As I seem unable to focus on my homework, I'm going to fill out my quota of diaries per day for the first time EVER by asking you a question. Yes, YOU out there reading this. Why do you care?
What makes politics important enough in your life that you're willing to give up time in your day to hang out on a blog planning action to remove a President or a Congressman or a Governor? Why did you get involved in politics in the first place, and when? What makes this stuff matter to you?
More on the flip.
As for me, I got involved first in 1992 (yes, I was eight) when I got excited about Ross Perot blasting away at the two-party system. But my real involvement came three years later, when I moved to Arizona and discovered that there were people who wanted to cut down trees to make room for subdivisions, and that they controlled the local city government. I grabbed every bit on news I could get my hands on and hoped that those people would be defeated.
There was one City Councilman who opposed the developers, a crazy, guitar-strumming neo-hippie who was one of the most popular politicians in town. My mom contacted him and he ended up visiting my house for my thirteenth birthday. I almost died of shock and happiness, as I did the next year when he put me on his political radio show. Say what you will about him (and I've said a lot) -- he made me feel that my opinions mattered.
In 2000 I built a crystal radio from a kit and, when I was supposed to be doing my homework, stole over and listened to Rush Limbaugh (the only station that the radio picked up) get hammered by his own listeners for attacking John McCain. I felt like real voters, real people, were standing up for what mattered in their lives, in their world.
And then came Dean and the Internet revolution.
Why did I care? Because politics gave me EMPOWERMENT. Teenagers don't have control over much in their scary, confusing lives; for me, politics filled the void. It taught me that I was important, that my voice counted, that I had a say in my own life and in the lives of others. I wouldn't have traded that for the world.
So, what's your story?