I Am, Proudly, a Liberal!

    The train station in Canton, Mississippi, where I got off
    the train on 22 June 1964 and learned that Michael Schwerner,
    Andrew Goodman and James Cheney were missing and likely
    dead.

When it comes to politics, I am a liberal.
by Charlie Leck

That won’t surprise anyone who really knows me – it’s been commonly known for decades. My Facebook friends, however, should probably understand this about me and they then can make any sort of decisions they want about continuing to friend me or defriend me (or secretly block me).

I didn’t know what I was (politically) until it came time for my first national election vote in 1962, when I found myself mostly in agreement with Democratic Party principles. John F. Kennedy was in office and I liked where he was trying to move the nation and I liked the stances he was taking on desegregating the Deep South. His assassination pretty well sewed up for me my political stances.

In 1964 I went to Mississippi for the summer voter registration project, arriving there on the day the three young civil rights workers (Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman) were reported missing. Mississippi was red hot that summer in so many ways. My time there forever convinced me that I would spend my life fighting racism and racial injustice. I have written a series of blogs about my Mississippi experience and privately published those blogs a couple of years ago. (I can make them available to those who are interested.)

The war was also raging in Vietnam and any simple reading of the history of that battle and how we got ourselves into it showed it to be stupid politically and morally wrong for us to be there. I took a public position on the war in ’66 and began working against it and marching against it.

In ’68 I took the step into political involvement and associated myself with the famous Democratic Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota and attended my first State DFL Party Convention as a supporter of Eugene McCarthy for the Presidency.

The nation, that autumn, was to make the incredible mistake of defeating Hubert H. Humphrey and electing Richard M. Nixon as President. Nixon was a disaster!

Now, the same party considers electing a man of even worse standards and abilities and I am left dumbfounded.

“Why can’t they see how stupid and poorly fit he is for the office?” My wife just called that question up to me.

“Because they don’t read,” I answered her. And, I believe that must be true; for, if you read, about Donald Trump you will understand how unprincipled he is and how everything he has done in his life has been for Donald Trump. What he will do to the nation, if he is elected, is appalling to think about. Nixon will seem like a prince and a clergyman in comparison.

For starters, read Trump Revealed by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher. (They subtitled their book “An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money and Power!”)

There is no changing the minds of Donald Trump's followers because they are closed-minded. They don’t really understand who this man is and how, over the years, he has disqualified himself for consideration to such an office. I can only say – very sincerely – “God help America if he is elected!”

Can you not hear the many wise, prophetic voices warning us?

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