How did you become politicized?

David apparently can't resist a question mark, unless it's the one at the end of your query, msolga.

Joe(so we will never know how he came to be as he is.)Nation

It certainly is a tale--pure story, and no reality. Jefferson was the minister to France at the time of the constitutional convention, and took no part in the writing of the constitution.

I had already posted in this thread, Joe,
so I did not seek to be redundant, but for convenient reference,
this is a copy of my earlier post:

I have always been a defensively minded person, Olga.
I do not remember being so young that I was not defensively minded.
As a kid, I felt threatenend on a political basis by authoritarian collectivists,
in the forms of any variety of socialists or liberals of the left,
e.g. Roosevelt, Stalin, the Kennedys, etc.
I felt that leftist politicians were conspiring to rape us citizens
out of our personal freedom n that we need to fight back.
I appreciated the writings of the Founders of this Republic,
as well as Adam Smith n John Locke, et al.
In time, I found that some modern (living) folks agreed with my point of vu,
e.g. William F. Buckley, Jr., Barry Goldwater, Ludwig von Mises.



I did not inherit my filosofy from my family,
who were Roosevelt Democrats, until eventually,
I convinced them to join me in voting for Barry Goldwater n his conservatism.

Clarifying my post:
I did not wait until Barry Goldwater became a candidate
to begin arguing for individualism and libertarianism
and supporting a rightist perspective. I remember being vocal
in denouncing Roosevelt and Truman 's liberalism.
I was shocked and alarmed when he relieved General MacArthur. I argued that Congress shoud have relieved Truman.
I was among those yelling for impeachment for Truman 's aid and comfort to the enemy.





David

There is really no need to post the same thing twice, David.
No one else has.
Nor was there any need to be critical of another A2Ker's contribution here after my initial request for tolerance.
No one else did that.

Joe indicated, in error,
that "David apparently can't resist a question mark,
unless it's the one at the end of your query, msolga"
and that:
"we will never know how he came to be as he is" because
allegedly I disregarded your question on that point.

As a courtesy to him, I produced the post that he believed to be missing. I c no harm in it.





David

David, what it boils down to, on this thread anyway, is that you haven't felt obliged to subscribe to the same "niceties" that everyone else has. No matter what their political persuasions might be.

I've been very interested in what A2Kers have had to say here. Some fascinating, generous & thoughtful posts. I have given every single one of them (including yours) a thumbs up. Whether I've agreed with the politics or not. Agreeing with people's politics wasn't the point of this thread.

Now, if you don't mind, the actual subject of this thread is what interests me. Not you.

I will not be responding to any further posts from you. I will probably give them a thumbs down, as I have given your last few posts.

Clarification. I meant to say: I will not be responding to any further posts from you on this particular thread.

An cordial invitation to politically inclined posters who have joined A2K in the past couple of years. (also to "older" A2Kers who might not have posted before, but might consider doing so now.)

It would be great if you could add your stories to this thread which was started in February of 2010. It was a really fascinating read. Well, I thought so, anyway.

I'd be really interested in hearing your stories if you'd care to post them. I think others here would be very interested, too.

You know who you are!

Of course, it's perfectly OK if you'd prefer not to, OK?

Opening post :

I just read the thread right through.
Some really terrific posts here from just about all who participated. (It was lovely to read dys/Bob's contributions again, too.)
What also struck me was the interest in & tolerance of what was posted (well, by 99.9% of those participating ) ... by others whose political leanings are quite different.

Anyway, having read all that, there are also many "A2K oldies" whose stories I would still love to hear.
As well as the relative new comers.

I feel very tempted to name names .... of people whose political histories I would love to know more about!
But I'll restrain myself.
Very reluctantly, mind.

Margaret 'Twatting' Thatcher!

Yes?

Tell us more, izzy.


(Hooray! A new post! )

Thatcher destroyed our mining industry in order to neuter the trade union movement. She sold off our railways, phone lines, water companies, gas and electricity providers to a bunch of spivs in the city, and basically made life a lot worse.

I feel rather like I'm badgering you now, izzy ...
Sorry if you feel that I am.
But ... I'd be very interested to know how you personally responded to this, in a political sense.
I mean, did you, for example, take part in the protests against the Thatcher government , or join a political organization, or did it change your previous political allegiances ?..... that sort of thing.

You really don't need to respond if you don't want to, of course.
But I was very aware of these events in Britain at the time & would really love to hear more.

My mother was/is a Tory. After the successful outcome of the Falklands war swept through the country Thatch was on a high. It was more of a gradual thing, but the miners strike had a lot to do with it, as did the fact that every single comedian I went to watch hated Thatcher. Even today I can't think of a single right wing comedian who isn't complete rubbish.

Through reading: How could one read Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World and On the Beach in high school and not have been politicized? Furthermore, how could one not have been politicized toward the left?

None of those books made a direct political connection with me. I read them, and have read them again, BNW I actually read several times, the book fell apart a year or so back. To me they were more social commentaries than directly political, though I can see there is a political connect and content if I look for it.

At first read, in high school, they didn't change my political stand, at the time, I really didn't have one. I was raised as a Democrat; but, no reason was ever given for that and registered first as a Conservative; which, was more youthful rebellion than any actual beliefs at the time. A few years passed, I registered anew and as a Dem. I've stayed as a Dem. mainly to participate in primaries and get a candidate closer to the center than way out in left field. In the November elections I've often crossed party line and voted Republican, if the candidate seemed a better choice.

msolga:

I was raised in a nondiscussional family, politics weren't really discussed, we were Democrats and that was that. We didn't discuss candidates or what they stood for, or were against. Well, not always Democrat, my grandparents on my mother's side, had been Communists for a brief time. No idea why, as that wasn't talked about in depth.

In day to day life my interest in politics was limited; however, I was marginally involved at times. I didn't take part in anti-war rallies against Vietnam, because although I was against the actions, I supported my government, at that age, I didn't know the government could be wrong, nobody had told me that in any of the households I grew up in. Later when the war was winding down, I knew the government could err; but to protest seemed the wrong approach and seemed more a slap in the faces of the men who had served, either willingly or by draft.

My first involvement in anything political was a weird 8th grade production in school about voters rights and how they'd evolved over the years. I vaguely recall it; but it made no impression upon me that I knew of.

A few years later, I took part in my first protest...it was against the city of New York f0r making budget cuts in education. I didn't view it as political, I saw it as protecting the teachers and their jobs, as well as assuring decent education for all. Again, lack of discussion at home, and no actual Civics class in school, left me lost as to what might have been political awareness.

In my senior year of high school, I became President of a youth group; but, since I didn't run for the position, (I won by default, when the 2 competitors, each received the same number of votes) I hardly saw it as political...maybe it was.

As indicated to plainoldme, I was raised Democrat, registered first as a Conservative, then switched to Democrat, mainly to get the candidate closest to the center in their belief system. Many of my votes have reached over party line.

How did I become politicized? Sorry for the long post.

Brief background info: I’m a 61-year-old white American who grew up in the state of Texas (with the exception of my first- and second-grade years -- which were spent in Corning, New York, before we moved back to Texas). I’ve been happily married for over 30 years and am the proud father of two high-achieving daughters.

I’ve always identified with the underdog ever since I was in my preteens (even to the point of having nonconformist views) -- partly because my parents taught me by their example to respect all people, even those who were victims of prejudice. Being bullied as a kid was also a factor. I recently learned from my sister (who is seven years older than I) that there were several instances early in my childhood when I was physically assaulted. On one of those occasions, I was pushed through a window out of a moving school bus. Apparently, as a defense mechanism, my mind erased all memory of these traumatic incidents.

When I was 10 years old, I learned that popular sentiment is not always right. I was amazed to learn many adults believed myths about snakes that were scientifically false. (There’s that identification with the underdog.)

But these factors were minor, I suppose. What caused me to become politicized was growing up under Jim Crow. When we had moved from Corning to the Congressional district in Houston that would elect George Herbert Walker Bush to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966, my affluent parents hired a black Korean War veteran to work for them as a yardman. As a sensitive boy, I noticed quite a difference between him and my father. Clarence (not his real name) was physically strong, but he was emotionally crippled -- not assertive at all. My father, on the other hand, was a poor physical specimen (chubby with pigeon legs); but he was extremely successful as a prominent architect and university professor. I was puzzled why Clarence wasn’t self-assertive, even though he was considerably stronger physically than my dad. As a combat veteran, he was suffering from shell shock; but he also could have been psychologically emasculated from growing up in a white racist society.

In either 1960 or 1961 (before the passage of major civil rights legislation) when I was in the fourth grade, one school day I happened to be home with a cold. A creek ran behind our home. Clarence was working in the back yard when he was bitten by a cottonmouth. I remember my mom telling me that she was going to take Clarence to the hospital and that she would be back in time to cook dinner. (I think my dad was out of town when this happened.)

Well, she wasn’t back in time to cook dinner. Late that night she returned home, and I greeted her at the front door. She was crying. My mom had taken Clarence to the nearest clinic; but they had refused to treat him, even though he had put his life on the line for this country as a serviceman. She had to drive him to a hospital way across town, where he was not treated for an entire hour. He was mocked and abused by white interns. He did finally receive treatment, but almost fell into a coma.

Later that same year, I was bitten by a copperhead; and my mother drove me to the nearby clinic that had turned Clarence away, but where I was treated for my snakebite. Needless to say, as a young child who had no knowledge of what was then the tragic history of race relations in this country, I wondered why Clarence was turned away by that clinic.

As I grew up in Bush’s Congressional district, I noticed just how hateful my neighbors and many of my classmates were towards black Americans. The racist sentiment was so prevalent that my dad had to spank me once or twice when I was still in elementary school for using the word “nigger,” which I frequently heard from classmates and their parents. I was a junior at my all-white high school when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in the spring of 1968. I never saw so much glee on the part of so many of my classmates. Not even when school let out for the summer.

Once I had graduated from high school, I learned about the civil rights movement on my own. I learned that opposition to civil rights legislation came almost entirely from the political right. I examined the voting record of John Tower, the first Texas Republican to serve in the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction. His record on civil rights and other racial issues was identical to that of the Southern segregationist “Democratic” politicians. Need I say more?

I should point out that even as a young guy when I considered myself to be staunchly liberal, I was tolerant of political conservatives as individuals. My two best friends at the college I attended were white conservative Republicans; and, incidentally, neither one of them was a racist.

Sorry, but I haven’t finished. I have a bit more to say, but I’ll have to continue in a second post. Before you read the rest of my comments, please don’t make any assumptions about me based solely upon what I’ve said so far.

Times have changed, so have the people. But, talk on, get it out. It's all been said so many times before. I hope you have found peace in your life now.