payitforward wrote:Here I go:
I come from a family of Viennese Jews. Those who managed to escape the Nazis got to the US in 1940.
On my Father's side, only he & 1 of his 2 sisters got out of Europe. His parents & his youngest sister, who was 18, were murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. All the rest of my Father's extended family also died in the camps with the exception of 1 person -- a second cousin, now in her mid-70s, who managed to find us online a few years ago.
Though my Father escapeed, it was short-lived; he died a few years later of a liver disease he picked up in a French camp. I was 4 & my sister was only 10 months old.
My Mother's immediate family (parents & siblings) all got out of Europe. But the rest of her extended family died in Nazi extermination camps or were murdered before they got to them.
In Europe my Father's family had been wealthy, but I grew up in extremely modest circumstances. We lived in a small rental apartment until I was a teenager, when a very partial monetary settlement for what had been stolen from my family helped, though by no means did it make us rich or even "upper" middle class.
My urban neighborhood was quite mixed, so that my circle as a kid included Chinese, black, Appalachian, etc. friends. & here's a fun fact: my best friend through most of those years became, much later, one of the 2-3 most prominent movie stars of our time! I'll never forget looking up at a movie screen one day in my early '30s & suddenly realizing, "whoa! that's Xxxxx!!"
My family bought a house in the suburbs when I was a teenager. The few years I lived there I spent a lot of time in the neighboring larger suburb which had a sizable black minority & also had a university. I was already a jazz & blues fanatic. Starting at about 15 I was back in the city at jazz & blues clubs 1 or 2 nights a week. I was writing by the time I was 14 as well, so I also frequented the "beatnik" & "folk" scenes -- to the degree that a twerpy little teenager could get away with it!!
2d fun fact: I bought Miles Davis a drink when I was 15. It's true.
Freedom of thought, diversity of experience, education for all, human (i.e. "civil" & "immigrant") rights -- these were the 'political' issues that meant something to me growing up & have continued to seem of the utmost importance. They came to me via my family experience but equally via my own cultural interests.
Although I studied (& studied with) plenty of conservative thinkers in college & grad school, I never had any flirtation with "conservatism" myself; I never saw any reason to. For a while, I'd have called myself a "Marxist," but then, over time, utopian theories of every stripe began to seem pointless to me.
As a voter, I'm a Democrat. Always have been & no doubt always will be. For the simple reason that I've consistently found that the Democratic party held positions closer to mine than the Republican party on the issues that matter most to me. Of course, there's always been plenty to critique in the Democratic party as well, & individual Democrats have taken stands aplenty with which I have disagreed deeply, while individual Republicans sometimes have taken stands I agree with.
I know plenty of conservatives: my brother-in-law is a well-known conservative economist. My sister is an economist as well. I've spent lots of time socially & in intellectual debate with any number of people in that world whose names some here would certainly know. Traditional conservatism is a respectable pov intellectually. It has points to make. It's not tied in any way to the stupid stuff one reads from Breitbart or other "alt.right" sources. Above all, it has no inherent relationship with any form of demagoguery or with Fascism. Or, for that matter, with Donald Trump who holds no conservative (or other) principles I can discern.
So, there you go. That's my politics & where they came from. I'm hoping to stimulate a similar narrative from you, nate.
Wish we had a thread for this sort of personal narrative. otherwise maybe I'll just post links to them in the HOF thread to follow up on later. Still slacking on my own version, busy is all. Thanks for that though
