Sunday, February 23, 2020

All in for Bernie letter

I have emailed to the News-Press the following letter to the editor. I'll update this post when/if it's published.


To the editor:

What's the appropriate phrase? Biting the bullet? Going all in? Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead? This election, I've decided to do all three. I'm voting in the California primary and, hopefully, in the general election, for Bernie Sanders.



Yes, I worry about his "electability" and his heart attack and advanced age (same as mine, BTW) but damn it, there's another apt phrase: A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.



We elders recall presidential elections where a popular chant, bemoaning the similarity of the major candidates' views, was "A choice not an echo." Well, with a Sanders/Trump choice in November, that's not likely to be heard, and that's important.



But to me it's deeper, grander, than that: My vote feels like a profound exercise, a true and liberating act, an act that in small measure atones to my offspring for allowing the state of our nation to become what America has become and Trump exemplifies: an imperialist, consumerist, capitalist monster.



Should we provide universal health care? Of course. Free advanced education? Of course. Economic equity, certainly. And to the opposing refrain, We can't afford it, I reply, Oh puhleeze. We support 700 worldwide military bases; we subsidize multinational corporations and foreign governments; we throw money at a Space Force and a border wall; we send pallets of dollars to corrupt regimes.



So, I'm all in for Bernie Sanders. I owe it to those who come after me – and to myself.








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