Well I made it to 80. Dad was 82 when he died of prostate cancer. So far so good. As I reflect back it is hard to believe the world would be as it is on my 80th birthday.
As a small child I learned about fascism over there. Now it is rising right here. But I understand more now. I can see why what we are experiencing today is not new. It is the same old stuff.
In case you don’t know my bias, I am a very strong Bernie fan. There are many reasons for that and they all are part of who I am. That’s what I want to reflect about today as I take stock once again.
My political being is not separate from the rest of me. I am a life long scholar. I was deep into science as a career but like my encounters with religion and politics, the science is but part of a larger whole.
Before I retired from the physiology department at the Medical college of Virginia, my work had evolved to encompass complexity theory and the University started a Center for the Study of Complex Bio,logical Systems after I had a series of regular sessions tutoring our Vice President for Health Sciences about complex self organizing systems. Those who could not follow shrugged it of as mere philosophy. They forgot that science is natural philosophy.
My academic career was anything but normal. I came early from my wonderful post doctoral fellowship In Israel in 1965 to get involved in the antiwar/civil rights movement. My first job was at SUNY Buffalo and I was acting department in Biophysics after a year on the job. I also was the chair of a huge political organization in Buffalo that encompassed over 20 antiwar/civil rights organizations. This led to my being a delegate at the New Politics Convention and an early proponent of Black Power and Women’s Rights.
So my reasons for supporting Bernie go back a long way. Actually, I was into some of the same stuff as he at the University of Chicago in the early 60s when I was getting my PHD.
The 60s were a rich time for learning. It was a time of growth for so many and one of the themes was that real learning was outside the classroom. It is impossible to describe the atmosphere. There was lots of pain and turmoil then, but the leaning was wonderful.
Thanks to the variety of organizations in our Buffalo movement I was exposed to a large variety of worldviews on the left. It was part of my evolution into a skeptical existential holist. I had left catholicism in 1957 to become a born again evangelical but after devouring the Bible and other writinghs I watched the religious right evolve into the antithesis of all I learned about real spirituality.
My first presidential election was in 1960. I was fresh out of Catholicism and into the new ideas the evangelicals opened up for me and I distrusted Kennedy and voted for Nixon. The lesser evil idea and the two party system were a problem from the start. The support that the Democratic Party gave to imperialism and corporate dominance were as overpowering then as they are now.
I was far to the left (I hate that way of putting it but am trying to be brief) of the democratic Party then as I am now. I experienced election after election where I was given the lesser evil to vote for and it was not satisfying in the least.
Meanwhile there were people like Michael Harrington who were clearly closer to my views. His influence on JFK made me a supporter of much of JFK’s policies after I had voted against him. When Harrington helped start the Democratic Socialists of America I became a Charter Member although they were still too moderate for my beliefs.
So here we are in 2016 and in the midst of still another conflict of ideas and ideals. My scientific scholarship honed my analysis of systems and I ventured into applying system thinking to politics in the context of a holistic worldview. I had long ago adopted a version of the Gaia idea to the earth system and it also evolved into a holistic view of the earth system with human activity as a growing influence.
My systems view of our Nation’s evolution as a part of the larger global context puts our two party way of pretending to do democracy into perspective for me. Having lived and worked abroad for many years I was fortunate to experience enough to assure me that we has some severe problems.
I have to explain that when I was active in the movement in the 1960s and 1970s I was often called upon to debate the hawks. A frequent opponent was a retired Air Force Colonel. I usually was surrounded by people after the debate congratulating me on how I took him apart. Of course many of the same people also made it clear that they were not going to change their position in support of the war.
That was a set of lessons I was grateful for. First, I learned to step out of my cherished position and to put myself into the mindset I was opposing. Then I studied their position until I could present it better than they could. That is the only way I know to avoid cognitive dissonance. It seems rare.
I also learned that so many people are not swayed by facts even when they are presented very effectively. That certainly has been shown to be true.
So that brings us to our situation here. As a small sample of the Democratic Party we are faced with choices. Those of us who support Bernie for the reasons I do will never be able to accept The Clinton position. It is wrong in so many fundamental ways that it is totally outside of any possible support.
So that being true we are faced with choices coming soon. The Democratic party as an organization seems to only see us as votes in an election. We are far more than that. We are representatives of a worldview that challenges the Party’s faithfulness to and even its understanding of human values. The condescending attitude to our beliefs is hurtful as it is wrong and a failure to put oneself in the other guy’s shoes.
There is a revolution in the making. People are being pushed to their limits and are standing up for themselves. It is a simple choice. Which side are you on?
Read More