Anyone have a moment when you became politically active?

[banjosareunderrated]

I was going through some photos today and I found a picture of one of my high school teachers and I at my graduation. I guess I'm lucky because I had several teachers that were really inspiring but this guy was the tops, y'know? He truly cared, really smart, the whole thing. Anyway, it was a conversation I had with him that steered me into political activism. I was 16 at the time and I said something like "it doesn't matter what anyone does, that Clinton guy is going to lose" (this was the fall of '92). He smiled at me and said, and I remember this like it was yesterday, "of course he will because you're not doing a damn thing." Then he got up and walked away.

That was it. Sometime shortly thereafter, I volunteered at Sander Levin's office (Carl's brother, MI state-rep.) and they had me make phone calls, go door-to-door---on election day, I even got to take off school because they made me a precinct captain, which, being 16, meant delivering coffee and donuts to the people at the polls doing the real work. That night, the celebration at the office was incredible.

12 years later, I'm still trying to do something for the cause. I know there are a lot of educators on this board and you probably hear this all the time, but thank you, thank you, thank you for the work you do and the inspiration you provide. It really does make a difference.

[Patsy Stone]

1. I registered to vote

the moment I could specifically to vote against Reagan. :)

[MuseRider]

2. I was always a Dem

but the moment I became really active was the moment during the month of December when I quit laughing at stupid Bush** and realized he was going to be appointed our president. That shook me off the couch.

[pstans]

3. Reading Michael Moore's "Dude Where's my Country"

I was on break at work and a co-worker brought the book in and I started to read it. The first chapter with the 8 questions to my president was great and made me question everything my government was doing.

[demgurl]

4. There was a benefit I went to when i was a teen.

It was a group that was basically an offshoot of the ANC. I met a lot of people I liked there. One of the officials actually told me about a weekend rally in another province and said he could get the ANC to pay my way to go. I was very excited as I truly believed in the ANC. I was also very naive considering I was only 15 and the guy was in his 40's!

He did fly me to Montreal and we met at the airport. We went to the hotel where he ordered a room with one bed! I repeated what he said rather shocked! He changed it to two beds and basically said that was a mistake what he has said. He tried sitting on my bed with me before the rally that night. I inched away over and over.

We went to the rally and it was made up of several groups including The Young Socialists. I confided, about my situation, to one girl and she said I could stay at her parent's house for the weekend. I told the guy and said I would just meet up with him at each event. I met up with a lot of nice people from The Young Socialist Party and even ending up staying with them on a later trip.

What could have been a very poor trip turned out very well. I had a lot of fun and that was the real start of my interest in politics.

[DanCa]

5. I always voted

But I never paid much attention to what was going on in the world until I was Dx'd with young onset parkinson's disease. It's amazing what political activisim can do for your soul. I was ready to check out until I hooked up with the parkinson action network
Now its so grattifying being a disability advocate, it's given back to me a sense of power and self worth. Of course that is tested when idiots like Bill Frist have Justice Sunday, but that's too be expected.
And of course I found out that it is such a joy to help others without a voice obtain cures for thier ailments as well. Stem Cell research can help so many people, ranging from children with bleeding disorders to adults and kidney dialysis. Sure the fight gets real personal and nasty at times but am a big boy and I can take it. Heck I got pd so the religious right's name calling is nothing compared to that.
Have a gentle and healthy evening everyone
. Danny.

[gumby]

23. Good Health to you.

Fight On!

[Aunt Anti-bush]

6. I'm a lifelong democrat.

I was always concerned with the issues but never got involved until a couple of years ago when I became unemployed when my job got shipped out probably to India. I got depressed and at the time the only thing that interested me was Fox & CNN (I know, I know) because I was so terrified of being blown up at the mall or having a terrorist living next door. Well, I kept feeling I wasn't getting the whole story and I wound up here only to find that I wasn't getting the story at all from tv. I got involved after that. I started campaigning for John Kerry and the greatest part is, my 12 year old son accompanied me to a rally and got so wound up about politics that he can now debate adults about the issues. I think the best part about it is that it gave him such a powerful entry into the democratic party that it will shape his ideas and mold his future. He actually ended up meeting our governor, John and Elizabeth Edwards and a lot of other celebrities and local politicians. One day he told me that he's made up his mind he will go to law school to study and go on to be a senator and one day run for president. :)

[gumby]

7. Your story is exactly why the right hates "government schools."

I also thank my 'civics' team teachers. Thanks to them, when I first heard Rush Limbaugh on the air an alarm bell went off. It took a while, but I realized that those teachers had instilled an internal warning system against fascism.

When I heard Rush Limbaugh, I knew this country was in serious trouble.

[banjosareunderrated]

17. to be fair, i went to a jesuit school.

but I know what you mean. The Jesuits I knew weren't the fundies you might think. They were actually really progressive and open minded about most things. This was 10+ years ago though, so I don't know if they've changed.

[in_cog_ni_to]

8. YES. The day I finished reading David Brock's book,

"Blinded by the Right." That was it! I had NO IDEA the repukes were as EVIL as they are. I was ashamed of how little I knew and how naive I had been. I knew they were bad from watching the 8 year witch hunt on Clinton, but I had NO IDEA it was as bad as it was/is. Thank you, David Brock!

[Eloriel]

9. Yep -- Bush 1 administration, watching TV during

the Clarence Thomas / Anita Hill "hearings." I pretty much watched gavel-to-gavel anyway, since I was a confirmed feminist (and had in the past been active for that, just not politically active since I HATED politics -- and still do).

It was between sessions, on PBS I think, and one of the guests being interviewed was a woman named Randi Silverman, 2nd in command at the EEOC -- the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. I had worked in personnel (human resources it's called now) during the 1970s and the EEOC had teeth. It was a GOOD organization that helped many women and minorities immensely. Brilliant, important agency.

So there sat Herself, 2nd in command at EEOC, saying on public television, ALOUD, that she thought Anita Hill probably was mentally ill -- instead of being either neutral OR better yet, explaining the importance of sexual harrassment, how it happens, why women keep silent, why women don't normally make things up, why Anita Hill could STILL have been a victim EVEN though she "followed" him around a bit career-wise, etc. No. Instead of spreading understanding, SHE did the unthinkable (to me) and maligned Anita Hill's mental and emotional health.

I can't tell you how shocked and appalled I was. "Whoaaaa, these people (in power, in government) can HURT us." I can remember it to this day.

I bounded up from my chair as if I'd been shot out of it by a cannon and looked up the local N.O.W. Got active immediately, including learning about politics, and what to do about "these people" who can hurt us.

(Blech.)

I hate politics every bit as much today as I did then. I got involved PURELY out of a sense of self-defense and self-preservation.

[banjosareunderrated]

24. I remember my mom making me watch that..

matter of fact, she willed me a few VHS tapes that I still have that contain the entire hearings. They're in my basement somewhere. That was the first time I remember hearing her swear. Probably the first time I ever saw her cry too.

I still have those tapes. I should probably put em on DVD for posterity.

[gumby]

25. That was a real mind bender.

It made me despise the Repukes and dislike the Dems.

Just a few memories: Arlen (single bullet) Specter robotically screamed "perjurer," Orrin (God's own Senator) waved "The Exorcist," and that Old Curmudgeon (PLEASE tell me his name) who waved his coat jacket, ala McCarthy, saying that he had all the "evidence" (in his jacket) about Hill that had come "over the transom."

The Dems sat there dumbfounded.

That whole thing was horrible.

Little did we know that it was just the warm-up to the Clinton impeachment.

There has been evil afoot for a long time. The Hill/Thomas debacle was a warning. Things have gotten seriously worse since then.

[Stinky The Clown]

10. December 19, 1998

Google it

[City Lights]

16. That was it for me too.

I always voted Dem, but didn't pay much attention to what was actually going on in Washington until then.

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

18. Clinton's impeachment.

My husband and I had returned to Chicago after living in Ireland for a year in April 1998.

I was absolutely amazed by what I witnessed when I got back here. I could not believe that anyone, even a Republican, as I still referred to them back then, could honestly believe that the Monica Lewinsky scandal even came close to being "a high crime or misdemeanor".

I remember talking to my older sister on 12-19-98 and having quite a heated discussion about this. She never liked Bill and absolutely despised Hillary. It's a jealousy thing with Hillary, big sis still claims to this day that my parents wouldn't let her go to law school. It's not that they wouldn't let her in 1965 after she graduated from Loyola (Chicago), they just told her to pay for it. Big sis is delusional about herself. She thinks she's a genius and believe me, she's not.

I became politically aware during the Watergate years. My late father, a Nixon hater from the time Tricky Dick destroyed Helen Gahagan Douglas, made sure I understood what the Republican Party stood for in the past, present and the future.

They haven't changed in any way from Hoover through the Chimp. They have never cared about ordinary Americans and they never will. I registered to vote in December, 1971 shortly after my 18th birthday. I have never voted for any Repuke and I never will...

[XOKCowboy]

11. 1970.... Watching people I knew coming back from Vietnam

Completely changed. Deep vacant looks in their eyes. Straight, tough, football playing macho men came back as heavy drug users. Guys that proudly enlisted to "serve their country" like their fathers and grandfathers coming back telling stories about horrible things that they'd "seen". Brothers of friends just never came back.

I was a sophomore in high school and had just registered for the draft. My dad was a WW2 vet but was smart enough to know that Vietnam wasn't being fought for the right reason. He also knew that he didn't have the money or the pull to keep me out of Vietnam. It wasn't just one moment. It was spending my whole 3 years of high school knowing that if something didn't happen just right, I'd graduate to rice paddies in a foreign land fighting people that I didn't have anything against.

[renaissanceguy]

12. The 2000 election

and even moreso after shrub declared war.


http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.21272015

[womanofthehills]

13. When I was pesticide poisoned by the city of Albuquerque

I had to deal with their crazy "toxic tort" laws . I went to the newspaper about how the city had sprayed Malathion on my neighborhood 3 nights in a row and the whole neighborhood had asthma. I was successful in getting them to stop spraying my neighborhood & from there I became interested in other environmental issues which of course led me to political issues

[newyawker99]

28. Hi womanofthehills!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[ck4829]

14. Yes, I read a webpage and it went from there

The Secrets of the Free Congress Foundation

[banjosareunderrated]

15. wow. thanks for the link. n/t

[NMMNG]

19. I became politically active

As soon as Dubya entered the race...

[newyawker99]

29. Hi BuffyTheFundieSlayer!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

20. watching the 1992 gop convention

scared the shit out of a 15 year old adenoid hynkel and made me a clinton backer overnight

pat buchanan and kay bailey hutchison's speeches *shudder*

of course, bill ended up pissing me off by being a self-serving yuppie, nafta-loving sell-out and i ended up withdrawing from politics til mr nader rekindled my interest in 2000

[Jersey Ginny]

21. During this election

I've always voted. In the past, I voted Republican (follies of youth). My "activism" was seared when Kerry lost. I had contributed money to Kerry and I've never done that before. I didn't really understand why it felt so important to contribute until Kerry lost. When the "polls" came out stating people voted on "moral values" and that 11 of 11 states voted against recognition of any type of gay relationship, I became viscerally fearful. I have two kids and have legally adopted them (NJ is a great place). I felt my government would not protect me. I felt horrible for other gay folk in these oppressive red states and the palpable hatred they faced. It felt like my American dream was ripped from me. My father was a WWII vet, so I've got a lot of pride and idealism in my country. I understood how I hold onto this idea that America moves forward and becomes more civil and inclusive. That dream met reality when Bush won the election (sort of). I walked around like a zombie for a few weeks, very distracted. I had an inkling of why some minority groups struggle to prosper, because many in that group have no hope that even if they work hard, help old ladies cross the street, be kind to their neighbors, that they won't be allowed to succeed and they will be hated no matter what they do. There is no American dream for them. I decided I had to fight or quit, so here I am trying to fight for my country, and my family, and for all people who feel frightened and oppressed by the current climate in this country.

[crispini]

22. Not a moment, sort of a long slow slide.

I always voted. Always was reasonably well informed, although just at a sort of mainstream level. In the run up to this election I got interested in the Dem primaries to the point of going to a couple of meetups, but then it got locked in pretty early and I lost some interest. Then around June I started thinking that it was time to try to do some stuff. The first thing I went to was a voter registration phonebank event set up by MoveOn. That was pretty good. So I went to a RL voter reg event set up by some local activists. That got kind of confusing because nobody knew what they were doing AT all. But I kept going back and kept going back, and today I'm a precinct chair!

[BuyingThyme]

26. When I started listening to talk radio, and

got it.

Yes, believe it or not, some parts of this country have had progressive talk radio for over thirty five years.

[darkism]

27. November 7, 2000

I'm a youngin, give me a break :p

[lesab]

30. my first

When I was in college and our civics professor offered to drive us down to the capital for a speech by the governor and get involved in a protest to stop the upward spiral of tuition prices in our state.

When we arrived the place was full of electricity....you could feel the emotions in the air. Then we listened to the Governor give a completely incoherent speech with rambling incomplete speeches and were quickly ushered out of the room and barred from the proceedings. Come to find out, our very respectable Governor was so far gone with Alzheimer's and they were all complicit in keeping it a secret.

To my horror (naivete) that night I watched an excerpt from the Governor's speech that was from another place and time that was passed off as reality on the local news. All three stations played the same clip.

I realized that America in general was being duped and I have made it my business to find the truth ever since.