WHAT ANDY STANDS FOR:
• Government for the People, Not Just the Powerful Few
• Restoring Integrity to American Democracy
• Opportunity for All to Fulfill their God-given Potential
• “One Person, One Vote,” not “One Dollar, One Vote”
• Passing on to Our Children a Nation and Planet as Healthy as Was Given to Us
• Leadership that Brings Out the Best in the American People
• Seeking and Speaking the Truth
• Individual Liberty Combined with Wise and Constructive Government
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Family Background -
Andy Schmookler was born in the spring of 1946 to parents who had grown up in poverty.
During the depression, Andy’s mother, Pauline, had to drop out of school at the age of 15 to support her ill mother and her two younger sisters. Decades later, though she never graduated from high school, she got her college and two masters degrees and became a high school teacher of literature.
His father, Jacob was able to go to college thanks to his own mother’s working 14-hour days at a sewing machine to make it possible. After World War II, Andy’s father earned his doctorate in economics and began an academic career.
By the time Andy was 10, his family had a secure footing in the American middle class.
His parents raised him and his brother, Ed. They taught their sons to have passion for justice, a deep commitment to honesty and integrity, and they instilled the value of hard work. For Andy’s father, the honest pursuit of the truth was a paramount value. He taught the discipline of reasoned inquiry. And for his mother, a key value was that human worth does not lie in rank or wealth, but in beauty of soul, and that gems can be found in every group and at every stratum.
A Record of Accomplishment -
Equipped with these values, and with a love of learning:
- Andy graduated Valedictorian in his high school class in the Twin Cities in Minnesota.
- He graduated with highest honors in the field of Social Relations from Harvard University.
- For his graduate studies he attended the University of Chicago in Social Thought and at Yale in American Studies.
- Andy earned his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union in a program specially created to accommodate his original theory to explain the way that human civilization has developed.
His doctoral work was published The Parable of the Tribes (University of California Press, 1984; second edition from SUNY Press, 1995), which was awarded the Erik H. Erikson prize by the International Society for Political Psychology.
This book led the way to a successful career as the author of many published books, most of them seeking to understand the forces that must be dealt with by our country, and by humankind generally, in order to create a good future for ourselves and for the generations to come. The books are entitled:
- Out of Weakness: Healing the Wounds that Drive Us to War (Bantam Books, 1988),
- Sowings and Reapings: The Cycling of Good and Evil in the Human System (Knowledge Systems, 1989).
- The Illusion of Choice: How the Market Economy Shapes Our Destiny (SUNY Press, 1993, with translations published subsequently in Japan and Korea)
- Fool’s Gold: The Fate of Values in a World of Goods (Harper Collins, 1993).
- Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America’s Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press, 1999).
Dr. Schmookler is an accomplished author, social thinker, commentator, consultant, speaker and professor. His career accomplishments include:
- Serving as an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. He helped with the analysis of possible future challenges for American policy-makers.
- Spearheading a project with the Public Agenda Foundation, in which he interviewed the best minds in the country, in various related fields, on how the United States might best achieve security in an age of weapons of mass destruction.
- Being hired, in the 1990s, by the United States Army to help with a project on the prevention of biological terrorism.
- Teaching at both the college level (Prescott College, Georgetown University) and at the high school level (Albuquerque Academy).
- Speaking at forums across the country such as the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, the Washington Ethical Society, and as Presidential lecturer at the University of Montana.
- Publishing his commentaries in newspapers across the country for the past thirty-five years, and broadcasting them on radio stations nationwide.
- Serving as a consultant to one of America’s premier corporations.
A Sense of Calling -
But most of all, Andy Schmookler has followed a sense of calling. His first book was inspired by a visionary experience that proved life-changing. It led him to choose a life dedicated to service. For the great majority of the past forty years, Andy has done the work he senses he is supposed to do. Making money and getting ahead have not dictated his life’s course.
For almost twenty years, Andy appeared regularly on WSVA radio out of Harrisonburg, Virginia in an entirely uncompensated role. He spoke with the people of the Shenandoah Valley about the issues of the day. He discussed questions of meaning and value that we all face in our day to day lives. Andy did this because he believes in the importance of meaningful dialogue in the search for truth and mutual understanding.
Beginning in 2004, Andy perceived something troubling about the dynamics operating within American politics.Believing that the nation was being damaged by a failure to confront the truth about the forces at work before our eyes, Andy devoted himself full-time –again without pay—to investigating and discussing the moral crisis emerging in American society.
It is this same sense of calling, this same dedication to service, and this same sense of America being imperiled, that has led to Andy’s running for Congress in Virginia’s 6th District. He wants to rally his fellow citizens to uphold the ideals of our American democracy.
Devotion to Family -
Andy is a devoted husband and father.
He’s married to April Moore, a writer and lover of the earth, and between them they have three children: Nathaniel, who just
graduated from Harvard and wants to be a writer of fiction; Terra who lives in California and is a licensed clinical psychologist happily engaged to be married; and Aaron, married and a teacher and creator of theater.
Andy is proud of his three children, all continuing the family tradition of working hard in service to the values they hold dear.
After twenty-five years of marriage to April, he is more in love with her than ever.
