David McReynolds

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David McReynolds

David McReynolds (born October 25, 1929) is an American

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
democratic socialist

Democratic socialism

Democratic socialism is a description used by various socialism movements, tendencies, and organizations, to emphasize the democratic character of their political orientation....
and pacifist activist who described himself as "a peace movement bureaucrat" during his 40-year career with Liberation magazine and the War Resisters League

War Resisters League

The War Resisters League was formed in 1923 by men and women who had opposed World War I. It is a section of the London-based War Resisters' International....
. He was the first openly gay

Gay

The term gay was originally used, until well into the mid-20th century, primarily to refer to feelings of being "carefree," "happy," or "bright and showy"; it had also come to acquire some connotations of "immorality" as early as 1637....
man in history to run for President of the United States

President of the United States

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles is the largest city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles is rated as a beta global city, has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California....
to Charles and Elizabeth McReynolds.

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Encyclopedia

David McReynolds (born October 25, 1929) is an American

United States

Democratic socialism

War Resisters League

The War Resisters League was formed in 1923 by men and women who had opposed World War I. It is a section of the London-based War Resisters' International....
. He was the first openly gay

Gay

President of the United States

The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition....
.

Early life

He was born in Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Socialist Party of America

The Socialist Party of America was a Democratic socialism political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America which had split from the main organization in 1899....
(SPA) and in 1953 he graduated from UCLA with a degree in political science

Political science

Political science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior....
. Between 1957 and 1960, McReynolds worked for the editorial board

Editorial board

The editorial board is a group of people, usually at a print publication, who dictate the tone and direction the publication's editorials will take....
of the left-wing magazine

Magazine

for quarterly in Heraldry see Quartering Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of Article , generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscription, or all three....
Liberation. McReynolds is openly gay and wrote his first article about living as a gay man in 1969.

Career with War Resisters League

He was staunchly anti-war

Anti-war

The term anti-war usually refers to the opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing casus belli....
and a draft resister

Conscription

Conscription is a general term for involuntary labor demanded by an established authority. It is most often used in the specific sense of government policies that require citizens to serve in the military....
, and in 1960 joined the staff of the War Resisters League

War Resisters League

The War Resisters League was formed in 1923 by men and women who had opposed World War I. It is a section of the London-based War Resisters' International....
(WRL), where he would remain until his retirement in 1999 (as of 2006, he remains active within the nonviolence movement and regularly participates in WRL activities). On November 6 1965, he was one of five men who publicly burned their draft cards

Opposition to the Vietnam War

Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War is significant because it was the first time a war was shownand accessed through the media to the public in the United States....
at an anti-war demonstration at Union Square in New York. This was one of the first public draft-card burnings after U.S. law was changed on August 30, 1965 to make such actions a felony, punishable by up to five years' imprisonment. He was close friends with Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin was an United States civil rights activist, important largely behind the scenes in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and American Civil Rights Movement , and one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom....
and other prominent peace activists, as well literary figures like Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp , born Denis Charles Pratt, was an England writer and raconteur. He became a gay icon in the 1970s after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant, brought to the attention of the general public his defiant exhibitionism and longstanding refusal to remain in the closet....
.

Leader with Socialist Party USA

After years of internal problems, the SPA suffered a three-way split in 1973. The SPA was renamed the Social Democrats USA

Social Democrats USA

Social Democrats USA , one of the successors of the Socialist Party of America-Social Democratic Federation , was a small coalition of democratic, anti-Communist intellectuals and trade unionists, whose active life lasted for about three decades after its foundation in 1973....
by the leadership of former Trotskyist Max Shachtman

Max Shachtman

Max Shachtman was an United States Marxist theorist. During his lifetime, he evolved from being a Leninist associate of Leon Trotsky to an anti-Sovietism social democrat and Labor Zionist....
. Michael Harrington

Michael Harrington

Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an United States democratic socialism, writer, political activist, professor of political science, and radio commentator....
and his followers split off to form the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee

Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee

The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee was founded in 1973 by the bulk of those members of the Socialist Party of America who opposed the party's takeover by the followers of Max Shachtman....
(now the Democratic Socialists of America

Democratic Socialists of America

Democratic Socialists of America is a social democracy/Democratic socialism organization in the United States and the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, a federation of Social democracy, Democratic socialism and Labour Party and organizations....
, DSA) with the purpose of "realignment". Arguably akin to the Trotskyist

Trotskyism

Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an Orthodox Marxism and Bolshevik-Leninism, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party....
idea of "entrism", realignment envisioned working within the Democratic Party to pull it to the left. The left wing of the SPA, known as the Debs Caucus, including McReynolds, reconstituted the spirit of the SPA and Eugene V. Debs

Eugene V. Debs

Eugene Victor Debs was an American Trade union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World , as well as candidate for President of the United States as a member of the Social Democratic Party in 1900, and later as a member of the Socialist Party of America in 1904, 1908, 1912,...
into the Socialist Party USA

Socialist Party USA

The Socialist Party USA is one of the heirs to the Socialist Party of America of Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas. It is a democratic socialism, multi-tendency party, advocating a broad-based, social revolution from below....
(SPUSA) that exists today. McReynolds has long been a member of both DSA and SPUSA.

McReynolds' primary theoretical contribution to socialism comes from his unique blending of a pacifist world-view with a commitment to re-distributive socialist economics

Socialist economics

Socialist economics is a broad, and sometimes controversial, term. A normative definition held by many socialists states that all socialist economic theories and arrangements are united by the desire to produce for use rather than profit, achieve greater egalitarianism and give the workers greater control of the means of production ....
. Politically, McReynolds has been a staunch anti-authoritarian

Anti-authoritarian

Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as a "political doctrine advocating the principle of absolute rule: absolutism, autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, totalitarianism." Anti-authoritarians believe in an equal distribution of power among all people....
and has collaborated with a diverse set of political formations on the democratic left. His widely read pamphlet, The Philosophy of Nonviolence, provides a unique window into the mind of a life-long activist wrestling with the contradictions and pitfalls which plagued the political left in the 20th century. He concludes that "...there is no living, vital philosophy which does not have 'holes' in it." Consequently, he maps out a pluralistic approach which is, on the one hand, socialist, yet is entirely engaged with thought systems as seemingly contradictory as Hindu philosophy

Hindu philosophy

Hindu philosophy is divided into six Sanskrit nastika schools of thought, or darshanas :#Sankhya, a strongly dualist theoretical exposition of mind and matter....
. McReynolds concludes that a brand of pacifist-socialism is best suited for future socialist experiments since it offers the greatest opportunity to pre-figure the kinds of democratic relations necessary to create a functional and free society.

In his political career, McReynolds ran for Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the Bicameralism legislature of the Federal government of the United States of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives....
from Lower Manhattan

Lower Manhattan

Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the New York City....
twice and for President

President of the United States

The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition....
twice. In 1958 he ran as a write-in SPA candidate and then in 1968 as a Peace and Freedom Party candidate for Congress in the 19th district pulling in 4.7% of the vote (3,969 votes). In 1980, he ran for President of the United States

President of the United States

Diane Drufenbrock

Sister Diane Joyce Drufenbrock , also known as Sister Madeleine Sophie, is a Franciscan nun of the School Sisters of St. Francis and Christian socialism....
as vice presidential candidate, receiving 6,994 votes (0.01%) and also becoming the first openly gay

Gay

The term gay was originally used, until well into the mid-20th century, primarily to refer to feelings of being "carefree," "happy," or "bright and showy"; it had also come to acquire some connotations of "immorality" as early as 1637....
man to run for President in U.S. history. Upon the request of fellow Socialists, McReynolds ran again for President as the SPUSA candidate in 2000, with Mary Cal Hollis

Mary Cal Hollis

Mary Cal Hollis was a third-party candidate for President of the United States in the 1996 U.S. presidential election. She represented the Socialist Party USA with running mate Eric Chester, receiving 4,764 votes....
as his running mate, receiving 5,602 votes. In both 1980 and 2000, McReynolds received the endorsement and ballot line of the Liberty Union Party

Liberty Union Party

The Liberty Union Party of Vermont, founded in June 1970 by former Congressman William H. Meyer, Peter Diamondstone and others, originated in the Opposition to the Vietnam War and People's Party movements of the late 1960s and defines itself as a nonviolent socialism party....
in Vermont.

2004 Senate Campaign

On July 10, 2004, David McReynolds announced his candidacy running on the Green Party

Green Party (United States)

One of the political parties in the United States, and similar in mission to many of the worldwide Green party, the Greens have been active as a third party since 2001....
ticket for one of the New York

New York

The State of New York is a U.S. state in the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeastern United States regions of the United States and is the nation's List of U.S....
seats in the Senate

United States Senate elections, 2004

The United States Senate election, 2004 was an election for one-third of the seats in the United States Senate which coincided with the United States presidential election, 2004 of George W....
, running an anti-war campaign against Democratic incumbent Chuck Schumer, where he pulled in 36,942 votes for 0.5% of total.

Current News

Today, McReynolds lives in New York City

New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
and continues to be active in the Socialist and pacifist movements through the combination of Marxist

Marxism

Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism holds at its core a Marxist analysis of Critique of capitalism and a theory of social change....
politics and nonviolence

Nonviolence

Nonviolence is a philosophy and strategy for social change that rejects the use of physical violence. As such, nonviolence is an alternative to passive acceptance of oppression and armed struggle against it....
.

External links

by David McReynolds
by David McReynolds
by Paul Buhle