What Shaped Your Political Views?

[Mark Mentzer]

For me there are a few things. First and foremost I got my political views from my mom. She was a liberal Jew who grew up in El Paso, TX. The first thing I remember was coming home from school on Nov. 22, 1963 and my mom was crying. I asked her what was wrong and she told me the president was shot and killed. At first I thought, "Well he's not a relative or friend so why is she crying." But she made me aware of how important this was.

The next thing for me was when I was 12 Pete Seeger was to sing at the school auditorium but the powers that be wanted to squash because Pete was a card carrying communist. I didn't know any of this at the time but, what the hell, I love protests. So I joined in demanding, "LET SEEGER SING".

After this I was a full-fledged hippie. We had the Vietnam war and the protests against racial divide, womens rights and gay rights and I was into it all. I went to Woodstock. I ran from and held the police in disdain. I marched in Anti-Vietnam war protests and moved from the right coast to the left coast.

And, that's how I've been ever since. Yes, I'm an almost 56 year old rebel but, I will be left wing for the rest of my life!!!!

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So, relate your back story. What shaped your political views?

[Westerly_2]

Well, I didn't get them from my parents, I think they were independents, and voted for the personalities.My mom voted for our state congressman b/c a surrogate had left her a free pot-holder. And, of course, we all liked Ike, an avuncular war hero and very re-assuring.

I was under 21 when JFK ran, and I was excited by his energy, but I had to listen to my Republican classmates at my schmancy college disparage him with puns and rumors. I was a scholarship student, clearly a striver. Thereafter, my interest in the liberal agenda was a little green and shallow to begin with....

[brujo]

I grew up in a college town in the 60's and 70's which was a huge influence, but was raised by staunch Republicans. I've walked the tightrope between youthful idealism and pragmatism.

[ZenDog]

um, lets see . . .

~ paying rent in a college town
~ having had a beer, and smoked a joint, and witnessed both the controversy and the effects, first hand . . .
~ having dug a few ditches to pay rent, then moving into the manufacturing sector, and then human services working for the homeless
~ did I mention paying rent in a college town?
~ reading history and a brief study of The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and watching it play out in the evening news . . .

~ and asking myself, how come nobody really protests anymore . . .

[P.A.]

My parents were New Deal Democrats and so was most everybody that lived around where I grew up. The word Hoover was as much a cuss word as son of a bitch. This was in rural Middle Tennessee. Then in the sixties something happened to the world I had known. The Rupublican's Southern Stratiegy took everybody and changed them into right wing Republicans. Everybody that is except me and my mother. We both held out even when my father became a Republican.

[Tina]

Well to be honest I am still "shaping my political views". The times have changed so in my lifetime. The values I was raised in and with are long since past now and I have struggled to find a comfortable spot in the political world the past 15 years or so. My Mother was a Republican and yet she was so independent, She believed in saluting the flag, standing always for our military, with them, behind them and treating them with the utmost respect. But she also cut the seatbelts out of every car we ever had, because she did not believe in government control. She never allowed us computers in the 70's because she believed they were a way for the government to get into our homes. So I don't think she really knew what she was!

As I got older I met my biological father and step mother, they were democrats and they were more easy going and laid back, not so rigid as My Mother had seemed. Yet sometimes I questioned if they believed in anything?

In school I loved English and History, much of how I began to form my own opinions was from learning alot about the History of the United States and the many things that we had fought to overcome in our country, civil rights as the like. I did my senior term paper on the Vietnam War, I graduated with honors by the way!

So I married into a religion which had no party or political belief. So again I was on my own. So in my adult life although I have always voted I have done so by listening to all sides, all stories, all politicians and making up my mind when the time came to vote! I can't call myself Dem/Rep; I pretty much call myself an American. As grounded as I thought my Mother to be, as strong as she stood for what she believed in, I still cannot agree with all of her thought's today. She once called me a socialist because I liked Berrnie Saunders who was in the Senate I believe, ZenDog would know. I had heard him speaking long ago (70's) on the television about buying paint for everyone on some street to paint their homes, I thought it was a brilliant idea, (I was a teen at this time) I voiced this during a family gathering and oh my dear Mother went nuts with the idea. She then told me that she did not give birth to any socialist. Yikes, at the time I hadn't a clue what she was so upset about. It all sounded quite fair and good to me!

So, here I am and our country is in troubled times once again. I think that I definitely lean to the left, they seem more reasonable and realistic to me, yet now and again I am drawn to their sense of honor and duty as well. So who is to say what I am? Whomever makes common sense for the times we are facing is usually who I will vote for. To label myself seems to limit my voice in some ways, but than again not wearing a label can leave you at the roadside altogether also..
Any guesses here, Can anyone answer the question, how was my political view shaped? Surely I can not! This is not to say however that I do not have political thought's or that I do not care about the political wellness of our country, it simply says to me, that what works works and what makes sense makes sense and I will support whomever seems to be able to get what needs to be done done indeed...Did I in any way answer the question Mark? Oh well, you have come to know me to some level, this is who I am, Simply Tina!

[Westerly_2]

Wow, Tina, this is such a complete and thoughtful response! Probably few of us here can really say how our pv have been shaped, or whether they are done being shaped, which probably, they are not. There is not just one set of steps, and my path meanders. So many influences!

Mostly, I feel like protecting the powerless and the struggling from those who have it all. Mostly, I want to put a hand out. But I don't have a knee-jerk disrespect for everyone in authority. They have their job to do and I grant them their humanity. Therfore, I know the policeman has a tough job to do, and yet is a prone to shoddy work or temptation as any other human being. Yes, I respect the young soldiers who fight for us, and have respect for the flag as a symbol. Those soldiers - you have to love them. They could br anyone you know.

And, yes, you're right, labeling yourself just puts in one uniform or another, and you feel like you may want to cross the line here and there with a message. I know I feel that way, a lot of the time, though I have decided on a party, so I've picked a side. (Comes down to ballot time, there's a side that has to be my side).
I loved your response. It made me think.

[Mark F]

My mom is a Republican (product of being a depression-era baby in New England), dad is a progressive Democrat I suppose you'd call him. His parents were pretty much socialists. I went to college in the early 80's during the Reagan salad days, and was a Republican then. In my 20's though, I came to realize that the Republican party just didn't give a damn about you unless you had something to give them (i.e., money). If you were unfortunate enough to not be wealthy, you were a bum, a worthless, dirty liberal. I realized through a few years of volunteering for local GOP candidates, etc., that the GOP just doesn't care about anyone other than themselves. As I get older, I get more liberal. I left the Grumpy Old Persons party and have never looked back.

[John Turberville]

I was raised by parents from the south. I traveled with my family as a Navy Brat and got to see many different states and people.
I was always struck by the judgement people made of others based upon their class or skin color. There was a brief stay in AL after my father retired. Thankfully, he got a job offer in California. I was able to work and pay for my own education and see social diversity. I became friends with people from every ethnic background and social status. I began to see how "uneven" the playing field is for some. I began to see an "attitude" of the rich (we deserve it) and an "attitude" of the disenfranchised ( hopelessness and/or violence and anger). I worked at many "low end" jobs to get through college. I saw first hand the arrogance of the wealthy and the hopelessness of the poor.After the Manson murders, I read about Abigail Folger. She was a wealthy lady. Yet, she "felt" for the poor and disenfranchised. She gave of herself as a social worker. What an injustice that such a person was caught up in this insanity by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course it was a horrible and unjust event for all who lost their lives. But, her story especially "struck" me. Tolerance is what I believe in. I see the "Right" as either arrogant or ignorant of the other side of the spectrum. I dont agree with the liberals completely either. But, most of the "Right Wingers" appear just plain "mean spirited" to me

[Madhatterat60]

I worked the campaign for Bobby Kennedy...in a state where he wasn't even on the primary ballot. I truly believed in Bobby and his messages. When he was shot, it took a very very long time to rekindle my interests.

[LyndaAndLab]

Interestingly there were a few people actively trying to shape my political views as I was growing up. My father, a pharmacist, was terrified of socialized medicine, so he was a Republican - and we're going back a long ways, because he died in Feb. '82. Never was sure about Mom, she was afraid to disagree with Dad. My maternal grandparents were Democrats, and that had a big impact on me, they were really good people, they struggled themselves and still worried about others. Civil rights was important to them. Academically, Mr. Ron Kettering who was my social studies/history teacher in junior high. He was the teacher you were suppose to be afraid to get. Mr. Kettering was brilliant and passionate, and although he didn't advertise his personal politics in class, I did a political project and he saw that my father was pushing me, so he provided the balance.

Finally, my own very strong liberal beliefs, people I know in different situations, my own health issues. And my religion supported my beliefs; being a reform Jew, the rabbi's and congregations support issues such as gay rights.

Great discussion question, by the way!

[Tina]

I have just come back here just to enjoy reading the different responses to what I thought was a wonderful question. I have one thing at this time that I would like to add.
I would like to say that our parents should be blessed and even honored that they tried to pass on and that others tried not to impress us politically, also I am so very thankful that we live in a country, in all of it's turmoil even, to have the freedom to think as wee wish, change those thought's and to choose which path or no path at all.

I live in America and I still yet believe in her people. I am so thankful indeed ! Many blessing and goodness to all, T

[Sal Paradise]

No great mystery for me - I grew up in the 1960s, in NYC, in a blue-collar neighborhood. My family has a long tradition of socialism and activism in the labor movement, and the apple didn't fall far from the tree. My father's uncles, the ones who stayed in Italy, were Partisans and fought in the resistance during WWII. My mother's father and his brother had organized one of the municipal unions in NYC during the depression - we had a picture of my grandfather and great-uncle standing arm-in-arm with Mayor LaGuardia. My father's father was a union man from the get-go. He taught me how to vote: "First you look for the Italian - it doesn't matter what party. If there are no Italians on the ballot, or more than one, you vote for the Democrat - they're the party of the working man." My mother was in the teachers' union all her life. I was a union rep and a shop steward when I was younger...

Like most guys my age, I grew up with the shadow of Viet Nam falling on my teenage years. I marched against the war, marched for civil rights, student rights, you name it. I self-identified as a Socialist from about 9th grade onward, and am still considerably to the left of the Democratic Party. I still believe that the greatest good for the greatest number should trump unbridled greed. And I'm saddened to see that we'll probably lose again, as the well-organized and incredibly well-funded Big Insurance and Big Pharma factions trample the current attempt to bring the USA into the civilized world.

I won't give up hope. One day, Americans will wake up from the drugged sleep that began with Reagan and looked, for a short time, to be ending last November. I hope I live to see it.