It makes me doubly proud that, at age 18, I became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or Wobblies). Now, at 68, I am still a proud member of one of the most influential and radical of the early trade unions. I still carry my little red card in my wallet today.

Politically, I am what is known as an "anarcho-syndicalist," which was a flavor of the original far-left libertarian movement (the right-wing "libertarians," like the Cato Institute, call themselves "anarcho-capitalists". The anarcho-syndicalist philosophy favors, much that Bernie Sanders also advocates, a democracy in which the power is located with the working people of America (through unity in the Trade Union movement) and that each layer of representatives above us is dependent on and responsible to the layer below for its position. It is a bottom-up form of democracy where the idea of the Sovereignty of the People is not just an empty phrase.

Today, both political parties represent groups of the elite (more commercial and Wall Street in the GOP's case, and Ivied intellectual, professional, the rare successful entrepreneurs, and other elements of Wall Street in the Dem's case).

Both parties believe that, as members of an American elite, they, not the ordinary people, know better than we do ourselves about what we want and need. In both parties, leadership is from the top down, and not from the people up. Neither Trump nor Clinton has any plan to change this oligarchical system. Only Bernie Sanders seems to understand the value of returning our Sovereignty to the entirety of the American People.