Interview with Hal Ginsberg
I’ll be posting a piece either tonight or tomorrow, but in the meantime, if you’d like to listen to a conversation I had with Hal Ginsberg who runs a live stream broadcast called Halitics. Hal describes himself as a very far left progressive, a Bernie Sanders supporter. He wanted to talk to me about something I wrote so I figured, why not. Hal is trying to build up an audience over at Youtube so if you like the conversation, please like and subscribe.
As usual, when it comes to the Left there are things we agree on and things we don’t. We get into some of it. A lot of this is navigating new territory for me as I was very much against Bernie supporters way back when. But I’m always up for a reasonable conversation with people who are open-minded and not fanatics.
He does have a call-in feature which I didn’t know about so if we ever do it again I will give you the heads up in case you have a question.
If interested, have a listen.
For what it's worth we don't go much into progressive politics. We don't talk policy at all.
Last year, I heard from the son of a former professor of mine who died far too young. His son and siblings were gathered in San Diego to mark the 30th anniversary of their dad's passing. While going through his dad's correspondence, his son had come across letters between his dad - a far-left borderline socialist - and conservative colleagues and friends. He was struck by the warm banter, the queries about family and children, the obvious friendship across partisan lines. The son, in his 50s now and politically similar to his father, wondered how we lost all that - that simple human ability to listen to one another, to disagree without being disagreeable.
I told him that despite being in Air Force ROTC and fairly conservative, I had saved my correspondence with his father, and that when I was teaching a university course myself, I held his father up in my mind as a role model.
That his dad had been a mentor to me.
Reading the comments below makes me realize that the one truly bipartisan aspect of American culture today is that neither side wants anything to do with the other, and both blame the other side wholly for our divide.
We've got some work to do to repair our nation. While we fight, China builds, and if we don't get our act together we will lose this precious gift of freedom we were given by previous generations.
Good work, Sasha and Hal, and showing how Americans can disagree in a civil manner - and in so doing, inadvertently discover areas of commonality and agreement.