So, compas, what is your first political memory?

[EFerrari]

For a long time I thought it was the Kennedy election to the presidency and then I remembered the family sitting around the table listening to the radio reports of Fidel entering Habana.

What is yours?

[rabs]

1. Well, comadre, would have to say

The election of JFK and the ensuing Cuban Missle Crisis. Remember thinking at the time, "I am too young to die" in a nuclear holocaust.

[EFerrari]

5. My mom took us bowling because she wanted to die happy.

:hi:

[Peace Patriot]

2. 1956. Eishenhower vs. Stevenson. My mother made us get down on our knees--

all seven of us kids--and pray all five decades of the Rosary for a Stevenson victory. She was sure that Eisenhower would destroy the New Deal. For her, it was a replay of FDR's and Truman's elections.

Maybe she was right, in a way. The Pukes took the opportunity to instigate the two-term limit on the president--an idea that our Founders opposed as anti-democratic--in order to prevent a New Deal from ever happening here again and to begin to dismantle the one we had, which they have very nearly succeeded in doing. The thing is that the rich have their entrenched power and their money to buy governments and favorable policies; it takes TIME to successfully lash them with the whip of democracy and put them in their proper place as mere citizens and human beings--to tax, to regulate, to create a level playing field, to empower workers, to establish social justice, to create great public education systems and other common good projects, to establish programs like Social Security and to challenge the entrenched rich elites in every sphere. FDR ran for and won FOUR terms in office and was thus able to do these things. The Pukes never wanted to see that happen again, that an advocate of the poor majority would have the TIME to create a real democracy.

It wasn't Eisenhower's fault. In fact, at the end of his presidency, he strongly warned of the "military-industrial complex"--one of the worst manifestations of rule by the rich that we have ever seen. He had his faults and made several grave foreign policy errors, particularly early on (denying Vietnam UN-sponsored elections; smashing Iran's democracy), but he was not a corpo-fascist--a mere tool of the rich and the corporate, as other Pukes were. The two-term limit was part of their plan for entrenching multinational corporations and war profiteers in Washington DC forevermore.

Indeed, I am convinced now--after reading James Douglass' book, "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died And Why It Matters"--that the "military-industrial complex" would not allow a president who was determined to fight back against that establishment and who intended to end the "Cold War" to even finish out one term. Four more years of JFK, after the 1964 election, would have seen a dramatic plan for world peace being implemented, to the benefit of the poor majority everywhere. That was JFK's intention, and that is "why he died"--and Douglass is very convincing on both points.

Also, neither would Stevenson have lived out one term. He was much more of an advocate of world peace than JFK was, in the early part of JFK's political career. JFK had to undergo the Cuban Missile Crisis, with its threat of Armageddon, and the treacheries of the CIA, before he formed his vision of a peaceful future and found himself head to head with the war profiteers.

Anyway, my political consciousness was formed at my mother's knee, so to speak. She turned off the TV as the election returns were coming in, and had us all get out our Rosaries, and kneel down on the living room floor, and pray for the salvation of our country from the Republicans and the election of that heartfelt old leftie and 'commie pinko peacenik,' Adlai Stevenson!

The next political thing I remember is volunteering for JFK's campaign in 1960, as a 16 year old. I was standing outside the convention center in Los Angeles when he won the nomination (from Stevenson!) and a short time later JFK's limo drove right past me, and I snapped a picture of him in the back seat, window open, only a few feet away from me. Still have the pix.

[EFerrari]

6. Wow! That must have been really interesting.

I remember JFK's election as the first thing I noticed my mom doing with a lot of energy that wasn't work or me. Both my mom and my grandma were glued to the radio and teevee and so were all the aunts and uncles (who were still in their 20s, very early 30s) when they came over. The family adopted the campaign.

[Judi Lynn]

10. He was a courageous ground-breaker, and for a moment you were able to actually see him,

sharing space on the same block in the same town, in your line of sight, breathing the same air.

I'll never forget how alarmed the Protestant world was at the prospect of a Catholic President, after they had spent so much time villifying Catholics as alien who had allegience to Rome! The Republicans made the most of that inbred fear during the campaign, to be sure!

Can you imagine how homely, and provincial the country would have continued to be, how small-minded, simplistic, childish, and empty, if John Kennedy hadn't stepped in for a time, and broadened everyone's perspective?

[EFerrari]

14. No one seems to remember the anti-Catholic Irish bigotry in this country

that President Kennedy ran in. I do. I was only a little girl but we were living in an Irish Catholic parish and it was huge, just huge, that he was running.

[Peace Patriot]

15. I remember truly foul anti-Catholic flyers circulating during the 1960 campaign.

Really filthy stuff. It shocked me and I didn't understand it at 16. I know now that it is a classic Puke/corpo-fascist strategy to pit one group of poor people against another and to promote scapegoats, to distract people from who is stealing all the resources and money. Then it was Catholics; not it's gays and brown people. And of course blacks have often been the favorite scapegoat, to this day. It was the most unforgivable thing that Daddy Bush did as president, in my view, playing the race card with the "Willy Horton" ads against Michael Dukakis. It is the most irresponsible, reprehensible, low-minded, dirty rotten tactic to scapegoat a racial group that has suffered slavery, lynchings, beatings, rapes and every kind of oppression for hundreds of years of our history. It is as cynical as it can get. And it is furthermore TRAITOROUS to our best qualities as a people--our sense of justice and fairness, our desire that everyone have a chance, our religious and racial tolerance in the most multi-cultural, multi-racial country that ever existed, and the only one that has existed by deliberate policy. America, the "melting pot." For a political leader to pander to racism in THIS country is a particularly onerous and unforgivable crime.

That anti-Catholic bigotry taught me a lot. It sensitized me to other forms of bigotry.

[ChangoLoa]

3. After the 1973 coup in Chile

3 Chilean friends of my mother stayed at home for months.

[EFerrari]

7. It's hard to imagine what that must have been like.

73-90, those years are approximately the years I was raising kids. That means, my kids would have spent their entire childhood in a country ruled by that animal.

[ChangoLoa]

20. It was a very confusing situation for a 6-7 year old.

I remember trying hard to understand what was happening and constantly insisting on getting more explanations from adults. Asking too many questions. The situation was very sad and tense, especially for one of the friends. Her brother Angel was in Estadio Nacional and then sent to the desert camp (Chacabuco). I remember my mom was constantly crying because one of her closest friends had been tortured and killed. Years after I understood who was Victor Jara.

[EFerrari]

24. My mom was about that age when her father was arrested

in El Salvador in the middle of the night and hauled away to prison. She still remembers them breaking into the house and the sound of the boots. They never thought they'd see their father again. None of the brothers and sisters have forgotten that night and it's been 70 years.

[Judi Lynn]

25. That event would stay with you forever. Even though he lived through it, the experience

would leave an indelible mark.

It could have gone wildly even worse in a heartbeat, once they had gone that far in the first place.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Getting concentrated free orange juice

on our National Health when I was 5 years old. When my children were born in 1969 & 1971 it was still free and they didn't like it because it was unsweetened. So - I used to drink the whole lot. :)

If you want to know what's always stuck in my mind the most it's Fidel's revolution and Kent State both of which were well covered over here at the different times.

[EFerrari]

8. LOL! That must have been before corn syrup went into everything,

It's funny because Kent State doesn't stand out for me very much. The evening news had for a long time given reports that ran, "so many killed in Viet Nam, so many killed or wounded in Berkeley" so it just seemed to run into the violence of the time.

[Judi Lynn]

9. First very political childhood moment featured 5th grade teacher asking the class

to raise hands while asking whose parents were Republicans or Democrats. I had just moved to Kansas from California, where there was a loud, stupid, hysterical "commie" scare going on, with people even claiming our public school principle was a "communist"! EVERYONE anyone disliked got labeled a "communist".

I learned in Kansas that the same old garbage was happening in Kansas as well. Only one kid raised her hand to admit she had "Democratic" parents, and she may as well have claimed they were bomb-tossing Bolsheviks.

I heard with wonder and fear the stories of Richard Nixon being savagely attacked by mind-controlled, crazed Venezuelan madmen in Caracas, and felt horrible for the country, wondered if we were in danger, and felt sorry for that nice Vice-President Nixon. What kind of animals were they, anyway?

I heard with trepidation that John Kennedy was a Catholic, and remembered that, back in Riverside, California, the fundies, W.A.S.P. communities passed around tall tales about commies, and about Catholics actually being in league with commies, too! They claimed a truck ran into a Catholic church, knocking the walls down, exposing a cache of hidden guns! Whooo, scary!


I remained frightened of some terrifying world-wide mob of commies when I went to Kansas University, was horrified to learn one of my professors was a commie, met an Egyptian Commie in the Student Union before classes had even started, and got approached by Student Peace Union members, whom, of course, people had told me, were actually COMMIES!

In the meantime, as Kennedy was elected, as soon as I started seeing his face in magazines, on tv, I realized he seemed too basic, too conventional to be any kind of secret enemy of mankind, and the horrors the fundies associated with him started seeming absurd, and pathetic.

As I learned more about people in the world I discovered to people who are truly twisted are the ones who have NO sense of community, no empathy with others, no respect for others, no respect for humanity, are rabid right-wingers, not leftists, although there have been noteable, wonderful people who were Republicans I have known as a child, when the world seemed simpler.

I heard the names Eisenhower, Truman, Adlai bandied about in my early years, but I had no faces for them as we didn't watch tv when I was small. My first real political images came with John Kennedy, and they were reinforced when someone found it important to steal his life from him, not allow him to complete his elected term of office, and make his own imprint on our history.

[EFerrari]

11. Wowie. You know what I remember from that administration?

My grandmother complaining the Ike played golf too much.

lol

Looking back, she was probably right. She also said Nixon had the face of an assassin. I had no clue what she meant (I was five) but that turned out to be true. He was a ruthless out of control criminal.

[DutchLiberal]

12. Except that criminals get prosecuted...

Nixon didn't. He got pardoned. So is the system. :(

[EFerrari]

13. Oh, of course! I couldn't agree more.

:(

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

16. Those 2 pieces of shit Carlos Romero Barceló and Ronald Reagan winning the 1980 gubernatorial and

presidential elections. My mom crying because Carter lost but being happy Romero won.

[EFerrari]

17. That was one bad night. I voted for the president after the race

had already been called. Gawd, 12 years of BushCo.

[Mika]

18. 11 or 12 years old.

Went to Cuba with my family on a small sailboat. Was worried about the armed police state - my dad used to laugh out loud whenever someone would warn us about Cuba's jackboot army on every street corner, I thought it was my dad's bravado that made him laugh. He was my dad and hero and could do anything. I was nervous. I heard the same stuff at school about "Castro's Cuba", not to mention the Miami TV media that showed Castro yelling and arm waving behind a podium with a frightening narrative.

We got to a small marina and were welcomed by boaters from all over the Americas. It was very similar to the Bahamas as experienced by boaters. At first, I was afraid to leave the marina area but was convinced to have a look around.

Lo and behold - no armed police state to be seen. Not even police. No cigar chewing bearded gun toting jackboots recklessly careening around in jeeps either.

WHAT A RELIEF!

We did all the things one does when a tourist on any Caribbean island, including renting motor scooters to travel all over. Meeting lovely and friendly Cubans everywhere.

Then it really hit me - we have been lied to. And it was about politics, not truth. It was a strange feeling being young and realizing something very powerful was behind this big lie. It was more scary than my fears of Cuba at first - because the lying was real.


Now, about 50 yrs later, I love Cuba and I long for the day when we can all freely go and to feel that love too. Cuba has made a space in my heart that will never leave.


:hi:

---

[EFerrari]

23. When I wrapped up my short chat with John Perkins

about the current moment in Latin America and the Caribbean, I blurted out, well, maybe we'll see each other in Havana one of these days. And he said, I look forward to it.

:hi:

[Judi Lynn]

28. Whoa! I wonder if he'll still have to travel with bodyguards by then!

He has paid a real price to decide to live conscientiously, hasn't he?

That would be one terrific idea.

[bemildred]

19. November 22nd, 1963. nt

[Judi Lynn]

21. It still doesn't seem possible. They surely slammed a door on a promising Democratic Presidency.

Undoubtedly he seemed completely capable of great things which would have boosted the world's opinion of Democratic Presidents even more than had been accomplished by F.D.R.

They couldn't tolerate true progress, as all their power derives from controling the work force, controling the military, keeping a gulf between the poor and the oligarchy.

[bemildred]

22. My first intimation of the decadence and corruption which permeates politics in the USA. nt

[niceypoo]

26. Meeting the governor when I was 4

We were having a christmas party at a Royal Fork buffet restaurant and my mom made us go over to his table and shake his hand.

[Downwinder]

27. Listening to the 1948 election returns.