Much coverage has been given, and rightly so, to the wonderful way in which America’s youth has responded to Bernie Sanders’ clarion call for active participation in the healing of a broken nation and ailing planet. I applaud these young folks with all my heart, and am especially proud of one young member of my family who has been phone banking and organizing for the Sanders campaign for several months now. But support for a Sanders administration is not confined to the youngsters in my family or in my community, and today, I’d like to share why the voice of our elders is the one most worthy of our attention and honor.
Yesterday on Twitter, I saw
a marvelous photograph of a woman holding a homemade Bernie Sanders sign which stated that he was the best candidate she had seen for President in her 97 years of life. And that’s what it all comes down to:
time. Our elders have seen decades of history and have been able to draw wisdom from this experience that those of lesser years have yet to attain. And yet, in a culture which draws its adjectives of praise from the corporate world, elders are often undervalued because they are no longer economically ‘productive’. As though we were living on a factory assembly line instead of in a human society. As though the only purpose of people is to keep busy.
And the problem with falling off the production line in America is that you can then fall quietly into poverty with no one noticing. If it is your parents or grandparents telling you they don’t turn on their heater in winter because they can’t afford to, that they need to get over to the local food pantry because they’ve run out of groceries, or that they are cutting their medicines in half to make a prescription last longer, then both you and your family’s senior members are already struggling with great anxiety over this crisis, and your own anxiety may be worsened by the fact that your own wages are too low to offer meaningful relief to parents or grandparents.
But even if the elders in your family are fortunate enough to live in reasonable comfort, please take a minute to imagine how you would feel to think of them being cold, hungry, sick and afraid, and then please spend a few minutes more watching Bernie Sanders’ excellent video on
why we must expand Social Security.
The elders in my family – including my mother, father, mother-in-law and father-in-law – are all Bernie Sanders supporters. Almost every day, my mother fires up YouTube to see if anyone is livestreaming the latest Sanders rally and then we get on the phone to discuss what Bernie said and how big the crowds were that day. My mother-in-law has signed up for Clinton’s email list so that she can ‘spy’ on what the opposition is doing! My father gives us his time and wisdom to explain how this presidential campaign compares and contrasts to the many others he has witnessed and hopes that a genuine political reform movement is taking place, and my father-in-law calls the Republicans ‘a bunch of clowns’ and says ‘Go Bernie!’. Another of my elders, a favorite aunt who has known both homelessness and hunger in her life, is telling everyone at her church food bank that she’s voting for Bernie and is excited when the well-to-do ladies who staff this charity tell her they’re in the Sanders camp, too!
Out on the town, I’ve talked with elderly ladies who have Bernie 2016 signs decorating their front porches and have chatted with other older men and women who are running the local campaign headquarters with great vigor. And I am truly thankful every time I hear of any report of grandchildren and grandparents attending primaries and caucuses together, united in their support for this once-in-a-lifetime candidate.
Our elders, in their wisdom, are voting for Bernie Sanders because they care for our future and for all of us. Their generation is the very one that created Bernie Sanders – an elder with a venerable mountain of experience and sagacity to share.
When you see him standing at the podium, shoulders slightly bent in concentration, eyes twinkling like old stars and hair like wisps of cirrus clouds crowning his energetic form, do you think of your father or grandfather, and how they would express the seriousness of our country’s situation and the moral obligation to face and solve its problems?
Elders matter because they know things that the rest of us have yet to encounter and learn, and their examples of compassion, responsibility and honesty are what we younger ones should strive to emulate. And, as some of the most vulnerable members of our society, older men and women deserve our protection in the form of both legislation and cultural recognition. Our vote for Bernie Sanders isn’t just a vote for one man – it’s a vote to honor and protect all elders and to heed the counsel of the wisest among them.
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