring to bear for Obama than they otherwise would have.
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No, not so much. This is a more diffuse group, not necessarily cadre, but the rank and file, their kids and grandkids and all the newbies who are convinced that the USA needs to be eliminated and then the ruins burned.
These are the people who are really the 1% but are guilt tripped into supporting their own demise and loudly proclaim that they don’t really care about money while living a rural hippie lifestyle supported by same. They are contributors. They are the ones working for the NGOs and doing the Occupation. They are prolific grant writers and grantees, using our tax money to do the ground-level work for EPA and the rest of the far left agencies. They are the petitioners who spend rainy days on street corners for the cause. They were Movement grunts and then they raised an entire couple of generations on their *war* stories.
Scoff all you like. I live surrounded by them and way back in the day, they were my friends. Their kids are in their 30s and early 40s and the grandkids are teens to twenties. As Anonymous likes to say:they are Legion.
Definitely legion. Have you seen the anonymous video that warns Americans about the new defense bill that allows for indefinite detention?
That is the kind of "dog-whistle politics" politicians can do -- use language and make overtures that activists pick up on and the rest of the country doesn't notice. But the question is whether the activists are going to be the people smiling in the end, or whether they'll feel used and cheated (or be used and cheated and not even realize it).