For some reason, I felt a need to listen to the No Nukes album. That’s from the MSG concerts in 1979 protesting, with music, against nuclear proliferation.

So I am lost in my past…and thinking about what it was to protest then, the issues in play, and in so doing “Identity Politics” finally crystallized in my mind. The idea of “Identity Politics” has never sat well with me because I consider them to be unnecessarily divisive. I understand the idea, that “identity” defines people, but EVERYONE has an identity, and there are hopefully more things that unify us than separate us. Yeah, yeah, I have heard the blow-back that I don’t understand what it is to be African-American, and that’s true.

BUT

I know a lot of men who feel as strongly as I do about a woman’s right to choose, even though they cannot get pregnant. I want them as allies in the fight, not separated because they can pee standing up. The LGBTQIA movement is welcoming to cis, straight people like myself – they see the need for allies.

So, back to the past…in the 80’s, I met a man who shares my birthday. Same date, same year. He pointed out to me that as different as are our backgrounds, our politics, and where we spent our youth, we share the exact same memory of the days after JFK’s assassination. We saw the same images on TV, in Look and Life, and for kids our age, it was our first multi-day memory. And he was right, then and now. We were little kids, and for most of us, we barely understood the concept of “death”, much less assassination. But we knew our president, we did his exercises from the same “Go you Chicken Fat Go” 45 rpm record that had been sent to every elementary school classroom throughout the country the year before. We all, young and old, felt the same sense of loss. Of horror. Used to be that “the president” was the president of all the people, all the country.

And then the war. All of us Americans knew someone who was fighting in Vietnam. A family member, a friend, a neighbor. And all of us either were veterans or had a father, uncle, brother who had fought in WW1, WW2 or Korea. 100% of us. It’s different today when less than half of one percent of the country is active military, meaning that far more Americans see “war” as an abstraction. Back in 1969, war was always close at hand. Shadows of WW2, Korea, and HUAC hung over us. We knew camp survivors tattooed with numbers on their arms. We worried every year when the draft numbers were announced. Who would be called? Who would flee to Canada? And every night on the news….the war led.

“Identity” was a country at war. A wrong war, in the minds of many of us. I remember the first time I really heard about Vietnam. It was 1966. I came home and my dad, a neighbor, and the neighbor’s son were standing out front of our apartment building. The son was a Lieutenant on leave. He was arguing with his dad, saying that he had been to Laos, and knew others who had been to Cambodia. The father was livid, saying that Johnson had denied that we had crossed out of Vietnam. “Serve your county proudly, like I did in WW2,” he said. “You must be mistaken. The president wouldn’t lie.”

My dad and I went inside, and I asked him about it. Years later, he told me that was the first time he questioned what the government said, but he got right on it. He did the investigating he could, but sources were certainly limited. Still, he kept a scrapbook of things that “looked fishy”, and in 1971, we all read The Pentagon Papers, and learned a lot. Innocence lost.

Woodstock came after Tet, and the tide against the war had turned.

This was a weekend of the identity of youth. Of music. Of ostensible joy (in the rain). While not a protest, per say — it was a huge gathering of people of one mind. And then back to the anti-Vietnam protests, of trying to get the voting age lowered to 18, of trying to get abortion legalized. “Earth Day” was just joining the radar – the first would occur the following April. We were all still reeling from the assassinations of RFK and King the year before. Of the riots. The burning cities. Music offered hope, and some temporary escape.

Flash forward ten years.

Vietnam had ended, the voting age had been lowered to 18 (“Old enough to die in Vietnam, old enough to vote against the war”). Nixon had been vanquished. Many of us boomers had committed to careers in public service, in rebuilding the country, and now we had the threat of nuclear war. The No Nukes concerts raised money to fight nuclear proliferation. Many of us were part of a worldwide chain meditating daily against nuclear war. Three Mile Island had melted down in March, the concerts were in September. Far from war, yet the threat of death so close. Again, “identity” was staying alive, preventing death from colorless poison. Earth Day was 9 years old. We didn’t know about plastics.

And now today. 50 years since Woodstock. 40 years since No Nukes. I still go to protests, still celebrate Earth Day — and I actually still listen to the same music I listened to 40 – 50 years ago. And I wonder about “identity” at the events. I see people of all shapes and sizes and ages and colors and “identities” at them….the “identity” being anti-gun, anti-Mariner East, pro-choice, pro-women’s rights…and the list goes on. I like protests.

Still, people tell me that I don’t understand. That I CANNOT understand. That I don’t know how privileged I am. Do I know I’m privileged? Sure — I live indoors, with potable water, indoor plumbing, electricity, and enough money that everyone who lives with me can eat every day.  And that makes me “rich” in Trump’s America. Do I know that I can speed while driving and that there is no price for “driving while white?” Yup, sure do.

But do I understand hate crimes? Sure do. I was the victim of a hate crime about 25 years ago – the kind that the FBI investigates. The kind where the local cops took me out on a shooting range, put a gun in my hands so I could fire it, and advised me to carry a gun. Okay, to be honest, that was their recommendation BEFORE I fired the gun. Then they saw how that wasn’t really an option (you have to keep your eyes open, and not fall backwards from the power of the shot….they ended up recommending a dog….they recognized that I was never going to be able to shoot a gun). In all seriousness, it was terrifying that someone wanted me dead because I was Jewish. Until he was caught, I needed to have someone with me all the time: a professional who did carry a gun (and could use it). I extrapolate to the people who are just as fearful because many people want to kill them. I understand the fear and the worry, even though I don’t share their identity. But still I empathize and sympathize with the recipients of hate. I’m told this is not “good enough.”

Like too many women to count, I know the pain of cracked ribs and a fractured skull at the hands of a man who ostensibly loved her. I am “privileged” that I was done with him after the first bad act. I didn’t have to stay. I had enough sense of self to realize it was him and not me. And yet, I know that a man can be falsely accused. And so, I’m not “#MeToo” enough for the purists.

I was a doctor for decades. I believe in universal access to GOOD (patient-centric) healthcare for everyone. And it’s not an abstraction to me: I donated time to treat patients at a clinic who couldn’t pay, and signed my paycheck over to the clinic as soon as they handed it to me. I treated patients in my private practice who couldn’t pay because I’d taken an oath. But I’m told that’s “not good enough” because I cannot currently sign on to Medicare for All as the next step, only the as the ultimate outcome with interim steps.

There is a protest going on now in Harlan County, KY. It involves coal, a train, dedicated families, and a bad company. They’re set up a tent city to block the train with the million dollars worth of coal that it owed to them. Really. I’m thinking of going with a young man – a good kid, he is. Dedicated and passionate about making the world a better place. I’ve been trying to teach him what I know because that’s the job of a old political activist…pass it on! And those 10 hours each way in the car could be a whole bunch of chat and learning….and he’d try (again) to sell me on aspirational politics…sigh.

Anyway – here’s the difference between being a pre-teen wanting to attend Woodstock and today — I am as dedicated to saving the world as I ever have been. Maybe more so because I see a danger today that didn’t exist in the past. I’m happy to do the drive. I have more money than I did when I was twelve, so I can afford to bring supplies to tent city. But, and here’s the thing about “50 years” — the heart and soul are all in. The body needs a hotel reservation because these bones can no longer sleep on the ground.