What America Do You Want to Live In? A Story of Political Evolution

Conversation with Political and Community Activist Nancy Vogl

“Even Jesus believed in evolution. Otherwise, he would have said, ‘Now don’t do a thing until I return.’” -- Swami Beyondananda

As per a recent Atlantic Monthly article, the new phrase describing America’s ever-deepening political divide is “pernicious polarization”. That old phrase “I wouldn’t want my son / daughter to marry one”, that used to apply to someone of another race, now applies to someone of a different political persuasion. Let that one sink in, folks. While we as a society have largely accepted racial, ethnic and religious intermarriage, that toxic “othering” has now been transferred to the political divide, which has now taken on the feel of a “religious war.”

So, if we are to rehumanize one another, get off the political battlefield and onto the cooperative playing field, put government on the side of the people, and write our new story together, where do we turn for guidance and wisdom?

This week on Front and Center, we air part one of a three-part conversation with long-time political activist and community educator Nancy Vogl. Why? Because at a time of deepening polarization, the story of her own political evolution offers a clue as to how it can be done. Growing up in a Republican family in Los Angeles County, she recounts a moment where her dad rethought his political stance, and this open-mindedness offered Nancy a living example of political evolution. When she came out as gay in her late teens, Nancy had her parents’ support. She was a founding member of one of the first feminist rock bands of the 1970’s Bay Area Women’s music scene, and played bass at the First International Women’s Rock Festival in Germany in 1981.

A poster she saw while on tour of the Midwest that posed the provocative question, “What America do you want to live in?” led her to study with James and Grace Lee Boggs, Detroit-based political activists and “evolutionaries.” The book they authored, Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century, was decades ahead of its time, pointing out that ideologies outlive their usefulness (or in too many cases, uselessness) because their rigidity leaves no room to encompass new information and perspective. “One view is never going to be the answer to anything,” says Nancy. “When you harness the wisdom from different perspectives and different experiences, you increase the capacity for change because you've gotten the best ideas and you create a new whole.”

Taking what she learned from vigorous and rigorous conversations with the Boggs, she chose to turn the ideal into the real deal working with high school students, linking young people with “authentic community activities'. She served on the State Superintendent’s Task Force on Service Learning for the California Department of Education and as Youth Service Director for the Volunteer Center of Sonoma County. She was Co-Director and Leadership Coach for Sonoma County’s LGBTQI support group, and represented Northern California as a Rotary Foundation Peace Ambassador in Barcelona, Spain.

She is currently on the Advisory Board of the California Common Sense Party, where she is applying her broad political perspective and wisdom to bring the awakening people of California together around common values and common cause, and a commonly-sensed common sense consensus – we the people have been divided and nearly conquered, and now we have the choice to “unite and thrive.”

Please tune in for this heart-opening and mind-expanding interview.

You will also want to listen to her upcoming interviews, where she sheds light on two controversial and polarizing issues – the so-called Critical Race Theory (CRT), and gender identification. One of our early Front and Center guests, Randall Paul, President of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy, offered what should be the standard and challenge of journalism – seeking the whole truth together. Our three interviews with Nancy Vogl put us on track for doing just that.