Losing Political Virginity

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

One of the traditional bonding rituals is to discuss the experience of losing one's virginity. A member of our school who works with teens likes to share her experiences of talking with youngsters about their 9/11 stories. Their accounts bring me back to my own rude introduction to the adult world of violent politics: the assassination of JFK. In a way it was like a loss of virginity.

When it happened, I was not old enough for kindergarten. I remember walking through our kitchen and my mother saying that the President had been shot. I was puzzled by her remark. What is a President and what does it mean to be shot? With a little more experience I might have associated the shot with a visit to the doctor. This was just the foreplay.

The more penetrating experience came during the funeral ceremony. I remember the painful slowness of the image of the horse-drawn hearse on TV. It was extraordinarily boring. Changing channels did not help: it was on all three channels. (Yes, our city was big enough to host all of the big three commercial broadcasters.)

Here is a walk down memory lane:

Think back to your childhood. What experience stands out as a moment of introduction into the realm of politics? How did you process the experience at the time?

Comments

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

I can remember the US presidential election of 1988 (I was 9); my grandma was a big supporter of Michael Dukakis and was quite put out when he lost (not just because he was a Democrat; I think it was more because he was Mediterranean and Orthodox). Before that, I remember her talking about Ralph Nader in glowing terms (for the same basic reasons).

Honestly, if I processed it at all, I don't remember it having any effect on me. The first time I remember being "political" myself was the election of 1992.

Ahh, yes...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... '88 was the year of the compassionate conservative. I remember discussing the relief from the Reagan years with friends in Amherst, Massachusetts.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

For me, it was the beginning of the second, current Iraq war. I spent the entire time skeptical of the necessity, but unable to provide a coherent argument because the entirety of the news media seemed obsessed with WMDs, and most of the major intelligence agencies appeared to agree that they not only existed, but were an existential threat to the US. How that played out, and how the politics of the midterm election became about that issue rather than anything else, really introduced me to the world of politics rather abruptly. There are other points where I became conscious that politics existed, but that's (to me anyway) more like realizing that girls have different parts from boys - still a long way off from losing your metaphorical virginity.

What did you think...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... about the images of bombing caves in the mountains of Afghanistan? That had a surreal quality to me.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

For me I'd have to say that it was the 2000 election, though that was because my friend at the time was really pro-Bush and I was pro-Gore primarily to irritate him. That year I was in a mock election in the role of George W. Bush in school ('twas fifth grade) and I don't remember if I won or if I lost.

Though if it comes to getting *involved* in politics I'd have to say it was the Iraq War because I got curious as to why we invaded because none of the explanations from anybody about why to get involved or not get involved made sense to me.

When I heard...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... that the candidates were going to be Bush and Gore, I figured there would be a lot of sex and violence on the campaign trail.

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

When JFK was assassinated, I was seven years old and living in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo. We heard about it on the BBC, via shortwave. That wasn't quite as significant, though, as the Communist "scientific socialist" revolution that happened shortly thereafter. There's just something about learning how to ID the sound of an 82mm mortar in the distance, at age 7, that wakes you up.

Coming back Stateside a year later, I got introduced to third grade in American elementary schools. I was branded as a troublemaker when I scoffed at "duck and cover" drills, pointing out that a nuke would fry us anyway, under or over our desks.

The duck and cover story...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... reminds me of a Reagan administration official who said that if there were a nuclear war, he would walk a few miles away and hide behind a bush.

Your experience with 82mm mortar sounds a lot like the American ghetto experience with 9mm gunfire in the 'hood.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Robert Kennedy's assassination.

Sirhan Sirhan...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... became a household name. It came right on the heels of the MLK assassination. My mother introduced us to the superstition that events come in threes.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Politics was part of our life from early age under communism. Indoctrination started as early as 3rd grade, when we underwent an obligatory ritual for joining the so called Chavdar Organization (something like scouts). From 5th grade onwards we were already part of the Pioneer Organization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_movement
And in high school we would've become part of the Komsomol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komsomol
, but communism ended in 1989, and I didn't reach that stage.

In America...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... we have something similar to the Young Pioneers. It is Boy and Girl Scouts.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I remember being a cub scout and chanting 'Nixon, Nixon, he's our man!'

I didn't become disillusioned about politics until Clinton, however. He should have just come clean about smoking pot and blowjobs.

I lost respect...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... for him when he said that he didn't inhale. How could anyone waste good smoke?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

What experience stands out as a moment of introduction into the realm of politics?

My first knowledge of politics in any way shape or form was Dukakis in 1988. My father, union Democrat that he is, was in favor of him, and it largely directed my worldview for about 10 years.

When I finally stopped becoming interested and started being a full-bore junkie was Clinton's impeachment. It's when I figured out that there was more behind things than ideology, when someone could lie and get away with it. It made me rethink the liberal thoughts I took for granted and actually start doing my own research as opposed to assuming others would do it for me.

I had a similar...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... experience with Nixon's impeachment. It seems shocking that people like Kissinger saw it as a tempest in a tea pot. Nixon's crimes were far more egregious than Clinton's.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I was a young lad and they was always talking about Iran-Contra. It was a meaningless phrase to me. The evening news was about Iran-Contra for about a year straight. And who was this Oliver North they keep talking about? Anyway, it was terribly arcane and boring to me as a child. So I wasn't really affected by it. There was the Challenger explosion. The fall of the Berlin Wall. The Gulf War I, which was like an awesome thing and they had trading cards and everything. I remember not giving two shits about much during the 90s. Coming from a conservative religious background, all you needed to know was that you were pro-life and that was it. In 1998, Bill Clinton said something about lobbing cruise missiles at a place called "Afghanistan". I didn't really notice or care much. So three years later I was in Afghanistan and I thought to myself, "Should have paid attention!"

I "lost my virginity" when W. pretty much made a laughing-stock of everything I ever learned or believed about the United States. I was old. I still had ideals. People would ask me, "We're not just going to go start a war are we, Corporal?" And I would say, "No, no that isn't how it works."

Hahahahaa.... hahahahaha.... hahahahahahaha... damn that was funny. Shit, I was a regular unwitting comedian.

Before Iran-Contra...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... we had the October Surprise. It basically set the stage for Reagan's ties to Iranian extremism.

My parents' generation were skeptical about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, so I never really got sucked into the belief that America is infallible.

[namey.livejournal.com]

Little bit: Clinton's impeachment. "Why are we wasting time on this?"
Full-bore: Iraq War II pretty much cemented that conservatives were evil and the Dems were spineless idiots.

Spineless...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... is a polite way to put it. I don't know about the idiots part. Some of them are pretty sharp.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

I was a child during Pierre Trudeau's time in office so Trudeamania made me at least peripherally aware of politics far earlier than I may have been. My first foray into being politically activated was Desert Storm. I remember for a class we went around the room and everyone had to say if they were for or against it and why. I was the only against it and the only one who had actual reasons to back up their opinion. (The America, Fuck Yeah! attitude extended all the way up to Canada, at least at that time)

Desert Storm...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... following Desert Shield was quick an painless compared to more recent conflicts. It doesn't surprise me that kids were gung-ho for the "coalition." It is a youthful mindset, after all.

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

Yeah my political cherry got popped when I heard Bush the first saying that he would not raise taxes, only to hear my parents talking about how much the taxes they paid had increased. I was only eight or nine years old.

I stayed away from politics for many years until Clinton got busted screwing any woman that would have him. Like you I was like "what the f--k. This is stupid bullshyt." This was my early to mid-teens.

It was not until the my senior year in high school that I started to pay attention. Oh how I enjoyed that class on government, even if I disliked the teacher. After that class I started paying more attention to things, and with that class my decent into socialism began, only becoming a socialist when I became employed by my current employer. Yay, the older you become, the less money you have, and the more education you have, the less love you have for capitalistic notions.

I outgrew...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... capitalism during my high school years.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

The Cuban missile crisis. I - and most of the people I knew - were scared shitless.

What a wake-up call!

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I was too young for it, but I've heard a lot of stories.

It was a 5 year rape

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

My cherry got popped in 3 parts
Penetration:

I was barely 8 years old and living in Dallas when JFK was shot. My favorite uncle (Sam Pate) was a radio news reporter for KBOX AM and was the first to report "shots were fired" based on monitoring the police radio frequency in his mobile news cruiser. There was an announcement at lunch, and we all went home and listened on the radio, then watched as the TV was taken over, for the first time, in totality a 72 hour non stop news event, with no commercial interruptions.

That was some wierd shit.

Violation:

But the true awakening to the existence of 'politics' was the murder of MLK. The comments the white people I lived with, coupled with the endearment I felt for him with the "I have a Dream" speech, snapped into clarity the existence of 'those who would rule us all'.

The bloody damp rag:

RFK's murder. By that time I started hearing about JFK conspiracy theories and whispers within the family of my uncle peripherally involved with certain crime syndicates.

Re: It was a 5 year rape

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

LOL, loved the form of your presentation. ;-)

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

the "wow what is this 'politics' thing?" origin was NIxon's re-election. My (step) mother was crying in the kitchen and I asked my dad what was wrong since he looked kinda scared too.
"Nixon is the president" he said curtly.
"what's wrong with that? who's Nixon? why is she CRYING?"
"because he's going to keep the war going"

I understood the word "war"

Some time later, I recall seeing a political cartoon on the kitchen table. Nixon was pouring cereal into a bowl an the cereal was bombs. I couldn't read yet but I figured the bowl was what I had heard tossed about: Vietnam.


My first consensual experience?

The Iran-Contra hearings. I watched all of it.

My first heartbreak?
Bill Clinton.

Nixon campaigned...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... with a promise to bring the war to an end. One of the reasons for making nice with China was an attempt to negotiate a resolution to the conflict. Nixon was bad, but George Jr. made him look like a saint.

Iran-Contra was so convoluted that it only confirmed what everyone suspected about conspiracies.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

You mentioned the October Surprise. That was it for me, specifically the announcement over the school PA that the hostages had been released from Iran 15 minutes after Reagan took the oath of office. Had I been a month older, I could have — and would have — voted for him. I was conservative for half a decade afterwards, thinking that it took a Republican to get America respect.

What a fool I was. Turns out Daddy Bush, Casey and Gates arranged the whole thing (and committed treason in the process, but that's just splitting legal hairs).

When the hostages...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... were released upon Reagan's inauguration, I smelled something fishy. I had already been introduced to vicious political machination with the coverage of the Watergate scandal.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

When I was four, the KKK and American Nazi Party, with local police escort, killed five of my mother's colleagues.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Greensboro?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I've had this discussion in politics class, and this was pretty common for people of my generation (this was 1987). I'm not sure why it made such an impact. I guess for me it was the thought that there were children in Australia living in poverty. I was 6 and living in a leafy suburb, poverty was something that happened in Ethiopia, not Australia.

Learning about poverty...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... varies so much from place to place. The natives of the plains in America viewed the woodland natives as vicious savages living in poverty.

As a child, I learned that we were too poor to afford the kind of Christmas presents I wished to receive. I envied the lives of the suburbans I watched on TV. When I later met those folks in college, I felt fortunate to not have been as spoiled as they were.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

Think back to your childhood. What experience stands out as a moment of introduction into the realm of politics? How did you process the experience at the time?

Well, I was in grade school and they made us read The Emperor's New Clothes. It planted a seed in my mind. I think that's when I not only started to lose faith in politics but in humanity, as well.

Have you played the role...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... of the boy pointing out that the emperor was undressed?

The story shows the innocence of honesty and heroism. It is quite apropos of the times in which we live.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

When George H. W. Bush was campaigning against Michael Dukakis, I was about 7 years old. I actually remember staying up to watch the election results (albeit while sitting in a Cookie Monster chair (http://i.imgur.com/pCyci.jpg)). I also remember when the Berlin Wall was torn down, mostly because my uncle was stationed in Hamburg, Germany at the time. He was in Berlin that night on some sort of break or leave. He got some fantastic pictures of Germans chipping away at the wall and celebrating.

The destruction of the wall...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... is one of the starkest examples of the ineptitude of the East German regime. It happened as the result of a bureaucratic error. Bush conducted himself extremely well at the time. Other politicians would have gloated over the event.

The elder Bush was a breath of fresh air after the stifling oppression of the Reagan years. The great burden of rabid anti-communism was finally lifted from the shoulders of America. The tea party pales in comparison to their more vicious forebears.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Probably watching the Kefauver-Stevenson battle at the Democratic convention....in those days nominations were not a foregone conclusion.
I remember "If Ike gets sick, we get Dick", and my dad who voted for Ike the first time having me help pass out flyers for Stevenson.
But probably my true baptism in politics came with the JFK campaign, I went to more Democratic rallies and fund raisers than i care to remember (not because I regret supporting JFK, but our main push was for "Moonbeam's" dad) but I did get to shake JFK's hand :D

I've never heard that one.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I found a political button in a dresser drawer at home: "I like Ike." I was told that they were handed out to all the people where my father worked not-so-subtly hinting for whom the employees were expected to vote. My father had to keep his opposition to Ike from the other office workers for fear of retribution from above.

I had not heard the slogan about getting Dick from Ike's illness. Are you aware of Joe Kennedy's relations with Eisenhower before his run for office in '52? Eisenhower complained to him about Truman's dictatorial attitude compared to Roosevelt's congeniality.

The documentary Sputnik Mania presents a positive image of Eisenhower's handling of the space race crisis.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

The Iraq War. I wasn't around for Vietnam but that would've probably turned me too. Clinton lying about a little Presidential infidelity was one thing, but lying about something that just outright murders hundreds of thousands of people? That's insanity. I learned that adults aren't the smart people I thought they were.

When George Jr...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... invade Iraq, I commented that Clinton was seduced by an intern, but that Bush was seduced by an oil field. Which was worse? The latter was certainly more deadly. It takes a racist attitude to fail to perceive the brutality of such an enterprise. They aren't people: they are Arabs.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I'd love to tell the full story now but I don't have much time, so here (http://mahnmut.livejournal.com/64750.html) it is.

Cool story.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

We learned about South Africa and Apartheid in high school. It seem a lot like the US under Klan violence. Saying so would not earn a positive demeanor from adults who thought of America as the best of possible worlds. In college, I met a white South African who was far more open about his racist sentiments than his American counterparts. By then, American racists had learned to use euphemisms like "law and order" as their badge of viciousness.

Later in life, I learned about the British use of concentration camps during the Boer War. There was also Henry Kissinger's use of South Africa to support China's policy of supporting Jonas Savimbi in Angola. During the Reagan years, I was a fan of this album:

[lai-choi-san.livejournal.com]

I was 5. A documentary on TV. Suddenly my mother said "Don't look !". I put my hands in front of my eyes but I was able to see through the space between the fingers. On the screen : living skeletons. They stood, behind barbed wires, naked or wearing striped pyjamas. Other scenes showed large amounts of naked skeletal corpses... My mother slurred something about "the Germans".

At the time, we lived in Beaune (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaune) in Burgundy. There were (and there are still) many German tourists (Germany is not far and the Germans like good wines). Besides, the most visited place in the town was the Hôtel-Dieu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B4tel-Dieu,_Beaune) where the tourists could admire the Last Judgement polyptych by van der Weyden (I must have seen it at least 20 times in my childhood). The concentration camps, the ordinary people getting off buses with big black letters and the images of hell mixed in my mind. This can give you an idea of how I saw humanity at the age of 5. It was quite strange.

Learning about the Nazis...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... and their rabid anti-Communism was part of coming to terms with the true nature of American politics. When I did business in Germany during the '80s, I used the term "concentration camps" with respect to the "internment camps" in the US where Japanese-Americans were imprisoned during the war. The Germans appreciated the connection.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

The Quebec question was an early introduction to politics that has always coloured my world. The issues of sovereignty, independence and self government have always been at the forefront of my mind, not just with Quebec, but with aboriginals, Albertans and globally.

I do not take a side. Both sides are valid. There has to be some compromise. There has to be mutual respect. That lack of respect is what divides us.

Vieux Quebec...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... and Montreal were two of the first cities I visited outside of the US. I went with our high school French Club. I was surprised to learn that American Revolutionaries tried to wrest Quebec from England early in the war. That was about the time that there was talk of a Quebecois secession. I grew up in a city that had been a French outpost of Canada before the British attacked in 1755. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years%27_War#North_America) There are many French names still in existence in the region.