I am referring to people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. I am into my 80th year and have not seen people like these in government. The idea that Bernie might run for president excites me.
I have been a political activist and leader since the 1960s. I have never recovered from the deep disappointment with the democratic party during the Vietnam War. John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were no better than John McCain in their use of war as a political tool.
I became a charter member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) after being more and more disenchanted with the democratic party.
Before you leap to tear at my throat you first have to deal with the fact that I have participated in the party all along and you will find few party members who have worked as hard as I have. I invest myself because I want to use whatever means I can to stop the growth of fascism both outside and inside the party.
Read on below and I'll say more about this.
We are all patting President Obama on the back for trying to keep us out of the war with Iran. That is nice but meanwhile we are an imperialist force in the world and war is what we stand for.
Long ago there were movements to bring together the working people of the world against the oligarchs and plutocrats. War has always been a tool in pitting working people against each other. It is but one of many.
As I read the discussions of what Sanders and Warren are doing I have to try to keep some sort of perspective about how far down political awareness has sunk in this country. I call them a "ray of hope" and that certainly does not signal a naive acceptance of all of what they are. As a long time political activist and a student of history and politics I certainly see their shortcomings. On the other hand when you look at the whole picture they stand out like giants!
I long ago realized that we will never get anywhere by using elections as the means. Elections are a tool and they do have limited consequences, but compared to what is needed they are almost nothing.
There are things happening out there that people have done that will be how we get through this ugly dark time. If I look to the democratic party I see people in it who are in tune, yet the power structure and the systematic aspects are totally regressive.
I can't see that this can be fixed. We need voices like those of Sanders and Warren to point to the contradictions. Solutions will come through hard work in and out of the electoral process, mainly outside of it.
You do not have to be an expert to see the magnitude of the trouble we are in. The political process has become transparent enough to show who its serves. The civilization we have created is not unlike a bacteria colony in a flask, growing itself to death. Every tool we had to help us has been perverted beyond hope.
Education has become a nightmare of focus on all the wrong things and does the opposite of what its purpose is. Health care has become dominated by profit and The ACA is less than a bandaid. Agriculture has become the destruction of the soil and it gets worse by the day. I don't know how far we will sink before we begin to work in a constructive way to provide some sort of chance for the generations that follow.
I do know that for a long long time we have not needed a weatherman to tell us which way the wind is blowing.