This morning at breakfast Margaret and I had the pleasure of the company of good friend Ann Karperos who has come down to San Diego for the wedding of her grand daughter. For many years Ann worked in the regional office of Democratic Congressman Vic Fazio. Visits with her always include a lot of talk about what's going on in Washington and in Sacramento.
A few weeks ago I was asked directly by a guy standing near the entrance to the grocery store with a clipboard, “Do you mind if I ask you what is your political affiliation?” Thinking he was collecting signatures to qualify a proposition for placement on the ballot in California’s next election, I turned to face him and tell him that in the first place it wasn’t any of his business and in the second place that I don’t sign petitions to get propositions on the ballot because I’m convinced that the initiative system in my state let’s legislators off the hook... gives them an excuse not to do the job for which they are elected. He stopped me short by looking me straight in the eyes and saying, “I’m not asking for a signature, and I’m not soliciting money for anything. I’m doing research to try to learn how much people know about our system of government and whether or not they vote, and if they do, how they decide whom and what to vote for. I’m a graduate student, and I’m not being paid to do what I’m doing,” he said, with a slight edge of exasperation... and then he grinned and said, of course, he hoped he’s get paid for it someday if he could manage to get a job after he gets his degree.
He seemed earnest and I was in no hurry, so I swallowed the little speech I was prepared to deliver and said, “Sure, why not.” I asked a couple of questions about his university and his research project... which led to a small conversation about how and why he had chosen his thesis ... which led to his saying he’d been at it, mostly unsuccessfully, since early morning and he asked if he could buy me a cup of coffee. Starbucks across the way is a magnet for me, so I said, sure.
After we’d talked about ballot propositions and the initiative process, I quickly learned he knew more about it than I did and was glad I’d not embarrassed myself by delivering my little condescending speech. I sat back and let him teach me how an initiative may alter the state constitution, or amend ordinary laws of the state, or do both... and how the initiative is brought about by writing a proposed law as a petition and submitting the petition to the state attorney general along with a modest fee ($200 in 2004), and then after obtaining signatures from registered voters amounting to 8% (for a constitutional amendment) or 5% (for a statute) of the number of people who voted in the most recent election for governor, the signed petitions are sent to the Secretary of State for validation of signatures. I decided not to point out that the system has been hijacked by people and parties wealthy enough to buy the needed signatures to get their initiative on the ballot. I knew he knew that already.
I asked what he thought about the initiative process, about whether it was a good way to determine how the state should do its business. He said he’d rather not answer until I’d responded to his survey questions... He said he wasn’t trying to convince me of anything, he just wanted to know how I go about deciding how to vote. He complimented me, perhaps in case the coffee hadn’t been enough to soften me up, by saying he could tell when he saw me walking toward the store that I was someone who votes. I told him to ask his questions.
He went back to the question that got my attention half-an-hour earlier, “What’s your political affiliation?” I told him that I’m a registered democrat. He asked if I considered myself barely a democrat, a bit more than moderate democrat, or a liberal democrat. I was emboldened to the point of going beyond just saying I am a liberal democrat, so I told him that I suppose I consider myself to be a democratic socialist. He wanted to know why I considered myself such, and I told him that I believe a large, stable middle class is important in a strong, healthy democracy and that the way to make the middle class strong and effective is to have a progressive tax system so no one is extremely, obscenely, unnecessarily wealthy and no one is extremely poor, a tax system that provided a security net in general welfare, health and education. I said some things about equity and justice, and we talked, and he wrote, and we talked some more.
There, I’ve put it in writing. It isn’t necessary for this journal entry to write out the details of the remainder of my conversation with Joe . I can say that I am definitely impressed with this young, twenty-something man whose goal is to make the country a better, safer place for all people. We talked for half and hour more. We finished our coffee, and he went his way and I went mine. The point is this: I don’t think I’d ever said out loud to anyone that I am a democratic socialist, but that’s what I am. I decided at that moment that I will no longer be afraid of the word socialism. I am determined not to pussy-foot around the concept any more. The Tea Party people use the word as a club. I am not going to accept a beating with it. I am going to accept the label gladly; and whenever it seems appropriate, I’m going to say that I consider the Christian Gospel to be a social Gospel which provides a clear outline for a democratic society.
When Tea Party folks wish to scare voters away from a political candidate, they call her or him a socialist. For awhile now they've been spewing out a litany that says President Barack Obama is a socialist. Mitch McConnell says his primary goal as a leader of the Republican Party is to make certain that socialist Obama is a one-term president. That seems to be the shared goal of all politicians who speak for the Republican Party.
I’ve gone back through my notes to find another e-mail I got from my friend Bob Smith in Alaska, because it seems to fit today's writing. Just after Anders Brevik killed 92 people in Norway, the question raised around the world was what the Republic of Norway should do to the killer. It’s no surprise that many Americans, actually a greater percentage of Americans than of Europeans, say he should be killed. My friend wrote, “Brevig’s random violence perpetrated against innocent victims is the very worst kind of violence; but if Breivig is executed, the act of killing him will be a validation of the idea that society’s first response to high crime should be vengeance. But vengeance is not justice and progressive, and pursuing vengeance ensures that civil society will become what it hates. That is not the answer. The solution lies in the moral courage expressed by Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg who recently said: ‘Tomorrow we will show the world that Norway’s democracy grows stronger when it is challenged, and that the answer to violence is even more democracy, even more humanity, but never naivete.’” My friend went on to say, “The exclusionary agenda of the far right breeds intolerance and fear in a multicultural, pluralistic world where diversity matters. Diversity matters not just because choice is a human right, but because we need it to provide the source ideas of change for a rapidly evolving world.”
