I don't think there is any parallel in the U.S. Of the Chicago 7, only Tom Hayden went into mainstream politics and never got higher than state assemblyman. Bobby Seale, David Dellinger, and Lee Wiener are still left, far as I know, and in no danger of Cabinet appointments. Abby Hoffman stayed left till his death. Rennie Davis and Jerry Rubin went into new age stuff. Maybe two Black Panthers went into mainstream politics, one is in the Congress now. The Clintonoids are all "Big Chill" types of ex-radicals, as far as I can see -- people who were either on the fringes of real left action, or in elite positions within the Democratic party of that period (i.e., Clinton as a McGovern state coordinator).
> . . .
> I suppose it depends where you cut demarcate 'the left', but surely one
> of the key experiences of the US left was agitation for humanitarian
> intervention *against* apartheid. . . .
This movement didn't get started till well after those of appropriate age
today to take government positions had either gone thru the left in 1960-75 or avoided doing so. Besides which, I think anyone who participated in that campaign deserves credit.
> . . .
> Yes, I certainly agree with that. But its specific contribution is that
> it gives us R-T as refracted through the defeats and the adaptation of
> defeat of the (okay) soft left. . . .
Very soft left indeed.
mbs