How did you become politicized?

Forums: Politics, History, Anecdotes, Personal Political Development, Political Commitment
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I don’t know if there’ll be much response to a question like this, but I’m a curious person so I’m asking anyway .....

By politicized I mean : politically aware or active. What caused you to become politically aware or active?

Was it a particular event that influenced you? A positive or negative response to the event?
Maybe you inherited your politics from your family?
Media influence, perhaps?
Maybe you read a really persuasive book which gave you an awareness you didn't have before, say like Silent Spring, years ago.
Or ....?

I’m asking this question of A2Kers of all political persuasion, left, right & “other”.

Could I ask that we not bash others for their “wrong” political views, please? Otherwise people may be discouraged from participating.

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when i was in high school i worked on a number of political campaigns, mainly because the father of a good friend was a campaign manager, i tend to vote all over the place, don't really follow a party, vote for the candidate i like best

1 Reply

@msolga,

Me: three formative experiences as a young adult:

• Union membership would have to have been my formative influence. I had the good fortune to become involved in a very active union as a young teacher. It was a genuine participatory union at that time, democratic decision making. Members had a huge say in formation of policy & action.

• The Vietnam war. Along with my union activity, this was my first experience of “taking to the streets” in protest.

• The dismissal of the Whitlam government in Australia in 1975 (or the coup, as many of us saw it). My first (very bitter) lesson that “the powers that be” would only allow so much deviation from established interests before intervention.
http://whitlamdismissal.com/overview/

1 Reply

@djjd62,

Can you remember any of those campaigns, djjd? What were the issues involved?

1 Reply

I attended university in the 1960s . . . nothing more need be said.

2 Replies

@msolga,

a provincial and federal candidate for the NDP (New Democratic Party) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democratic_Party)

just a lot of flyer distribution and door to door polling

0 Replies

@msolga,

I didn't inherit my political views from my mostly politically indifferent parents and siblings.

I guess I came onto my own first by reading and absorbing politics through the habit of reading the newspaper when I was in high school. I was politically indifferent/oblivious back then but still the information was being stored into my brain. But being from Massachusetts, I always had a socially liberal leaning.

Still while I was in the army, I was a registered Republican.

In 1995, with my first run with an exposure to a liberal arts education at Framingham State College, as well as becoming an addict to NPR, I changed political parties from Republican to Democrat.

2 Replies

@tsarstepan,

Maybe I did inherit my parents indifference but later on eschewed political self alienation during my first attempt at college.

0 Replies

@Setanta,

Quote:

I attended university in the 1960s . . . nothing more need be said.

Yes there is. Please say it.
Lots of people might not understand why this experience politicized you & others at that time.

0 Replies

@tsarstepan,

Quote:

Still while I was in the army, I was a registered Republican.

In 1995, with my first run with an exposure to a liberal arts education at Framingham State College, as well as becoming an addict to NPR, I changed political parties from Republican to Democrat.

That's quite a transformation, tsar!

0 Replies

I participated in a war in southeast indochina. when I came home and entered university (1064) I became involved in human rights and became a democrat, I got over being a democrat in 1968 and became a liberal.

4 Replies

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I attended university in the 1960s . . . nothing more need be said.

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

2 Replies

@msolga,

Quote:

Me: three formative experiences as a young adult:

• Union membership would have to have been my formative influence. I had the good fortune to become involved in a very active union as a young teacher. It was a genuine participatory union at that time, democratic decision making. Members had a huge say in formation of policy & action.

• The Vietnam war. Along with my union activity, this was my first experience of “taking to the streets” in protest.

• The dismissal of the Whitlam government in Australia in 1975 (or the coup, as many of us saw it). My first (very bitter) lesson that “the powers that be” would only allow so much deviation from established interests before intervention.
http://whitlamdismissal.com/overview/

Should have included a 4th major influence: The feminist movement of the 1970s. It had a huge impact on many women (including me) at that time.

1 Reply

@dyslexia,

dyslexia wrote:

I participated in a war in southeast indochina.

Where's Southeast Indochina again? Is that north of Cleveland, Ohio?

1 Reply

@dyslexia,

Quote:

I participated in a war in southeast indochina.

Yes, and ...?

Please tell us more. (This is ancient history to many young folk, ya know, dys! Wink

)

0 Replies

@tsarstepan,

See?

0 Replies

@msolga,

msolga wrote:

Should have included a 4th major influence" The feminist movement of the 1970s. It had a huge impact on many women (including me) at that time.

Did you read the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. I did a college paper a couple of years ago on it. (Can't remember my thesis though).

2 Replies

@tsarstepan,

tsarstepan wrote:

Did you read the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan.

wait, they sorted all that out in a book, well that'll be handy

0 Replies

@tsarstepan,

Yes, indeed. And Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch. That was big!

But I didn't burn my bra in the street, though. Wink

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germaine_Greer

0 Replies

@djjd62,

Quote:

Setanta wrote:

Quote:
I attended university in the 1960s . . . nothing more need be said.

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

0 Replies

How did you become politicized?

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