Politics

It’s fair to say I’m a lifelong Democrat. But I don’t know anyone who is 100% either Dem or Repub. But I’m surely about 90% Dem. Some scientists suggest that we may be hard-wired to be either left or right-leaning. I suspect that’s true. I grew up in a UMW, AFL, CIO, AFM household, where my Dad would hold forth at the supper table. First about his heroes FDR and Truman; and then THE foes: Ike, Nixon, Reagan and the rest of the righties. He was even more heated about the Republicans in local and state government. So I got the full dose as a kid, and I’m sure it served to reinforce my left-of-center views, which I maintain I’m wired for. I don’t have a choice — I was born to be liberal. And even if I had a choice, I’d still be a liberal.

I won’t belabor this topic. Instead, I’ll enumerate a few events that got me going:

• My Grandfather Farley was a red-hot Democrat too, and I remember listening to campaign speeches by Wendell Wilkie, who claimed in 1940 — I was 9 — that “It’s Time for A Change!” And my granddad would roar. It occurs to me now that granddad was born in 1882, so he was around for Teddy Roosevelt and those who followed up to FDR’s time. What a rich time that was for politics!
• I followed WWll pretty closely for a young kid, and that included the political battles. But the nation was united in the war effort, and in those days elected officials were a little more respectful of one another.
• One spring afternoon in 1945, Dad took me fishing — a rare treat — at a large creek which flowed into the Kanawha River near home. He had the use of his mother’s car (we didn’t have a car in our family until I bought my first one in 1953), and when we got in the car to go home for supper Dad turned on the radio. The news was that President Roosevelt had died in Georgia. Dad was speechless, and even though I was only 13, it hit me too. To my young mind, FDR was a hero. He remains one today.
• In 1948, (I was 17) my Dad was the precinct captain of our voting precinct, and he “hired” me to pester the republican operatives who were hanging around, offering to buy votes with liquor. (I don’t know, but it’s probable he paid me five dollars out of his pocket. I would watch the basement window at the school (voting place) to be sure that inside workers couldn’t signal anyone outside to verify that the ‘bought’ vote had been cast against Harry Truman. It worked, and I had my first taste of election day excitement.
• I liked Ike OK, but except for the Highway Defense Act (??) which created our Interstate Highway system, he didn’t do much. But he was on target when he warned the nation that we were in danger of being victimized by the burgeoning Industrial-Military Complex. Boy, had we only listened. But it was Cold War time, and the military got whatever it asked for, and the defense contractors raked in the profits. Sound familiar? And viewed from 2012, Ike was a president who believed in the middle class, and who signed legislation to prove it. Too bad today’s repubs have turned away from that commitment.
• There was a great awareness of environmental issues at my house in those days. Union Carbide, where Dad worked, spewed smoke, soot and water pollution brazenly, and Dad got his dander up. He went to Carbide’s plant manager and accused the company of polluting the Kanawha River with chemical waste in the dead of night, and that he would “blow the whistle” if it didn’t stop. I’m sure it didn’t stop, but it surely made a difference. Dad never let up, and was active in the first Earth Day events. I credit him for my deep concerns about the environment. Mountain Top Removal in West Virginia is a national tragedy which cannot be made right. Clean air and water are essential to human life, but there are industrial and profit-grabbing interests that just don’t care. And as Al Gore has said, there’s no such thing as clean coal.

I guess you get the picture here. There have been many Republicans I have admired, including Senators Jacob Javitz and Everett Dirkson, Dick Lugar, Charles Percy, Lincoln Chaffee and others. By today’s Republicans, they would be called “RINOs” — Republicans In Name Only, a term conjured up by far-right Republicans. And there have been many Democrats I didn’t admire: Matthew Neely, Ben Nelson, Joe Manchin, and Evan Bayh, to name a few. 

My heroes are Harry Truman, Hubert Humphrey, FDR, JFK, Barack Obama, John Adams, Abe Lincoln, to name a few. Some say, and I agree, that FDR was the greatest president of the twentieth Century. Others would rewrite history, creating a false narrative of events to suit their wrong-headed sense of what happened and what didn’t.

One of many hot topics today is Women’s Rights. I can’t say strongly enough how much I support programs and legislation that for once and for all make things right in this regard. It is criminal that women today, in our “enlightened” society, still suffer significantly with regard to basic human fairness. They — not the men of Congress, should make basic decisions regarding their own bodies.

Likewise, I am appalled at the continuing mean-spirited bias — often in the name of religion — against LGBT people. They should have the same rights as everyone else, and beyond their legal rights, their lifestyles should be respected, but that will be a long time coming A final words about health care, which along with environmental issues, is the most politically explosive domestic matter in America since Harry Truman’s time: I don’t believe that human health and suffering should be the source of profit for anyone. I do believe that those who provide for human health (not only the caregivers; include those in research, production of health products, etc.) should be extremely well-compensated, for their work is one of great dedication, and requires great skill and training. But it seems to me that if hospitals, insurance companies, research labs, and other health institutions operated on a not-for-profit basis, every American could receive low-cost health care.  There’s plenty of profit to go around in other small and large commercial-industrial enterprises. Such a program would remove the poisonous stinger that causes great national pain and anguish — politically, financially, physically, mentally, and economically. And it would remove the personal pain and anguish that people suffer from, being financially choked by a health system that has no conscience. And besides, it’s just the right thing to do.