Reply #29: It was a very different political culture

[nadinbrzezinski]

hell as a 17 year old my art history teacher was a social democrat, fled from Franco's Spain and my Sociology instructor was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party... and they could not stand each other.

It was THE BEST political education I could ever get. Their arguments were very instructive.

We were also told that it was a duty to vote and all that, and we believed it. So even though we knew it really didn't mater, voting rates were well over 80% for presidential elections and well over the high 70s for midterms.

People knew it would take time to change things and that you needed to work OUTSIDE the parties... aka movement politics.


And yes there was corruption, ballot stuffing and all that... as well as people threatening people at the time of counting votes, like oh Florida in 2000...

And it will take the same kind of work to change things here.