For a Renaissance of the Gray Panthers Network, Part I

Like most commentary, this post was born of a random conversation. Gray Panthers NYC President Michelle Arnot humored me with a few minutes of her time after I wrote to ask about the state of the Gray Panthers today, and she then invited me to share some observations from recent interactions on social media as I cast about for standing, and for ways and reasons to connect, with my primary standing credential of being over 60. This is what I’m seeing:

• Many older people are eager for ways to engage during yet another incredibly challenging era for the country, and are struggling to find meaningful paths to action.

• Many younger people who have never seen times like this before are retreating into defeatism and despair because in the absence of first-hand history and the guiding experience of others who have been through it before, because they don’t know what else to do.

Both of those conditions bring us back to the origin of the Gray Panthers: a mission that starts with uniting seniors and senior voices to take direct action on major issues at large scale, then fortifies the network with coalitions of people of all ages and diverse interests, to form an inclusive mass movement that expands the protections we seek against ageism, to everyone. (Notice how quickly I slid into “we;” yes, I am a Panther now.)

Our recommitment to those roots is especially critical because one of the most important things we can internalize and share is that electoral politics will not get us out of our current state nor drive the change we are seeking. Elected officials, with very rare exceptions, do not lead, because their function is to represent and institutionalize interests, not to spark or define them. If we wait for politicians to fight hard enough, our lives will be over before anything happens. We will be consigning the generations that follow to fight it out for themselves.

The sooner we disabuse ourselves of the notion that anyone will get out in front of this other than us, the stronger we will be and the more quickly we can disintegrate this latest authoritarian regime until democracy is restored in America. On that last note, the two other mistakes we cannot repeat are to let the authoritarian actors and interests slide as we’ve done before, and to not replace them with a clear, crystalized foundation codified in policy and law for our children who follow us.

But how do we not repeat these mistakes? And what role might Gray Panthers NYC play in all of this? That will be the subject of the next post.

Kurt Fliegel is a retired media and technology executive living outside of Chicago.