Yes, that's me, a middle aged liberal man in a very Red small town in southern Indiana.
Allow me to introduce myself, since this is my first Diary entry. (And please understand, I'm in no way, shape or form a writer. Anything I write is going to be fodder for the grammar police!)
I'm Doug. I was born and raised in a small town in south-eastern Indiana corn country, and I'm surrounded by an almost overwhelming number of conservative Republicans.
I work in IT. I've been lucky enough to find and hold on to a job doing what I love in this economy, even though so many in my town haven't. This was a factory town for years. In truth, at one point it was known as Little Detroit. Now, it's a town seeking a new identity, and struggling with it as so many other small towns are, since the factory jobs are more or less completely gone.
My dad is a Kennedy Democrat who has fallen from the faith, so to speak. His bitterness still sometimes stains my thought process.
My mom has always been more conservative, but almost apolitical. She is issue oriented, not party oriented. I like to think some of that thought process carried over to me, though I leave it to anyone reading my posts to decide.
I spent years in the food service industry. When it comes to economics, you'll most likely see me view the discussion through that filter because I lived it for a dozen years. There's a part of my mind that still believes I'm that same poor guy making 9 bucks an hour, sweating his butt off in a kitchen somewhere.
I am, like many of you, a child of the internet era. (an older one, but still!) I started on dial-in BBS systems in high school, and have watched as it grew from that into a place where I can sit in a home office and do technical support on servers around the world through a coaxial cable. You'll most likely see me writing about the occasional tech issue as well. (I'm looking at you SOPA, you evil thing!)
I could honestly go on like this for ages, but allow me to sum up:
I'm Doug, and I'm a liberal living in the middle of Redstate/FoxNews hell. I'm still, in a lot of ways, looking for my "voice" when it comes to politics.
And, I am thrilled to have found a place where my ideas aren't ridiculed because they disagree with Fox. A place where I can hopefully get into some debates about issues while I find my voice.
Thank you,
Doug