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IPFS News Link • Politics: Democratic Campaigns

My High School Buddy, Bernie

• https://www.lewrockwell.com, By Walter E. Block

To set the stage, we were both born in 1941. We overlapped for four years at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York, and for one year as freshmen at Brooklyn College. We took several classes together (he was always the brightest kid in the class) and were fellow members of our high school track and cross country teams. We often travelled together to Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park for 2.5 mile races there. We lived close enough so that we sometimes walked to and from school together. We are both Jewish, but non-practicing.

What was Bernie like then? One of his characteristics, even then, was his courageousness.

It is easy to see this at present. Bernie has the courage of his convictions, something not all that prevalent amongst our politicians. He has never "run away from" any of his heartfelt principles. He didn't "run away from" the economic philosophy of Socialism, in 2015 and before, when it was far less acceptable than it is now, thanks in no small part to his own advocacy of this system. He never "ran away from" his backing, not for allowing only ex-convicts to vote in elections, but also prisoners now incarcerated, despite the extreme unpopularity of this viewpoint. Nor has he shrunk from his positions on any number of other issues which are extremely out of favor in many quarters: abortion, taxing the wealthy, labor unions, $15 minimum wage, Medicare for all, free college tuition, Cuba, etc. Senator Sanders knows full well that if he garners the Democratic nomination he will have to face an electorate a large part of which vociferously disagrees with him on these issues. Does he pull his punches? To ask this to answer it: of course not.


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