Conscience of a Liberal (eBook)

Paul Wellstone (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2001 | 1. Auflage
240 Seiten
Random House Publishing Group (Verlag)
978-1-58836-011-3 (ISBN)

Infos

'Never separate the lives you live from the words you speak,' Paul Wellstone told his students at Carleton College, where he was professor of political science.

Wellstone has lived up to his words as the most liberal man in the United States Senate, where for the past decade he has been the voice for improved health care, education, reform, and support for children. In this folksy and populist memoir, Wellstone explains why the politics of conviction are essential to democracy.

Through humor and heartfelt stories, Paul Wellstone takes readers on an unforgettable journey (in a school bus, which he used to campaign for door-to-door) from the fields and labor halls of Minnesota to the U.S. Senate, where he is frequently Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott's most vocal nemesis. Along the way, he argues passionately for progressive activism, proves why all politics is personal, and explains why those with the deepest commitment to their beliefs win.

Textauszug

THIS TIME, VOTE FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE INI met Sheila Ison when we were both sixteen, on the beach at Ocean City, Maryland -- a big high-school hangout place -- right after the school year ended.

She is the daughter of Appalachian Southern Baptists. Her parents were from Harlan and Letcher counties, Kentucky -- coal-mining families. When I first met them, I immediately thought of the song 'Two Different Worlds.' They were half my parents' age and completely different from them. Her grandfather, who was visiting when I first came to their home, even said after I left, 'He is a nice boy, but he is a Jew. You wouldn't want to marry him.'

But we were married just after turning nineteen. Sheila had been at the University of Kentucky, and I was at the University of North Carolina. I told my parents in December that I was very unhappy separated from Sheila and that I wanted to marry her. Almost everyone was opposed for obvious reasons, but not my father. As usual, he could see ahead. We were married August 24, 1963.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was a great place to be a student. The civil rights movement was exploding all around me. At first, I was hesitant to get involved, because of time. I was married, competing as a wrestler, taking an overload of classes (I graduated a year early), working, and a father at age twenty. There was no time for political activism.

Direct action is powerful. Sheila and I saw the sit-ins -- men and women, black and white, young and old, asking to be served in restaurants and instead being beaten and arrested by police. It made you think. And it made you act. I found a way to be a foot soldier in this movement -- not a hero, like my present colleague John Lewis from Georgia. But we helped out in whatever ways we could and became a small part of many of the justice struggles in Chapel Hill: civil rights, antiwar, antihunger, and antipoverty work.

I did my graduate work in political science at UNC and received a doctorate at twenty-four. But I had learned a great deal in a short period of time. I met many men and women who should be famous. They had little in the way of financial resources, but they were the ones who made history. Their courage, their ability, their love made our country better, not just for people of color but for all Americans. I learned from firsthand experience that ordinary people can be extraordinary and have the capacity to make our country better. I became a believer in grassroots organizing, in grassroots politics.

I came to Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, in September 1969, with the knowledge that individuals can change the world. I was determined not to be an outside observer but to use my skills as a political scientist to empower people and to step forward with people in justice struggles. If this sounds a bit too romantic, remember that I was only twenty-five. And yet today I still feel the same way!

We act on what we believe in where we live, where we work, or where we go to school. (I always feel the need to include students.) I organized on campus on many different issues. But most of my work was organizing with poor people in rural Rice County, Minnesota (population 41,000, 495 square miles).

First, I supervised studies of housing, health care, and nutrition needs. We identified needs but made no policy recommendations. It was controversial work. The college was not used to this kind of community research. And when it became clear that the data would be used by poor people for poor people, neither the county nor college officials were pleased. I remember one of many confrontations over this research. The then-president of Carleton said: 'One would...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.7.2001
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
• ISBN-10: 1-58836-011-3 / 1588360113
• ISBN-13: 978-1-58836-011-3 / 9781588360113