constraint thread 2: the political recursion game

[roachboy]

the rule:

in this thread, the please address the question directly, that is don't provide informational demonstrations.

the other rule:

this thread might seem intrusive in that it is about quite personal matters.
i think it'd be an interesting exercise to indulge it, but not so much if what gets written here becomes ammunition for other debates/conflicts elswhere.
so the other rule is that what is written here stays here.
think of it as a constraint.
binding-like once you decide to play.


preamble

ok so in my 3-d life i do alot of work on left revolutionary politics, what they were, what happened to them, why there aren't any at this point. my own political views are intertwined with this research, which adds another level of pressure to what follows in my little world.

the problem:

if you work in a dissident space, you find yourself without the usual instituted checks that let you align your positions with those of others, and have to instead do more introspective work that lets you, to the extent possible, come to understand relations between your political views and psychological make-up and/or background or experiences. this is important because you need to be able to at least try to make a distinction between political claims about situations in the world and claims that are simple projections of desires or pathologies (say)...if you want to be able to imagine that what you write or say is interesting as something more than a psychological document.

so how do you align your politics and your background or psychological make-up as you understand it?

are there particular experiences that you think shaped your political development?
if you're willing to talk about them, what were they and how do you think the relation has played out?

are there particular personality tendencies that you have noticed about your 3-d self that make you wonder what the linkage is between these tendencies and your politics?


for example, i sometimes wonder about the links between the fact that my parents divorced when i was 5 and my desire to see solidarity as being possible amongst people--and as an extension that alternate social orders are possible---while at the same time deploring what exists. i sometimes see the scenarios i write as accidental repetitions of this experience, with an enormous theoretical construct sitting atop a viewpoint that repeats that of myself when i was 5.
this causes me to delete a lot of things, for better or worse.

i wonder if my tendency to critique almost all forms of hierarchical power link back to difficulties with authority in general that derive from the same source. this one i find it much easier to control for that the first.

but the main strange loop is that i wonder if there is a relation between my desire to see and work to help bring about a fundamentally different social arrangement is more than a displaced repetition of wishing for a family that simply did not exist.

i write alot about social revolution and find that these concerns turn up when i am editing. they put me in a strange place. it's not easy to navigate it.

[Ustwo]

For me, conservative is so natural I'd think there has to be a genetic component. The very concept of leftist politics have always struck me as fundamentally wrong from a very early age, even before I had any real understanding of politics. While in school I only ran into a handful of what I'd call conservative educators, my parents, both conservative, never were overly active in politics, nor did they teach their politics to me. Perhaps it was a monkey see monkey do thing, but I don't think so, I had absolutely no problem rejecting their superficial religion so I can't imagine I'd have then blindly accepted their politics.

So I am a conservative by nature I think more than nurture. I'm sure if I were born to Berkley history professors I'd still be conservative much to their dismay.

Really my political development was on hold until 2000. I enjoyed following politics to an extent but it was the 2000 election which showed me the extent bias in the press and the danger the judiciary could be to a fair republic. Lately though I've realized that unless I start to vote from rooftops, there is no point in being agitated by that which I am not directly affecting. I have kids that need my time, an office that needs my input, and a social life that doesn't improve by talking politics. All of these things are more important than getting mad about some bone head politician. Were I to go into politics it would be different of course.

I am also a lone wolf type. I am very competent on my own, and working with other people tends to hold me back. Thats not to say that I don't see the value of group effort, but I don't see the need for group effort in things a normal person should be able to do without help. Perhaps that is part of my conservatism, in that social programs offer me very little but expect me to give quite a bit. It needs me more than I need it, they are the grasshoppers and I am the ant if you follow the reference.

Dovetailing into this is my study of biology. Psychologists have tried for a number of years to tell us humans have no instincts and that we were somehow special in the animal kingdom beyond our intelligence. This has been shown to be very wrong, and our societies are built upon what works with our genes. I see leftist policies trying to work against such genes while my policies would work with them. Perhaps the best known author on this currently by the population is Richard Dawkins, who is a brilliant biological writer and a complete caricature of a knee jerk ivory tower liberal. Its painful to read some of his books, he has the bad habit of inserting his politics where not needed, but the real pain is watching him state the biological facts of how our genes work and at the same time go out of his way telling us it shouldn't have to be that way. He's given the keys to understanding human behavior and then rejects them because they don't fit his world view. I on the other hand see them as a justification of my world view, and that public policy should be those which work best with our natures, not what we wish our natures were. To do so always ends in failure as we are what we are, not what we would like to be.

[jorgelito]

Great topic Roach!! I have been meaning to bring it up and asking especially people like you. I just haven't really had the time and wherewithal to articulate a meaningful discussion.

For me, much of my politics and social consciousness is simply shaped by my observations and experience. I am very well traveled, have lived in many different countries and have a diverse group of friends which contribute as input. Over time, there have been many changes of course.

When I was a wee lad, I was quite the leftist and revolutionary. As I get older and wiser and begin to understand the world better, I have slowly progressed right and now am a progressive conservative.

I will stop here for now because I'm not sure how you would like to frame the discussion forward and I want to make sure I am within your guidelines before writing more.

[Seaver]

I have no doubt my conservative stance was directly affected by the amount of family members in the service. My father as well as 6 out of 8 uncles were in the service. My parents never talked to me about politics, they were just content with letting me figure things out for myself.

I grew up constantly moving, but always within the military "bubble". The bubble is something I never understood until after my father's retirement, it's the fact that you never get away from military members or live in cities that do not have military bases (compare San Diego's atmosphere vs. L.A., or Norfolk vs. any other N.E. city). Civilian life seemed so weird, including movies where the kid would cry when his dad left on a business trip. The father being gone for 8 months every 1.5 years was just how it went. They couldn't tell us where they were, when they'd be back, or what they were doing... just tell us they loved us and would be home soon.

I remember watching Clinton vs. Bush debates, and actually favoring Clinton's arguments at a young age (3rd grade). That was until he took office and cut military funding. Military housing funds were cut, the base couldn't afford to repair it's streets or the roofs of all the enlisted houses. We lived in Officers Housing, but all it meant was we got 1 more bedroom per household and didn't share a garage. More funds were cut, eventually leading to an early forced retirement for my father. Base closings occurred across the country, shrinking the "bubble" even further and causing a lot more Americans to never see a man in uniform.

Eventually this drew me to the conservative side, and strengthened the entire military to the right which remembered the golden years of Reagan's military resurgence (85-89% voted for Bush in '04). When I joined, I was constantly harassed by the left while in uniform, diminishing LOTS of patience and respect for the radical left (one hippy threw a fish at me... a raw fish... I kid you not).

I like to think of myself as a moderate conservative, I don't care about illegal immigration, marijuana, gay marriage, Shaivo (sp?), or Jerry Falwell (or if he's dead the other loony). However I don't think anyone here would paint me as a liberal.

[host]

Originally Posted by roachboy

....if you work in a dissident space, you find yourself without the usual instituted checks that let you align your positions with those of others, and have to instead do more introspective work that lets you, to the extent possible, come to understand relations between your political views and psychological make-up and/or background or experiences.....

Two things came to mind when I read your OP, especially the sentence above.

The first reaction conjured up memories from a long, long time ago, and the second was about something I was examining in the last hour.....

I have never felt so alone, so different from all of those who I personally came in contact with, than I did when I was a college freshman, wrestling with, and then committing to the idea of not participating in selective service registration during the latter part of the vietnam war. There were big things...was I doing it as a counter-reaction to the influence of the strong personality and political views of my former USMC father, or were my beliefs formed more from studying history and reading the NY Times weekday editions, daily from the beginning of my senior year in HS.

I couldn't talk about it with anyone as I wrestled with it, and there were the subtle, "little" things....handing back the college (military draft) deferment app, along with all of my male freshman peers...they had all filled theirs out, and I slipped mine into the pile, blank.

I doubted the stance I took, regarding willingly participating in the military draft, for six years, discussing it with fewer people, and only in the later years of the six, with less friends than I could count on one hand. I dismissed Gerald Ford's amnesty offer, it was tied to "restating allegiance to the US", and a "community service" "sentence like" condition.

I stop following closely any of the proposals to deal with "that prolem" that were proposed by candidates or elected officials.

Seemingly out of the blue, in late Jan., 1977, a friend who had just passed the bar exam, and who I had discussed my legal status with, came up to me and asked me if I was celebrating the pardon just announced by newly innaugurated President Carter. I had not been aware of it.

It changed my life, and how I think about politics. It seemed like, in one day, I had gone from a sense of hopelessness and resignation, a reflexive, "looking over my shoulder" condition....resenting that I had to shoulder the convictions about the war and the government that I had....didn't choose, because if I chose, I could put the convictions down....and that never seemed to be an option. I always know what I have to do, what stance I have to take, where I have to "draw the line", I just don't like it, and it comes with second guessing that is more like resentment, than actual second guessing.

It's a feeling like, I must be wrong because what I so firmly think is opposite what almost everyone else is supporting, so...where do I "get" this "stuff"?

So, after I heard the news about Carter's proclamation, I became who I am politically, and I can live with it....and it's great to the opportunity to discuss my views, with you, rb, and others here....you know who you are.

That experience made the constant introspection that I still do, not seem nagging, or as abnormal. The "why me"? element was dispelled. It's alright to dissent, to be overwhelmingly at odds with "everybody knows".

The second thing was my reaction to a post on another thread, this afternoon, an opinion that Cynthia McKinney's candidacy for the Green Party's 2008 presidential nomination, would only "hurt the party".

I did some searching. The Capitol police "assault" was not approved by the investigating grand jury for indictment. She was against Gulf War's I and II. I read a comparison between her and Rep. Tom Lantos. Lantos seems to have hidden his knowledge that the "nurse witness" he arranged to have testify before a congressional committee to drum up support for US involvement in "taking back" Kuwait....she testified that she saw invading Iraqi soldiers tearing infants out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital and dumping the babies on the floor as they looted the incubators and other hospital equipment.

I read that Lantos's closest associate on the committee claimed that Lantos knew in advance, and did not tell him that the "witness" was the then 15 year old daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the US.

McKinney confronted Rumsfeld and Gen. Meyers, seeking their admissions that there were a series of war games conducted simultaneously to the 9/11 attacks. She questioned the official version of events of 9/11, and, when she organized a day of testimony on Capitol Hill from experts who agreed, her district's newspaper, the ajc.com, ran an inaccurate piece claiming she was blaming president Bush for the attacks, and refused to allow to print her own account.

From the day she arrived at the capitol to take her congressional seat, in 1993, she had experienced a long series of incidences of discrimination by capitol police....compared to other members of congress...mostly white males. Race relations among the capitol police, and promotions to higher rank are documented as lacking, resulting in a class action lawsuit by black officers,m, and the threat of a second suit.

McKinney has questioned authority, sided with the powerless, come out against both Gulf wars, questioned the veracity of government officials, been subjected to a federal court redistricting ruling that transformed here congressional district from mostly minority to 94 percent white, and, after she still won re-election, was targeted by a primary blitz of cross-over republican voters (it was allowed in GA, but cross-overs were disqualified from voting in other republican primaries for a year after...), and she had talk show host Boortz describe her on the air as resembling a "ghetto whore".

My 39 years experience, following American politics, impresses me that up is actually down, and right is actually wrong, that we live in a pathologically militaristic society where there is little justice for the powerless, and nearly a complete distortion of right and wrong, to the point where we openly endorse "greed as good", and resent and actually target the least wealthy and powerful, while we "highly respect" the most wealth and powerful who have done the most to subvert the best interests of almost all of us.

But most here would agree, I'm absolutely sure, that Cynthia Mckinney is "the problem", and open supporter of the military industrial complex's continued opportunity for growth, Obama, is "the solution".

....and I just learned yesterday, that Clarence Dillon, described as the wealthiest man in the US in 1957, owner of the only US owned "old growth" French vineyard, Haut-Brion, was the father of JFK US treasury secretary, C. Douglas Dillon. Clarence bought Haut-Brion in 1935, because they made his favorite cabernet.

We did it then, we're doing it now. Clarence Dillon lived to be 97, and Martin Luther King Jr. was shot down at age 39.

rb, you and I are centrists, the country we live in is extreme right, thinks it's "centrist", spends more money annually on the rest of the world, combined, and even some of our closest sympathizers on this board, believe that Obama, openly committed to increasing the size of the military and to "taking the fight to the enemy", (or they choose to overlook it....) is a "progressive solution" to the "Bush problem".

rb stop your introspection, sit down, pop some corn, watch our brethren bankrupt us, destroy what remains of the middle class, scratch their heads, call for a military solution to the collapse of the dollar, and then blame someone else for what happens next. You, me, and Cynthia Mckinney must "hate America".

....on edit, I just read the three posts that appeared here between the time I hit reply, and clicked "post". My reaction is, that words fail me....except to post that I feel like I've come from another planet, because I don't see how one can "take in", or completely ignore just the one issue of gargantuan US military spending, and still proceed to post what I see posted here, between the OP, and this....and do it so non-chalantly, almost as if "Wallace Hartley and the orchestra", were playing in the background....

[JumpinJesus]

I grew up in an apolitical household. Politics just weren't discussed. In fact, I grew up convinced my parents were conservative because we were upper-middle class and it just seemed a natural tendency to be conservative.

In my personal life, my parents divorced when I was 6. My mother disappeared from my life when I was 9. The events that transpired in those 3 years have caused a lot of issues through which I am still working, but I think they paved the way for me to be somewhat liberal.

In conjunction with that was the fact that my father was an extremely strict disciplinarian, bordering on the abusive. This planted within me the seeds of anti-authoritarianism, a facet of my personality that would manifest itself to its largest degree after I joined the military.

While in the military, I found myself surrounded by many people who would describe themselves as conservative. At that point, I still hadn't decided what I was politically. I did know, however, that I had a strong aversion to the ideas and attitudes being espoused by a lot of my comrades. Couple this with my disdain for strict authority and I think it was inevitable that I would become a leftist.

I find the biggest irony being that it was while in the military that I developed my liberal leanings.

[host]

Originally Posted by JumpinJesus

In conjunction with that was the fact that my father was an extremely strict disciplinarian, bordering on the abusive. This planted within me the seeds of anti-authoritarianism, a facet of my personality that would manifest itself to its largest degree after I joined the military.....

.....I find the biggest irony being that it was while in the military that I developed my liberal leanings.

I see the irony in that you joined the military....it seems a decision counter to "seeds of anti-authoritarianism".

[roachboy]

wow...very interesting responses--the thread will take a little time to digest.


jorgeilto: i left this open-ended ultimately because i didn't have a particular form in mind...i was just curious about this relation and hadn't had a chance to either make a thread about it or read another like it until now.
========
note:
i'm not sure if it makes sense at some point to open this up for conversation---i am reluctant to because of the relatively intimate nature of the posts, but am also open to suggestion.
==========

something i was thinking about while waiting in an interminable line at a market nearby--i forgot to lay out any experiences, instead only outlined psychological-level patterns/maybe repetitions that i bump into while writing political stuff.

there are 3 main experiences.

coming into political awareness in the early 1970s meant coming into political awareness during the ugliest and most divisive period of the vietnam era--the invasion of cambodia, the bombing of laos...i'm not sure i understood why i was viscerally offended by the american involvement in vietnam, but i was.
the political and historical narratives i assembled later.

there is a link between my politics and the music i'm interested in, but i haven't figured it out quite. at some levels, the sound stuff is an expression of the way my mind works, now it structures things, how it makes structures. recordings are a curious kind of map to have to listen to and think about...

[[added later--when i read through this, i had no idea why i put it here except that i was talking with my clairaudient comrade while writing it...the music stuff ties to the politics in two ways---when i started playing as a kid, i could just do things--even though thinking back on it, they weren't that great, but at the time, they were the most exciting thing i had ever encountered---which is perhaps explained by growing up in new hampshire, where sense data is--uh---low intensity--but the experience that followed was one of going my own way, not buckling to my teachers or family and playing just "normal" things. later on in my life, returning to doing sound sutff seriously showed me an entire alternate world of possibilites, and that you can change yourself, very fundamentally, at any age. and that discipline and persistence matter. and that there is no reason--at all---to confuse what is for what is legitimate, for the range of what is legitimate. and there is a curious parallel between pursuing making new things and imagining that what i do in other areas is part of a larger project directed at undercutting the ideology that holds this sorry-ass system together in order to open up space for a new, hopefully better, way of thinking about the world.]]

meeting folk from socialisme ou barbarie had a huge impact on me. it's hard to explain. particularly the lunch during which one of the comrades turned to me and said "you have to be careful with revolutionary politics. you have to remember that you also have to live in this world."

[uncle phil]

Originally Posted by roachboy

meeting folk from socialisme ou barbarie had a huge impact on me. it's hard to explain. particularly the lunch during which one of the comrades turned to me and said "you have to be careful with revolutionary politics. you have to remember that you also have to live in this world."

would that a lot of us could have been afforded that advice...

[host]

Originally Posted by roachboy

.....meeting folk from socialisme ou barbarie had a huge impact on me. it's hard to explain. particularly the lunch during which one of the comrades turned to me and said "you have to be careful with revolutionary politics. you have to remember that you also have to live in this world."

Individuals also can't help but embracing revolutionary politics because they have to live in the world.

Nelson Mandela went from 25 years in an island prison, to heading his suddenly "unoutlawed" political party, to Nobel peace prize winner, to president of his country, in less than four years.

He experienced political justice. His experiences thrust him and Bishop Tutu into circumstances and a mindset that could establish and conduct "Truth Commission" hearings where fact finding and admissions of culpability were enough to counter the urge to punish....an extraordinary display of grace and humanity which our more "advanced" society, holds little hope, or even an ambition, to ever emulate.

Who are the "prisoners of conscience", the true "poltical martyrs"? Are they the ones who risk the most because of a political stance they've taken? Was Corliss Lamont, for example, an example of a political martyr....giving up certain success in the corridors of fiance and power, as the son of JP Morgan chairman, Thomas Lamont, in favor of promoting a marxist political agenda in the US in the 1930's? Or, is Cindy Sheehan a political martyr, giving up nothing but here anonymity to wage a one woman protest against a US "war president", in the name of her son, killed in that war?

Can neo-conservative politics, even serve up "prisoners of conscience"?

Where would US foreign relations be today, if President Carter had rejected demands to invoke a military response to the Iranian revolutionary occupation and hostage taking of the US embassy and 52 Americans in Tehran in 1978?

Does a "military option", at the disposal of a country with an investment in the military, like the size of the one the US has, eliminate even the need to consider political justice or accountability? Carter had the choice of responding to the Iranians by apologizing for the US role in the 1953 coup in Iran, the manipulation of oil prices Iran received for its exports, the installation of the Shah's monarchy and the training and organizing of the repressive Savak...the secret police enforcement arm of the Shah's regime, or to respond militarily after he permitted the exiled Shah to come to the US to reside and receive medical treatment, and made any chance for US diplomatic concession contingent upon the release of the 52 hostages?

We know what Carter chose, and we know where we are today.

If this thread can be a "process" with a goal of finding out how "each other tick", with no argumentative intent, I'm asking how you do it. I'm bestowed with a requirement for political justice, as an indispensable component of decisions I take, and of those my government takes. I want to identify rationalizations, and avoid them, as an "easy way" out.

Do you think about them, in considering formation of political opinions, or, compared to what I "go through" ever since I can remember being politically aware, is it more like being on vacation, the way that it works for you?

Does the US, for example, because of it's military strength, ever have to pay for the "sins of our fathers", in Iran? Can we simply compel the Iranians to overlook the 1953 coup, the Shah, Savak, etc., is the only example that is paramount for us, is that we do not negotiate with those who use violent means to get our attention, even though we do....(see the Contra hearings in 1987....)

Is it possible to embrace US military spending, and the history of US overt and covert foreign policy, and be "alright with it", and yet assert that a component of your politics is consideration of what is just, and what isn't?

Do folks who disagree with me, go through any similar process to determine their political opinions, as I do? Is the US obligated to "bend over backwards" in pursuing "just political responses", by virtue of it's past policies and actions, and it's current mega overwhelming military superiority, or does it get to act "like anybody else", without trying harder than anyone else to set a high standard in it's diplomacy?

....or, do I seem like I'm from another planet?

[roachboy]

If this thread can be a "process" with a goal of finding out how "each other tick", with no argumentative intent, I'm asking how you do it. I'm bestowed with a requirement for political justice, as an indispensable component of decisions I take, and of those my government takes. I want to identify rationalizations, and avoid them, as an "easy way" out.

well, i am interested in the narrower version of the thread for its own sake, really.

i was--and if anything am more so now that i've read the responses above--curious both about what folk have to say and how they say it.

it's mostly a way to try to understand the community differently, and maybe humanize it a little by pushing aside the persona names and asking the (anonymous) 3-d comrades a question, just because i'm curious about it.

given that, it makes little sense to me to launch any fusillades, y'know? it's a fragile thing, a thread like this, in that it's asking what to me are quite intimate questions. so narrowing the focus is mostly about trying to create a space so folk may be inclined to actually respond, in their way, based on how they see these relations.

and it's interesting that already there is such a range of responses, interesting to see the overlap and distinctions between say jj's and seaver's experiences in the military and their relations to larger political commitments.
or that ustwo and i have diametrically opposed relations to collective work. it's interesting for its own sake, i think.

anyway, that's the idea.
feel free to open other threads to pursue discussions about underlying issues--but remember the second rule--i dont want us to screw up the possiblity of once in a while addressing each other as human beings rather than as collections of sentences in a box by having what those folk say turned back onto them. if that happens, this thread will die a quick death and you wont see others that try this going anywhere. so it's kinda important that we respect that rule...

[The_Jazz]

Growing up, politics was not an overpowering discussion at home, although it was discussed. My father is a West Point grad, and my mother spent 45 years as a social worker trying to help people. They had very different views of the world, but they were always careful to discuss things calmly and rationally.

Entering high school at the beginning of Reagan's second term, I was fairly conservative. I was encouraged to study more about various cultures around the world and started to discover more of the injustice in the world and quickly radicalized. To the best of my knowledge, I am still the only graduate of my high school (a private school known for turning out conservatives) to be a registered member of the Communist Party while a student.

Once in college I got the opportunity to study more Russian history, specifically Soviet history, and over the course of about 5 years grew completely disillusioned with Marxism in all its forms.

I've drifted closer and closer to the center, albeit from the left, because I see it as the only way to affect actual change. Where I once saw black and white, I only see grey. I am a firm disbeliever in absolutes of any sort, which I suppose means that the angry young man in me is gone, just like in Elvis Costello.

[filtherton]

Well, both my parents are pretty liberal. My dad is the prototypical reformed earnest choir boy- full of boy scoutesque integrity and a comprehensive understanding of electrical and mechanical things. My mom is the prototypical farm girl made good- first in her family to get a degree, all that.

Politically, i pretty much accepted their perspectives on the way things ought to be, until i hit the teenage years and they spontaneously became ridiculously naive and hopelessly clueless about everything i cared about.

The high school i went to was actually pretty great, the curriculum was very unconventional- we learned about all the typically radical things- feminism, american patriarchical culture, labor struggles, the more militant sides of the civil rights movement, institutional oppression, human rights. It was all very discussion oriented and the tests consisted of a written analysis of every day of class that was handed in at the end of the trimester.

I don't agree with a lot of the things they taught there anymore, but i value having been exposed to them, and being trusted to be able to think critically about them.

Despite my fairly liberal parents, and my super liberal primary education, i don't necessarily think that i'm all that liberal. I actually kind of detest the term, along with "conservative" too. They don't actually mean anything all that interesting, they just provide a convenient way to write off someone's perspective.

So far, i don't think the political beliefs i was exposed to in my life have been all that influential. What has been more useful has been the fact that i tend towards curiosity and mistrust- i want to know why things are the way they are, and i don't trust people to not fuck them up.

I believe that my experiences are in some sense microcosm of the human experience. I know people who have spent most of their lives making mistakes who have figured things out and turned their lives around. I know people who have been nothing but successful who are nothing but a pox to everyone they know.

I prefer ideas with utility, and utility knows no specific ideology.

[Elphaba]

I am in awe of the posts here and believe that I have almost touched the 3D person behind the screen name. I will return to attempt an explanation of my political framework and what influences it, once I get my year-end obligations completed. Obviously...I just described one factor. There is no cheating an obligation.

[JumpinJesus]

Originally Posted by host

I see the irony in that you joined the military....it seems a decision counter to "seeds of anti-authoritarianism".

On the surface it would seem obviously quizzical that I would join the military considering my stance on authority, but I think it helps to remember that I joined when I was 17. Because of the way I was brought up, being an independent, self-sufficient, sovereign person was a very frightening prospect for me. I wasn't prepared for it, so I sought out familiar environs.

[flstf]

Originally Posted by roachboy

the rule:

in this thread, the please address the question directly, that is don't provide informational demonstrations.

so how do you align your politics and your background or psychological make-up as you understand it?

are there particular experiences that you think shaped your political development?
if you're willing to talk about them, what were they and how do you think the relation has played out?

are there particular personality tendencies that you have noticed about your 3-d self that make you wonder what the linkage is between these tendencies and your politics?

I think I am similar to many who grew up in the sixties. Started out anti-establishment and anti-Vietnam war (against both Republicans and Democrats in those days). When I began working and became more aware of issues I began rejecting the Democrats policy of big government, high taxes and the social security ponzi scheme. In my later years I realize there is little difference between the parties and have pretty much given up.

My father was a WWII vet and a southern Democrat which I guess is a Republican nowadays and my mother was independant. We attended church when I was young but religion rarely entered into my political thinking.

I think the Vietnam war infuenced my politics when I was young. Even my WWII vet father couldn't understand how we could send so many boys to be killed and not back them up with our full military power. Economics and the reality of political corruption have influenced my thinking in later years.

[ratbastid]

My parents were politically split, as were both sets of their parents. In each case, the wife was liberal and the husband conservative--though fairly moderately so in all cases. The joke was that their votes cancelled each other out. In fact, story goes that one election year my grandmother was too sick to go out to the polling place, so granddad chivalrously abstained.

I remember being in sixth grade in 1984 and supporting Reagan. Mondale seemed like a creepy old jerk, and Reagan seemed nice, and Dad liked Reagan. That was the last time I was ever on Dad's side.

When I reached the age sufficient to really reason my way through political questions, it just seemed obvious to me that a government serves a society, and that a society is only as strong as its weakest members. Given that, it only seems right that one key goal of a government should be to empower and strengthen the citizens who need it. Whether that means taxing the rich and giving to the poor, or socialized medicine (I'm for it, no matter how scary the S-word is to some people), or whatever else, what I'm about is people being taken care of, and I want government to do the same.

[dc_dux]

My political orientation began on a bitter cold day in January 1961, at the inauguration of JFK, for whom my parents actively campaigned. Fortunately on that day, I was still in the warmth of my mother's womb, emerging two months later as a Democrat!

I was raised to be active in community affairs and gained an understanding from an early age that it takes government, the private sector and the non-profit/volunteer sector working together to make a difference in the lives of all citizens in the community, especially those most in need.

Later, the greatest political influence on my life came from Senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia. He first was elected to the House in 1932 and he was the last remaining FDR Democrat when I went to work for him for two years in 1983-84, before he retired from the Senate. He was an avid civil rights advocate long before it was popular, an anti-war advocate and a populist in the truest sense. He was the member of Congress most responsible for the passage of the 26th Amendment that lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, believing that those young enough to fight for their country should have a voice in government. He also proposed a Department of Peace long before Kucinich "borrowed" his idea and his other greatest legacy was his bill to establish the non-partisan United States Institute of Peace, which most recently was the front funding organization for the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group that sought to find a solution to the failed policy in Iraq.

The lesson that carried over most from that time was that idealism is a noble trait but in the reality of politics, more can be accomplished through pragmatism, humility and a willingness to compromise and build consensus.