Liberally Speaking: Why Liberalism is Right for
America, Stephen
J. Natoli, Branden Books, 2015
Two weeks ago, at the monthly
meeting of the Visalia Democrats, I was privileged to hear Stephen Natoli speak
about his new book. Professor Natoli
teaches at history at COS, so his comments were particularly meaningful for the
liberals living in Tulare County’s rather conservative environment.
I found I had a great deal in common
with him. We were both raised
Republican, inheriting that political stance from our parents, who inherited it
from theirs. Four years behind me, he
took that stance with him to college like I did, where it began to unravel
under the influence of Nixon’s Waterloo, Watergate, and the illegal war in Laos
and Cambodia, the “foolishness of the Vietnam War.”
That war was more than foolish for
me: when my brother came home in a body
bag, my entire way of thinking was destroyed.
It took years to re-assemble some comprehendible ideas about how the
world worked. Like Natoli, however, I
found some grounding in stories from the Great Depression and the civil rights
movement.
What’s different in our stories,
however, is that Stephen Natoli went on to learn about the actual history of
liberalism in this country and to analyze its precepts and successes. He presents these beautifully and succinctly
in Liberally
Speaking. “What I have learned
from studying history is that the liberal approach works. It’s not only a theoretical ideal; the record
shows its practicality. Liberal ideas
have been the ones that have made society more just, more prosperous and better
for people to live in,” ends the introduction.
He spends the rest of the book documenting that claim.
What caused Natoli to write the book
is quite interesting. Visiting a Barnes
and Noble bookstore in southern California, he noticed there was a plethora of
books on the conservative and ultra-conservative positions, but few if any on
the liberal creed. He thought how seldom
he had heard fellow liberals claim their position, much less express and defend
the principles behind it, and ascribed Barack Obama’s 2 elections to the
Presidency to Obama’s ability to express them eloquently. “It was the beliefs themselves that won those
elections by galvanizing the people behind their visions for the future. That belief system,” Natoli says quietly, “is
called liberalism.”
Natoli’s list of “what liberals
believe” is helpful and clarifying.
There are 17 inter-related principles:
ethics as the bedrock,
founded in truth, honesty and love for one another; equality of all people at all times; freedom to be, do, say and believe as we will, as
well as freedom from preventable harm; community of others whose well-being we must consider as
well as our own; opportunity to pursue our dreams; meeting human needs with compassion, ingenuity and resolve; democracy as the foundation for
a just political system; empathy
for our fellows as the wellspring of the causes we champion; progress, or faith in the
improvement of the human condition if we work for it in good will; science as a means to discover
and employ fact and reason to better our world; justice under the law and as a framework for fairness in
society; security of our persons,
rights and dignity; practicality
in the ways we pursue our goals and implement our policies; diversity of people celebrated
within the unity of the human family; civil
rights enshrined and protected; service
as the means to realize these principles; and love as the source of all the good we do and are.
Conservatives may find themselves
agreeing with some of these principles.
What distinguishes liberals is the willingness, heroic at times, to hold
all these principles together. “The
American people deserve to see that liberal values are American values, and to
appreciate that much of what has made America free and prosperous is a result
of great liberal leaders and great liberal ideas,” Natoli declares.
You can read more about the book and
Natoli’s endeavors to get us liberals to talk at www.braveqnuwhirled.blogspot.com, as well as
order the book there. The book is also
available at the Book Garden in Exeter.
Stephen Natoli will be speaking in Lindsay on March 9th at
the third Cultural Arts Forum, along with his colleague in the COS History
Dept., Stephen Tootle, a Republican.
That evening they will be talking (not yelling) about the differences
between the two parties. The event is free and begins with refreshments at 6:30
pm in the Lindsay Gallery and Museum on Gale Hill Ave. adjacent to City Hall.
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Trudy
Wischemann is a book-reading, rural-writing liberal who lives in Lindsay. You can send her your political war stories
c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a
comment below.
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