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Published On: Dec 09, 2003 10:42 AM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Dec 09, 2003 10:42 AM
Attending a Howard Dean Meetup
I went to a "Howard Dean Meetup" last night. I'm one
of those people who has lots of opinions and always intends on becoming
politically active one of these days, meaning tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow.
I went to a "Howard Dean Meetup " last night. I'm one of
those people who has lots of opinions and always
intends on
becoming politically active one of these days, meaning tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow.
Actually, I'm being a little hard on myself. This year I've slammed my congressional reps with letters regarding the Iraq War, the human rights assault by the Patriot Act and similar efforts by the Justice Department, and I was instrumental in bringing the local Colorado legislature to the attention of some serious concerns regarding a bill whose wording could have been abused by ISPs to control how people use the Internet. (The bill was pulled at the eleventh hour, reworded and passed in an acceptable form.)
But for months I've been procrastinating about getting involved in the campaign to elect Howard Dean in 2004 . Back in July I had visited all the websites of the major Democratic contenders to see what their positions were and whether any of them could be a serious contender against our currently appointed President. I was seriously impressed with what I saw in Howard Dean. His website was organized, breaking all the important issues down and responding to each one with concrete plans backed by empirical evidence supporting the ideas, and many references to success stories from his tenure as Governor of Vermont. Every other candidate had vague slogans, little concrete intelligent discussion of the issues, and in many cases I completely disagreed with their (vague) positions.
I became part of the movement that really believed in a presidential candidate. For a while I thought he was too good to be true and wouldn't be electable, but I've turned around over the past month.
Well, back in July I mentioned to my mom how impressed I was with this guy, and after I returned to Los Angeles, Mom kept listening to what he said in interviews and during the debates. When I returned to the homestead this week I discovered that she was volunteering on the local campaign, making donations, and attending fundraisers. (She got to shake his hand during a breakfast in Boulder.) She was going to the monthly "meetup " last night so I figured I would attend.
It was an interesting experience. As I said, I've never been politically active before so this was new to me. The people seemed very organized and motivated. We watched a videotaped speech from Iowa, saw a presentation about the concern of recent electronic voting devices (namely the Diebold system that I keep hearing about on Slashdot ) and then we did some letter writing.
For those of you who aren't aware, "we" are focusing on winning the important New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucus. The most effective tactic has been having Dean supporters hand-write letters to all the registered Democratic voters in the two states. Apparently people really respond to getting a hand-written, personalized letter in the mail. Well, I'm much happier to write letters than to knock on doors so I slammed out two letters last night and took another twelve addresses home. I figured I can write two letters per day for the next week.
This experience has motivated me to go to the next "meetup" in Los Angeles when I return. As I get older, I find it increasingly important to become involved in the world around me. It also fills me with a surprising amount of hope and motivation.
As an unrelated side-note, I believe my masters defense is finally locked down for next Friday, December 12th at 10am. Ironically this is the absolute last day I could have defended the thing, but I swear that wasn't my doing. Regardless, I feel confident now that all will go well, and I will finally get to put all this nonsense behind me.
Actually, I'm being a little hard on myself. This year I've slammed my congressional reps with letters regarding the Iraq War, the human rights assault by the Patriot Act and similar efforts by the Justice Department, and I was instrumental in bringing the local Colorado legislature to the attention of some serious concerns regarding a bill whose wording could have been abused by ISPs to control how people use the Internet. (The bill was pulled at the eleventh hour, reworded and passed in an acceptable form.)
But for months I've been procrastinating about getting involved in the campaign to elect Howard Dean in 2004 . Back in July I had visited all the websites of the major Democratic contenders to see what their positions were and whether any of them could be a serious contender against our currently appointed President. I was seriously impressed with what I saw in Howard Dean. His website was organized, breaking all the important issues down and responding to each one with concrete plans backed by empirical evidence supporting the ideas, and many references to success stories from his tenure as Governor of Vermont. Every other candidate had vague slogans, little concrete intelligent discussion of the issues, and in many cases I completely disagreed with their (vague) positions.
I became part of the movement that really believed in a presidential candidate. For a while I thought he was too good to be true and wouldn't be electable, but I've turned around over the past month.
Well, back in July I mentioned to my mom how impressed I was with this guy, and after I returned to Los Angeles, Mom kept listening to what he said in interviews and during the debates. When I returned to the homestead this week I discovered that she was volunteering on the local campaign, making donations, and attending fundraisers. (She got to shake his hand during a breakfast in Boulder.) She was going to the monthly "meetup " last night so I figured I would attend.
It was an interesting experience. As I said, I've never been politically active before so this was new to me. The people seemed very organized and motivated. We watched a videotaped speech from Iowa, saw a presentation about the concern of recent electronic voting devices (namely the Diebold system that I keep hearing about on Slashdot ) and then we did some letter writing.
For those of you who aren't aware, "we" are focusing on winning the important New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucus. The most effective tactic has been having Dean supporters hand-write letters to all the registered Democratic voters in the two states. Apparently people really respond to getting a hand-written, personalized letter in the mail. Well, I'm much happier to write letters than to knock on doors so I slammed out two letters last night and took another twelve addresses home. I figured I can write two letters per day for the next week.
This experience has motivated me to go to the next "meetup" in Los Angeles when I return. As I get older, I find it increasingly important to become involved in the world around me. It also fills me with a surprising amount of hope and motivation.
As an unrelated side-note, I believe my masters defense is finally locked down for next Friday, December 12th at 10am. Ironically this is the absolute last day I could have defended the thing, but I swear that wasn't my doing. Regardless, I feel confident now that all will go well, and I will finally get to put all this nonsense behind me.
Posted: Thu - December 4, 2003 at 10:18 AM