Why Am I Active?

Recently I've actually had some time to think about why I became such a raging activist. How did I transform from a typical kid who just believed whatever his parents believed to a passionate progressive who recently convinced his dad to reregister as a Democrat? Well, a few things have happened over the last five years:

- 9/11: The American people were united in sympathy for the victims of the attack... heck, THE WORLD was united for those first few days... then Bush f***ed up. The administration took advantage of the attack to push this "War on Terror" that would give them a "carte blanche" to disregard our Constitution, pulverize our civil liberties, and (attempt to) become an Imperial Power in the Middle East.

- California's Wild Ride with Deregulation: Enron basically caused an "artificial" power shortage in order to profit off of Pete Wilson's misguided attempt to deregulate our electricity market. Of course, Bush also "helped" in this effort... one of his first executive orders issued overturned Clinton's executive order banning speculative trading in our power market. But of course, Bush does what's best for his friends (such as Ken Lay).

- Global Warming: The science proves it. The rest of the world is trying to curb it (with the Kyoto Protocol). Bush & Co. is just giving us bull**it. Instead of taking any kind of initiative on this serious threat to our planet, the administration is still denying that this is a real crisis that is being caused by the emission of greenhouse gases. Again, they're doing what's best for their friends (oil companies, auto companies, etc.).

- Iraq: Al-Qaeda was never there. The weapons of mass destruction were never there. Our "democracy" isn't really working there. So why exactly are we there? Again, Bush's friends (defense contractors in pursuit of profit and neo-cons in pursuit of global domination) wanted our military there. In turn, we've lost over 2,500 brave young men and women... oh yeah, and possibly over 100,000 INNOCENT CIVILIANS have been slaughtered in this tragic misadventure. Oh yeah, we lost that last bit of goodwill from the rest of the world as a result of the push for war.

- Education: Why is it that Bush & Co. wants to continue even more testing for schools, then provide no funds to these public schools to make them better? Why is it that Bush would prefer to indoctrinate our kids with religious dogma than let them be taught real science? Why are funds for college student aid being cut? I guess we're no "friends" of the Bush cabal.

Now these are just a sampling of why I've become so active. There are more things that I can think of... but I'd rather not spend the rest of the month on this posting. I'd rather use my time to be active.