So I had to sign some nifty non-disclosure forms that more or less make the stated intention of this blog impossible. I'm still hoping to write, but as far as my adventures go, let me just say: Call, canvass, register voters, and host or attend any events you can, and you'll be keeping the faith nicely.
Thanks for coming on this brief adventure. Keep on working, and know we all are too.
Peace.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
And so this is math class (and what have you done?)
As per the title, I'm sitting in my math class. The teacher is a former Minnesotan who moved out to California after a decade of leading backpacking trips around the country. He says Senator Obama is the first politician he can remember who seems honest, who talks to the country like adults. As such, he agreed to let me use the computer in his classroom to blog during class. Of course, Minnesota voted for Mondale.
I'm seventeen, and I've lived in California all my life. My earliest political memory is of sitting on my parents' bed watching Bill Clinton heroically thrash Bob Dole in '96. As I drifted off to sleep, I felt safe, not realizing that sometimes the good guys lost. 2000 changed that; by 2004 I considered myself an activist. I didn't like the President, and I led my 350 kids from my school in a walkout a year after his re-election. That is to say, I had a lot of grand illusions and not a lot to base them on.
A year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita I went to Mississippi and Lousiana for the summer, to work on relief projects. It was the first time I had been in the South, the first time I met members of the "religious right" so easily dismissed over my family table. I saw what it meant to be poor somewhere other than Los Angeles, I saw the bullet still stuck in Medgar Evers' wall, and I began to get a sense that politics was more than a vague contest of ideas, but an actual force for bettering lives.
I've been learning since then. In 2006, and this year on Super Tuesday, I missed school to work GOTV. I worked as a precinct captain for Obama; and although I don't always make as many phone calls as I ought to, I've learned that 10 calls are worth more than any grand philosohical arguement, unless you're Robert Novak, in which case you're damned regardless.
Last month my friend joined the Marines, and I began to understand what it meant to oppose a war. The reason this war is so unpopular is not because the country has come to a moral consensus that war is wrong, but because enough people have felt the nausea I feel every time I imagine my friend in Baghdad. I disagree with Tip O'Neill; Politics isn't local, its individual .
The point of this all was to introduce myself, to give some context for what I plan to write in the weeks ahead. I plan to keep the philosophical ramblings to a minimum once I have some actual happenings to write about. Until then, thanks for coming by. I've made contact with at least one other Fellow who might be writing here, and am hoping to hear from many more. If that's you, or you think you might want to give this blog a shot for a while, say hi in the comments.
I'm seventeen, and I've lived in California all my life. My earliest political memory is of sitting on my parents' bed watching Bill Clinton heroically thrash Bob Dole in '96. As I drifted off to sleep, I felt safe, not realizing that sometimes the good guys lost. 2000 changed that; by 2004 I considered myself an activist. I didn't like the President, and I led my 350 kids from my school in a walkout a year after his re-election. That is to say, I had a lot of grand illusions and not a lot to base them on.
A year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita I went to Mississippi and Lousiana for the summer, to work on relief projects. It was the first time I had been in the South, the first time I met members of the "religious right" so easily dismissed over my family table. I saw what it meant to be poor somewhere other than Los Angeles, I saw the bullet still stuck in Medgar Evers' wall, and I began to get a sense that politics was more than a vague contest of ideas, but an actual force for bettering lives.
I've been learning since then. In 2006, and this year on Super Tuesday, I missed school to work GOTV. I worked as a precinct captain for Obama; and although I don't always make as many phone calls as I ought to, I've learned that 10 calls are worth more than any grand philosohical arguement, unless you're Robert Novak, in which case you're damned regardless.
Last month my friend joined the Marines, and I began to understand what it meant to oppose a war. The reason this war is so unpopular is not because the country has come to a moral consensus that war is wrong, but because enough people have felt the nausea I feel every time I imagine my friend in Baghdad. I disagree with Tip O'Neill; Politics isn't local, its individual .
The point of this all was to introduce myself, to give some context for what I plan to write in the weeks ahead. I plan to keep the philosophical ramblings to a minimum once I have some actual happenings to write about. Until then, thanks for coming by. I've made contact with at least one other Fellow who might be writing here, and am hoping to hear from many more. If that's you, or you think you might want to give this blog a shot for a while, say hi in the comments.
Hey all
The bell just rang in my first period class, I have to run without finishing my "first post". To anyone who came here from The Field, thanks a bunch. I promise I'll be posting more here soon.
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