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Who is Bethesda 1971? [1]

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Date: 2023-02-09  

My grandmother's family, the Schaechters, Constantinople, c. 1886

My name is Peter Janovsky.

I joined Daily Kos on November 1, 2003 under the name Upper West. In 2013 someone doxxed me so on November 16, 2013 I became Bethesda 1971. I was a lawyer representing institutional clients at a New York law firm so contributing through a pseudonym was vital to preserve my career. I retired from that job on April 1, 2022 and I’m finally getting around to self-doxxing. Prior to becoming a lawyer, I was a social studies teacher and supervisor in the New York City public schools. I graduated from Columbia in 1968 and Fordham Law School (evening div.) in 1987.

Columbia was the epicenter of student activism in 1968. But after graduation, too many of us boomers abandoned electoral politics. And worse, too many of us were seduced by Reagan and have continued even into the age of MAGA. But even boomers still on the left can do more to counteract the rightward drift of our generation.

Those of us remaining on the left have a responsibility to fulfill the promise of the ‘60s for Justice. I am trying to do this through electoral politics, especially by helping mobilize our children and grandchildren to vote. They have already saved democracy through their turnout in the last three elections and their potential is still untapped: They are the Sleeping Giant Waiting to Save Democracy in the United States.

Below is my submission to the Columbia Class of 1968 alumni magazine for its Spring issue:

Retirement freed me to devote time to a passion I always had for politics, in particular encouraging registration and turnout of young voters. I credit the Internet with providing information, points of view and an opportunity to participate to a much greater extent than possible in the last century. Those of us in the Class of 1968 shared the national and global experiences of the 1960s and its local manifestation in the April 1968 strike. Some joined. Some strongly opposed. But most of us fell somewhere in between, close witnesses to the history outside our dorm windows, many sympathetic to the “goals but not the tactics.” That was where I was. Yet like many of us, after graduation I remained interested in how the events of ’68 affected our class. In our reunion years, there have been “strike” reunions in addition to the official ones and in 2008 I attended both. By that year, analysis of the events of ’68 was so mainstream President Bollinger spoke as part of a panel at the strike reunion. The panel also included Todd Gitlin, a founder of the SDS, who taught at Columbia and sadly died earlier this year. Gitlin reassessed the role of the ’68 activists, including his own, saying they over-inflated the prospect of a revolution beyond colleges based on the strike issues, and were guilty of the “original sin” of self-regard. Most seriously, the ’68 left abdicated electoral responsibility, making a difference in the close election of 1968. This in turn had the perverse effect of prolonging the war and slowing or reversing progressive gains of the 1960s. Gitlin regretted not voting that year, and in his 2007 book, The Bulldozer and the Big Tent, he wrote the left achieved “a great political defeat and a great cultural success. That’s how we ended up with the left marching on the English department while the right took Washington.” Now, fifty-four years later, our children and grandchildren make up “GenZ,” the 2020s version of Boomers. Four million of them turn 18 every year and soon they will surpass us demographically. Large majorities of them share the 2022 version of the issues and ideals that motivated the 1968 strike – both the participants and the “demands but not tactics” people like me. Joining civil rights and social justice are post-1968 issues like climate action, LGBTQ rights and choice. GenZ, along with younger Millennials, made the difference in the last three elections, saving the country from an authoritarian future. (For the moment.) This caused some on the other side to propose raising the voting age back to 21 or higher – a good indication of their concern and resistance to the tide of young progressive voters. In 1968 many of us also wanted to make a difference, but as Todd Gitlin said, rejected the electoral path toward progressive goals, helping usher in a half century of retreat from those goals. Those of us who share the 2022 version of those goals now have another chance by encouraging political activism and participation by our children and grandchildren. So that’s what I’m doing in my retirement. I am working with three non-partisan groups: The Civics Center, promoting high school voter registration and turnout; Civic Influencers, doing similar work for college students; and TurnUp.US, promoting young voter activism generally.

Let’s continue to save democracy with a massive cross-generational effort.

Are you in?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/9/2152071/-Who-is-Bethesda-1971

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