Profiles in Chutzpah

Two things for today - one from this past week, and another from more than 50 years ago.

So this man at the right is Rep. Bernie Sanders, an Independent representative from Vermont who's running for U.S. Senate. Boring, right? No! Bernie Sanders is actually a Socialist, and not only that, it's very likely that he's going to win the Senate seat in Vermont - at least according to this article from In These Times. I don't agree with everything Sanders stands for, nor do I know if he's related to Colonel Sanders of fried chicken fame, but it is hopeful to see someone with political courage try to crack the shell of the U.S. Senate. It is unfortunate, though, that as an aspiring U.S. Senator, his initials have to be "B.S." Hell, he'll fit right in! Hehe...no, really, Bernie Sanders seems like the type of progressive voice our government so sorely needs right now.

Speaking of political courage, I was at a book fair yesterday and came upon a copy of John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Profiles in Courage." I also came across ten billion books written by Danielle Steele, so if you're looking for that missing rain forest, I think I found where all the trees went!

Anyway, I've been meaning to read JFK's book for years, and having read the first 30 pages this morning, I'm quite impressed. It profiles former Senators that showed political courage and, quite often, paid the price for it. What's ironic is how JFK's words apply so much to today's political culture - it's as if he wrote them yesterday, not in the 1950s. Check out this, only substitute the phrase "War on Terrorism" when JFK talks about the Cold War:

"Today the challenge of political courage looms larger than ever before. For our everyday life is becoming so saturated with the tremendous power of mass communications that anything unpopular or unorthodox arouses a storm of protests...Our political life is becoming so expensive, so mechanized and so dominated by professional politicians and public relations men that the idealist who dreams of independent statesmanship is rudely awakened by the necessities of election and accomplishment. And our public life is becoming so increasingly centered upon that seemingly unending war to which we have given the curious epithet 'Cold,' that we tend to encourage rigid ideological unity and orthodox patterns of thought.

"And thus, in the days ahead, only the very courageous will be able to make the hard and unpopular decisions necessary for our survival in the struggle with a powerful enemy - an enemy with leaders who need give little thought to the popularity of their course, who need pay little tribute to the public opinion they themselves manipulate, and who may force, without fear of retaliation at the polls, their citizens to sacrifice present laughter for future glory. And only the very courageous will be able to keep alive the spirit of individualism and dissent which gave birth to this nation, nourished it as an infant and carried it through its severest tests upon the attainment of its maturity."

So here's to politicians with political courage, and hoping that if Bernie Sanders becomes a U.S. Senator, he continues to flex his courage and conviction.