Enduring a crisis of political identity stands hand to hand with anyone who has ever doubted their own faith. It’s a crisis that penetrates the very core of the individual and clouds the path to hope. To some extent, this is a common occurrence with the general mass and the result of this occurrence is a deep disinterest in the political system. Complaints such as: “I hate politics!”, “Only liars are in the political system”, “My vote doesn’t matter!”, “They don’t know anything about working people!”, are common phrases when an individual begins to question his or her political identity. In general, people fear the unknown and if they can detach themselves from the unknown by building up personal walls against it, then the problem is no longer in plain site. This is not a cure for the problem; for it will eventually manifest itself into hatred for anything political and these individuals will always have a distaste for political conversation and they will do anything to stay away from participating in those conversations.Another problem that adds insult to injury is the mass media. The media would like for each of us to think that for any given situation there is either a “Solve A” or “Solve B”. They would like for us to think that when we are questioning our own political identity that we are either “Democrat” or “Republican”. Growing up in this social media gives us two options and usually there isn’t room for a third. We live in a society where we embrace absolutes; we were taught to see all things as either good or evil, right or left, full or empty.
So what if I say that not everything in our political system is an absolute? What if I am to say that the only thing that matters in this world is humanity, equality, democracy, and above all else, the protection of this Earth? Politics should be tool to help shape the direction of these important things; not a weapon to use against each other and to satisfy personal agendas that does not include the betterment of all in our society. Politics should be protecting every single citizen of this planet and that these citizens are and always will be equals. Politics should be a tool that spreads true democracy so that every individual has a voice and a choice. Politics should be about protecting the Earth’s natural resources and protecting the environment from the pollutants of ignorance. Politics is an action that is created by the individual and not an “either/or” that many would like us to believe.
This is a series about my journey to find another option to the many pearls that face this planet. It’s a story about my frustrations and doubts about politics and how I lost faith not only in myself but the direction that this country and this planet has taken over the past decade. It wasn’t until I started to look at what was happening to this planet from different perspectives that I actually started to see other options in the political field that best described the type of person that I was and where I wanted to be.
My journey to join the Green Party has been a long one in the making and one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make in my entire adult life. It meant breaking the bonds of childhood teachings and finding my own voice; it meant becoming an individual and stepping away from the loyalties that I felt towards the leaders of my established political party; and most importantly, it meant taking action against ignorance that had become a common threat to Earth and Humanity.
My mother would tell you that I wasn’t a normal child. I don’t think I could have prepared her for the normal boy that she most likely found in her second and third sons. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy what most other normal boys enjoyed to do like riding bikes and watching Saturday morning cartoons but there was another part of me that wasn’t quite so normal. I remember being in the second grade and the only topic I could think about was the 1988 Presidential Election between Democrat Michael Dukakis and Republican George W. Bush. I had already declared my loyalty to Mr. Dukakis and I was an avid news junkie! I do remember a time or two at the dinner table that my mother would just be sick of hearing about the events of the world and Mr. Michael Dukakis and she would politely tell me to eat my green beans, which by the way, I detested.
I also remember that my bedtime was 10:00pm at this point and this situation would result in a prolong battle with my mother. I insisted that I was “old enough” and that my bedtime should not be until 10:30 so I could watch the 10 o’clock news and catch up on any new developments in the world. She would counter, “Your not staying up late cause you won’t get up for school and the dishes are still dirty!“ One thing my mother is good at is she knows a good deal when she sees one. There would be many times that her answer would be no but she would always leave a doorway open for us. Her telling me absolutely not, but throwing in the fact that the dishes were still dirty would give me motivation to keep those dishes clean in hopes that she would eventually change her answer. On nights that these chores were done I could usually push my bedtime to 10:15 to 10:20. I do remember bringing this argument back up over a period of time with her and most nights she would not relent without some motherly manipulation on her part. I do think however, over a period of time she grew tired of my constant nagging and at some point without any proclamation from her part my bedtime was extended to 10:30. I do think I was doing dishes a lot more at this point and I can‘t help but wonder how much she got out of the silent compromised deal. I always thought my mother would be great in politics even though she never really cared for it and she never understood how and why I dwelled within it. She would eventually become a village council member and a election judge even though it took a lot of arm twisting on the behalf of other people for her to take that step. At any rate, I was very impressed with the simple fact that she relented and dabbled a bit in public life.
A tradition that I have adopted that started the night of the 1988 election and has carried forward to this day is having a map of the United States in front of me while watching election night coverage on the networks. If the democrat candidate won a state then I would color that state blue and if a republican candidate won a state then I would color that state red. The 1988 election saw a lot more red than blue and the only solace I had from that night is the simple fact that red is my favorite color. I have continued this tradition into my adult life and it has come to a point where I will actually decorate my apartment with red and blue balloons and set out two stuffed animals on my television set… one of which is a donkey and the other an elephant. I am simply ecstatic to spend the evening with my friends on the cable news channels which includes the likes of Tom Brokaw, Chris Matthews, the late, Tim Russert, and most stylish, Anderson Cooper. I am just their viewer but I have learned most of what I know about election night from them and I put a lot of stock in their words. I credit Tim Russert in forcing me to examine every political candidate from every angle. Most people would consider my actions on election night to be that of a Class A Nerd… but I don’t care. I enjoy myself and I care to much about this country not to ignore history unfolding before my eyes.
I am an constant worrier. I threw myself into the everyday news making events as a child and I constantly worry about what is happening to our world. The Space Shuttle Challenger exploding on lift off, The Berlin Wall coming down, the genocide in Rwanda, AIDS ravaging parts of the world, people dying from starvation, earthquakes in California, polar bears drowning in the artic; all of these things are issues that I think about daily even has an adult. I constantly wonder why we as a society do not do more to help others and I constantly wonder why I’m not doing enough to help others. The only tactic that I have adopted over the years so everything doesn’t overwhelm me is to take each issue and do something about it, one step at a time. I constantly have to remind myself to lead my example even on the smallest of issues because others will do the same and eventually we will solve the problems that plague our planet and humanity.
I grew up being a Blue Democrat and even today I still have strong loyalties to individuals in the Democratic Party such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter. These individuals had the power to change the course of history and they inspired me as a child. They have my deepest gratitude and respect but they simply were not enough to keep my loyalty to the Democratic Party as a whole. There were several incidents that took place over a course of ten years that brought me to the point where I could no longer trust my own political party. It was these events that made me realize that nothing was black and white and the simple truths that I believe in was only going to be protected by finding a political identity that represented only me. This was the key… I could not be part of a political party… the political party had to be a part of me.
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