Well, I was certainly young, and certainly more naive than I am today, a freshman at a well-known and “centrally isolated” Ivy League university whose beautiful campus was situated on a scenic hill overlooking one of upstate New York’s most “gorges” cities and largest finger lakes. It was early fall 1982, and I’d been there for less than two months.
Wanting to expand my horizons, I’d recently joined the writing staff at its independently-owned and highly respected newspaper, as what was known as a “compet”, its term for a cub reporter. The late great sports reporter Dick Schaap had been its Editor-in-Chief in years past. Also E.B. White, early writer for the New Yorker and author of Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little and The Elements of Style.
I’d already had several articles published, including one about the many dogs one found running free on campus (including the beloved Anderson, or Andy, the slobbering St. Bernard). But I was still figuring out how to be a reporter, and didn’t expect to be asked to write any “serious” articles for some time.
Then one day my assignment editor called to tell me about this intriguing and not yet very well-known politician who had recently been elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont and referred to himself as a socialist. He was coming to campus to give a speech about the role of socialism in American politics and his experiences as mayor, and he assigned me to cover and write an article about it.
Sounded like an interesting story, all the more so because like me, he was Jewish, and originally from Brooklyn, which is adjacent to the borough of Queens, NY, where I grew up, albeit over 20 years later. How often does one come across a Jewish socialist from Brooklyn, a species I thought had all but died out in the 60’s, let alone one who was elected to anything, and get to write an article about him?
So I packed my writing pad and pens and trusty recording walkman (this was the precursor to iPods and iPhones to all you kiddies) with stereo microphone and headed to the venue, in the main auditorium of the main building on the arts quad, and waited for him to appear, not knowing exactly what to expect. This was before the internet let alone Google and I hadn’t had any time to do much research on him beyond some clippings I’d been given.
I have only the vaguest memory of what he spoke about, something about his experiences, challenges and accomplishments as mayor, what it meant to be a socialist politician in America today (remember that this was early in the Reagan administration, when everybody supposedly wanted to be a Republican and work on Wall Street—one of which I actually did after graduation, but I digress), and the state of American politics and society and its biggest issues. But mostly I remember that he was a spellbinding and confident speaker with a loud booming voice, classic Brooklyn accent and compelling personality.
Unfortunately, I was too unconfident to approach him after he finished his speech to try to interview him properly or at least ask a few questions. I barely even knew what to ask, but mostly I was just shy and unassertive (characteristics of mine that eventually led me to realize that journalism was maybe not the ideal profession for me). Instead, I raced back to my dorm room to review my notes and the recording I’d made, and pen an article in time for the deadline for the next day’s issue.
What follows is the entirety of the article that was published. It actually took some effort on my part to find it. I seem to have lost any copy I may have had of it and had to contact my former paper to see if someone could scan and email it to me. Graciously, the current Editor in Chief did so, even going to the bother of digitizing it for me so I wouldn’t have to OCR or type it in. (Thanks Sofia!)
It’s a fairly short piece, shorter than I thought it was. But anyone who knows anything about Bernie Sanders will recognize the main points he made in his speech, about the great and growing income and wealth inequality in the US and how it’s hurting it and its people, about the vital role of government in helping the neediest and least powerful among us, and of the need for leaders to bring people of different backgrounds, perspectives and abilities together to work towards solving our shared challenges.
I.e. classic Bernie, or Democratic Socialism in a nutshell.
Incidentally, I have no way of verifying this, but I may well have been the first member of this blog to have written an article about Sanders for any publication, major or minor, way before most of the rest of the country had heard of him or “Felt the Bern” (or many of his current supporters were even born—or should I say Bern?). If I’m wrong, please let me know in the comments. I’d love to find out about other “early adopters”.
So here it is, in its entirety:
Vermont Mayor Discusses Role of American Socialism
There is something fundamentally wrong, that you have such a disproportionate distribution of wealth and of income as you have in the United States, Bernard Sanders, the Socialist mayor of Burlington, Vt., said yesterday.
In a speech before about 100 people in Kaufman Auditorium entitled “Being a Socialist in American Politics”, Sanders discussed his opinions on socialism in general and on its place in American politics.
He also discussed how his beliefs have affected his policies as mayor of Vermont’s largest city.
Capitalism
Sanders began by condemning capitalism, labeling it as unnatural, and as a system that harshly represses those who refuse to conform to it.
This is not a dog-eat-dog world, where anything goes. where only the finest survive, he said. The reason that it seems that way is because the “few” rich people who control the system force us to live that kind of life, he said.
One of the greatest problems with the capitalist system, Sanders said, is that those few people who actually control the system have created a false image of it, making it look better than it is in reality. A conflict exists between producers and workers, a class struggle, yet outwardly everything is made to appear rosy, he said.
“In this country, the system itself spends huge sums of money, trying to deny that conflict”, he said.
Certainly one of the kernels of what Socialism is about, is that you cannot have a true democracy unless the people themselves have control over the economy, Sanders said.
Sanders also talked about his term as mayor, what he had achieved since he became mayor. and how Socialism has affected his policies.
‘Landslide’
He has been mayor of Burlington since defeating the five-term Democratic incumbent in 1981 by what he called a “landslide” margin of 10 votes.
As mayor, Sanders said he saved the city large amounts of money by reducing waste, established task forces on the elderly, youth, and the arts. He co-sponsored a workers’ pride week, involved workers in making government decisions, and helped to establish an “employee relations committee”.
Opposition
All this has been accomplished, Sanders said, against great opposition by both Democrats and Republicans. And, he said, little of what he has done can be labeled as truly socialist, since he doesn’t have the power to implement radical socialist policies such as government takeover of industries.
Although he said he believes that it is difficult to convert America to socialism, he is still optimistic about the future.
Socialists have the view that it makes a lot more sense, not only in economic terms, but in human terms, that people work with each other, and cooperate together, rather than compete against each other, Sanders said.
He’s toned down and changed some of his rhetoric a bit over the years, of course. To what extent this is because he’s changed his views after working within the system for so many years, and to what extent it’s for political reasons, I can’t tell. But this speech was, essentially, what he’s been saying for decades, and continues to say today. And just as it was ahead of its time then, what he’s saying now appears to be ahead of its time as well.
Hopefully, that won’t be the case forever.
I myself don’t believe in the sort of “true socialism” that Bernie espoused then and I suspect still believes in today, involving the government takeover of key industries. I think that’s politically impossible and economically unnecessary and will likely never fly in a country like the US.
But I do believe that we need stronger, smarter and tougher government regulation of and even involvement in various key industries, such as finance, energy, transportation, health care, education and real estate, because left to their own devices they often end up doing more harm than good, in my opinion. I also believe that we need vastly more government investment in the country’s infrastructure, and the stimulus spending that this would entail.
So in that sense, yeah, I Feel the Bern, and have for several decades now.
Don’t forget to vote tomorrow, whoever you vote for!