Give Bernie Sanders an A+ for persistence. He never gave up. He was born on the Roman Catholic Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Sept. 8th) in 1941...only a few months before Pearl Harbor. I feel like I somewhat understand Bernie Sanders. I wear a chain around my neck with two words etched in the silver....'press on.' Sanders had his hero as a young man...Eugene V. Debs... who ran for president five times on the Socialist Party of America ticket. I had my hero...Robert Kennedy....who ran for president once. His reading material in college was much the same as mine....Freud, Fromm and Wilhelm Reich (don't bother looking Reich up!), but he was more than enamored with Marx (not Groucho) Lenin (not John) and Trotsky. He was heavily into what was called free love, even writing a "2,000 word manifesto" on it in a student newspaper, whereas I was more into free daydreams. The photo at the top is me reading Why Bernie Sanders Matters by Harry Jaffe.
Sanders was raised in the Jewish section of Brooklyn. He was a good athlete (track) and a good student who matriculated to the University of Chicago (he didn't quite get into Harvard). He seemed to be born to protest. He was a-religious even though schooled with his Hebrew lessons and somewhat knowledgeable of the Bible. It seem that he never had a regular job until he was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont at the age of 41! Up until than he did a little of this and a little of that. I didn't settle into a permanent job until I was almost 30.
Sanders gravitated to the simple living of Vermont after "barely" graduating from college, a hippie of the utopian variety. He travelled to Israel and lived on a kibbutz. He married and then divorced.....cohabited....had a son...split up and then helped raise the son.....and married again to a campaign supporter who is his wife today. It seems that most everyone today describes him as one of the most honest members of Congress. I don't quite see it that way. I think that they see an open and persistent socialist passion which he rarely wavers from and they count that as honesty. I see utter confusion. He has the socialist mantras down pat but cannot hear the stomping sound of the Soviet goose step that approaches from behind. I also do not see it as honesty to intentionally close one's eyes to the horrors of Communism in order to cling to its handmaiden of Socialism.
Sanders used to say, in his strong Brooklyn accent...."I am a radical!" I'm not so sure. What radical says...."I am a radical"? Oh yes, he's a radical in the sense of Barbra Streisand's character of Katie Morosky in The Way We Were......A Marxist Jew who lived for social causes, but he doesn't appear to be a radical in the mode of Bill Ayers or Abbie Hoffman. Bernie Sander's whole adult life has been a crusade against issues revolving around income inequality and war that morphed into running for office, any office, on a small obscure party ticket or as an independent.
Bernie ran for a seat in the United States Senate (Vermont) in 1971 and lost with 2.2% of the vote. Quoting Harry Jaffe from his book..."Sanders loved campaigning for Senator. One could say he had found his life's purpose: to campaign, to educate, to preach." Sanders then ran for Governor and barely got 1% of the vote. In 1974 he ran again for the Senate but only improved to 4% of the vote. He ran again for governor in 1976 and this time received 6.1% of the vote. He lowered his sights and in 1980 ran for mayor of Burlington on a theme of taking power away from the millionaires. The result was different this time and he won by ten votes out of eight thousand cast.....Mayor Bernie Sanders! It was the first of his four terms as Mayor of Burlington. He ran once again for governor in 1986 and this time he had a third place finish and 15% of the vote in a state wide race. In 1988 he ran again for a seat in the House of Representatives and improved to 37.5% of the vote...but lost again!
Sanders was then 47 years old but the times were a-changing in Vermont. Harry Jaffe writes "It's safe to assume that Sanders has rarely if ever used a firearm" but with the backing of the NRA in this rural state Bernie Sanders finally became Congressman Bernie Sanders. He would lose no more races and today, as a Senator from Vermont, he is pushing you know who to the limit.
The type of 'radical' that Bernie Sanders is thrives on protest. He protests in the Senate. He has no answers....no answers are required of him....only more protests. This is not the featured act.....it's not meant to be the featured act. It's only a warm-up for that which takes no prisoners and shows no mercy.
