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Edited on Fri Feb-01-08 09:29 PM by claypool4prez
Dear Democratic Underground,
I've mainly been a lurker here for the past couple years, but decided it was time to join in and let my voice be heard.
I've learned so much just by reading all the wonderful post on here, which allowed me to pick the brains of so many wonderful and thoughtful minds, all of which are dedicated to making America a better place.
I'm reaching out to you because this is perhaps the most critical time in modern American history. But more than that, I'm reaching out to you because, for some reason, even though I've never met you, we are engaged in a struggle together, thus joining us in righteous bond.
We have a chance to change things in this country. But that window for change is creaking smaller by the second.
But we must act, and we must act together, for jobs are at stake. Our environment is at stake. Our children deserve affordable healthcare, and their older siblings deserve affordable college.
Since I'm going to posting here more often, and since hopefully you'll be willing to fight along side me for change, there are a few things you ought to know about whom I am and why I'm here.
Only a handful of things in life used to really bother me, but what did always get under my skin as a child, back home in the mountains of North Carolina, was seeing the local Wal-Mart.
Inside “The Wal-Mart” there was a McDonald’s. The problem was, right outside, 100 yards or a smooth pitching wedge from the sliding exit doors was another McDonald’s.
Due to corporate influence we were losing our small town atmosphere.
But even the corporations turned their back on us eventually.
As the birthplace of Lowe’s Hardware, my hometown had enjoyed being the location of its corporate offices, until they outgrew us. Once we declined to build them a luxury airport, Lowe’s bolted off faster than a pop star goes through rehab.
Now abandoned office buildings line the streets, and empty “mini-mansions” formerly occupied by the bigwigs of the hammer and nail industry fill our neighborhoods.
My father, who worked for Lowe’s since the day he left college in the late 70’s, watched helplessly as his own job was relocated. Now he has to wake up at the crack of dawn each morning to drive an hour and half to his job.
The original location of the very first Lowe’s Hardware is only a block away from my mother’s used bookstore in our quiet mountain downtown.
I was raised in that bookstore as an avid reader, one who would grow up to question anything he couldn’t prove with facts.
While a fan of fiction, non-fiction was my cup of tea. The journeys of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, the meddling of Tom Wolfe and the drunken escapades of Norman Mailer were my favorites.
I read anything political I could get my hands on from biographies of past presidents to the notorious ponderings of Bill Maher, Bill Bennett and Ann Coulter.
My father, god bless him, had trained me to be a loyal Republican, one who would follow lockstep inline with the rest of one of the reddest of the reddest districts.
Our county has never voted for a Democrat in the presidential election. They even sided with Lincoln, against the rest of the south, during the election of 1860.
During the presidential election of 1996, I strolled around the neighborhood donning a straw hat with a Pat Buchanan button on it. Forgive me though, because of course I had no idea what he stood for, I was merely enamored with the process and wanted to be part of the excitement.
In the car my father would always have it on Rush, and at home constantly mocked Bill Clinton for being "slick."
By my senior year of high school my political ideology had switched dramatically and rather rapidly.
To be fully honest, I had initially registered as a Republican, in early 2004, because of intense pressuring.
They shouldn’t have allowed you to register to vote in the school cafeteria, next to a table of fresh Marines trying to recruit you to enlist as well, and all this right after the country had just gone to war and it was treasonous to not be patriotic and a Republican.
Like many of my friends I considered it ok, normal even, to be pro-choice, anti-war, for universal healthcare, against the war on drugs, for regulated industry, and even for stricter gun laws and still refer to myself a Republican.
But by the grace of the almighty, something changed during my last semester of high school.
That semester I had a teacher who would shatter everything I had come to believe, from believing the lies Fox News spewed, or just not wanting to break away from the mold.
The class was "Current Issues," and I only signed up for it because it was supposed to be taught by my golf coach, who normally let his students play board games the whole time.
And I was bummed to learn the class was going to be taught by someone else. A woman by the name of Mrs. Watts, who I owe great deal to now for opening my eyes.
She had a son in the military that was getting ready to be sent of to Iraq, and didn’t want us new voters sending him to his death without knowing all the facts.
So in the spring of 2004 we spent our last semester of high school researching the candidates like our own lives depended on it. She handed us a 300 page detailed summary of each candidate’s position, on every single issue you could possibly think of.
Soon I realized my own ideology was much more like that of Dennis Kucinich or Howard Dean than George W. Bush.
Heck, I wasn’t a conservative at all, but hadn’t fully realized until then.
By watching Bill O’Reilly call liberals cowards and terrorists on television I had just assumed, immaturely, that it was wrong to be to the left.
Looking through those packets was sheer enlightenment.
I was opposed to the war on drugs, against tax cuts for the rich, but for civil liberties, and felt that women should have the freedom to choose on abortion,
I had already concluded that the U.S.’s foreign policy in the 1990’s was to blame for 9/11, and was for some gun control measures in the aftermath of my cousin’s head having been blown off with a sawed off shotgun by an ex-boyfriend.
I’d already known what I stood for, but it took an awakening to learn once and for all that no Republican would every stand up for me or my beliefs, all they had were just those catchy slogans.
And now I honestly believe the if every so called “conservative” was forced to sit down at a desk and comb through thousands of pages of candidate platforms, voting records, and the consequences of those votes, they change their perspective, and their party in a heartbeat.
So all it took was one dedicated teacher to turn and already liberal into one who was totally aware of it.
The sad thing was that the class all this was happening in wasn’t Social Studies, or U.S. History or any other required course.
It was a crip elective course that the jocks and potheads usually took to play those board games or debate the deeper meanings of Dale Earnhardt’s win during the previous Sunday.
Our teacher had taken re role seriously, unlike her predecessors. And thanks to her I wasn’t a child left behind.
Unfortunately most newly registered voters, or high school seniors aren’t forced to research, or delve deeply into what each side actually stands for, and thus they ignorantly form their own ideologies and stances based on what was passed down to them by their parents or their church.
During the first couple years of college I focused on my studies in journalism and getting drunk on the weekends.
Political interest was placed on the backburner, though I did vote for Kerry in 2004.
While in school I embarked on my childhood dream of becoming a world renowned sports journalist, and worked my way up the ranks, eventually contributing to several national publications.
And by staying on that path, my professional opportunities would have been endless and quite lucrative.
But I found it boring, watching game after game, recording mind-numbing stats, and covering something that truly didn’t matter.
So risked all I had built and switched to music writing, and began interviewing people like Saul Williams, The New Riders of the Purple Sage, Primus, Mike Patton, Wu-Tang Clan, Perpetual Groove, The North Missippissi All-Stars, The Chairmen of the Board, Public Enemy...
By talking to wise folks like Saul and Chuck D from Public Enemy I started to really become aware of the social injustices going on, not just against minorities or the poor, but against all of us.
So I began focusing more on political journalism.
Doing stories on families that lived in poverty, soldiers dealing with depression. Somehow I was able to score interviews with local political officials, and then even former CIA directors.
What struck me at times was just how cynical and depressed about our future as a high school dropout might be.
At that time, in the fall of 2006, I was working for a small town AM station near the university I was attending.
Using the few connections I had, I began producing a special radio program about 9/11 where I would give an hour of air time to at least to skeptics of the "official story," Dr. Kevin Barrett and Bob Bowman.
The show turned out splendidly, and the editing was beautiful.
However the manager of the station refused to air it because of his own personal politics, and instead a rerun of the Neal Boortz show aired instead.
Naturally I protested, he fired me, and never even mailed me my last paycheck.
It was then when I started to learn that I’d be much happier relying on my principles, rather than sucking up to prejudiced opportunist.
Meanwhile I watched as my best friend couldn't afford to take his bride on a honeymoon because he was living on minimum wage.
I began to feel as though my efforts were focused in the wrong direction, there was only so much truth that my columns or pieces could convey, because of the editors who were bought and paid for by corporate interest both local and national.
So I couldn’t remain neutral on the sidelines any longer, while my childhood buddies were stuck in firefights in Iraq, while our university had become a police state following a string of murders, and with the nation in the midst of a “Cold Civil War” over immigration.
With that I had to get back in the game, so in the October of 2006 I volunteered my evenings to the local Democratic Party.
We went door to door, through apartment building after apartment building, in a desperate effort to right wrongs.
I had doors slammed in my face, argued fiercely with giant athletes over the war, had to convince many a sorority girl into even voting at all, and worst of all was informed rather often by somebody that they couldn’t talk or even hear me out because “House” or “Idol” was on the television.
Even still, the Democrats carried the day in November, winning every seat on the ballot except for U.S. Congress in the town where I was residing.
We knocked off a corrupt sheriff, do-nothing county commissioners, and ignorant state Representatives among others.
It seemed like a valiant effort but one almost in vain. Were we really going to have to come back in two years and do this all over again?
Were we really going to have to knock on the same doors and call the same numbers to convince the same folks, yet again, that voting against Habeas Corpus and their own economic benefit doesn’t make any sense?
Why couldn’t we do it once, turn them all to our side, show them the light, and get it over with? Those people in the “solid south” were no different than those in Vermont or in Massachusetts, they hadn’t missed a step on the path of evolution, they’d only been forgotten. That’s all.
And we the people of that district had forgotten too, about what’s really important. Like our own children or their education. We’re distracted by what was on the television, finding out if Earnhardt won the race, gossiping about who’s sleeping with whom, and distracted even by intentional distracters in the media who focused on missing rich girls.
So votes often would be cast based on the single letter preceding a name on the ballot. It took everything we had to change some of those votes and defeat a corrupt Sheriff and do-nothing state representatives.
But it was just another skirmish, part of a long history of such battles waged when the leaves began to turn. We were ready for the final battle.
One does not go to war for the sake of fighting it, they sacrifice because they want to prevail and their ideals to prevail.
Since then I’ve regained the belief that a single individual can make a difference, and I shed a lot of personal cynicism.
During that fall, amidst our work on the campaigns, I discovered the organization Democracy for America on the internet and soon applied for an internship.
They hired me, and soon it was off to Vermont.
Before I left, I paid a visit to my grandmother. She was so proud that I was making a commitment to something so important, and wished me good luck, but not without asking of me a promise.
A promise that, even though I’d be leaving for the summer, before I left home for good I’d make sure I left the High Country of North Carolina a better place, than it was when I was born there. I gave her that promise, kissed her on cheek, and ventured off.
I struggled with that idea as I geared up for the trip to Vermont. How could I leave home a better place? Certainly I could pick up one piece of garbage off the sidewalk and throw it away. But that’s not what she meant, and I knew that.
So my drive from North Carolina to Vermont was full of ponderings, and a hope that up there I’d obtain the grassroots political skills that could make a difference back home.
To that point I’d hardly ever traveled much away from home, but more worrisome than that was the vacillating plan to switch over to the political arena for good.
My expansive passions incorporated a lot of fields but journalism had seemed like the most intriguing path to pursue, that could at least afford me a livable income.
Politics though was becoming a guilty pleasure of mine. I’d closely follow all the races and campaigns, all the election results and all the bickering.
I learned the game, the players and above all the winners and losers in the sport.
What equivocated my understanding was what went on during the so called off-season, in the breaks between the annual fall fights to the finish, and what was really at stake.
Like an arm-chair quarterback, I now knew every statistic, highlight, blooper, and triumph of the pastime known as politics dating back to the days of the Whigs and Jeffersonians.
However, I lacked knowledge of the methods and tactics of how the game was essentially won. In other words, like Dick Vitale, I could’ve told you anything you wanted to know about what you were seeing, but if handed the chalkboard and pen myself it would have been a disaster.
Also though, it had only been recently when I finally awoke and started paying attention to the “why” of politics and the high stakes of losing.
To that point it had all seemed like part of an annual fall festival celebration with parades picnics, speeches and debate, the town decorated with blue or red banners and a bunch of signs with catchy slogans and portraits of old men on every lawn.
Winner take all.
What was that winner, in our case back home, Virginia Foxx, taking? What was she doing with it?
And what were we getting in return? Not until 2006 did I even pay attention to her votes, the bills going through the House or the overall outcome. The sad thing was, though, I wasn’t in a minority.
Virginia was “pro-life,” and a conservative, so while the district went through an inexcusable economic downturn, the public brushed the negative aside because at least two dudes couldn’t get married, and the community did look prettier constantly decked out in mini- American Flags because we were at war.
Certainly I wondered what I was getting my self myself into coming up to Democracy for America, hoping it was the life-raft I was searching for, that possibly I could learn the cure, the antidote for a lifetimes worth of conservative rule that plagued my home and forced poverty upon it. Howard Dean has inspired many a man, woman and child for various reasons.
But I however knew little about his background or track record.
It was his commitment to a strategy for all the states, every last one that won me over. He wasn’t going to simply hand over Mississippi, or wave the white flag in Utah, throw in the towel in Alabama, call Kentucky a lost cause, or give up on us back in North Carolina since our county had never voted for a democrat for president.
There’s always a first time and Howard saw that when others were blinded by simple ambition or traditionalism, or dare I say - triangulation.
Truth be told, I learned more about how to win the next political fight that’s coming during our first early morning meeting at DFA than I had in three years of study in political science. I was able to learn from true experts with an expertise not harnessed for personal glory, rather something greater.
Some get into politics for fame, glory, to impress the opposite sex, or for land, position, title, money, some other kind of loot, maybe because they were bored working in their own profession, and others joined because it’d looked like it might be fun.
Those at Democracy for America got involved, though, because it was the right thing to do.
They were willing to pack it all up and move to a job where there are often little thanks and occasionally even a measurable result. Theirs is a commitment I only began to understand, and hopefully one day fully will.
Good can conquer evil. The truth can prevail. And NASCAR fans can one day learn to recycle. It will take exertion though, and at times an unnoticeable toil and many long hours.
Doing what’s right is much harder than hopping over to the other side of the fence to fill a personal bank account and please a trophy spouse. Those involved with DFA, not only at the office in Vermont, but across the country, have remarkable intestinal fortitude and it’s their efforts, like Howard’s, that give those of us out here, once forgotten, hope for a better tomorrow.
As I sat at my cubicle, during my last day on the job at DFA, I gazed out the window across the historic blue waters of Lake Champlain.
Sitting there, sad about leaving, and anxious about returning home, I recalled the promise I had made to my grandmother.
We’d done great work up at DFA rebuilding the party, and had laid the groundwork for taking getting Beshear elected in Kentucky.
But I was concerned that day because no one had announced their candidacy to take on Virginia Foxx back in the mountains of my own district.
Then Jim Dean walked up to me, high socks and all.
He asked what was wrong. I explained that I had gained a useful political dexterity during the internship, and had learned the strategies and methods I’d need to liberate my home, and bring forth the change my grandmother wanted, but that my knowledge would be in vain if no worthy candidate came forward to run.
Jim then said, “The burden is on you. All you need is a candidate with whom you can agree with on most issues, and who you can respect. It doesn’t matter if they’re a janitor or a ditch-digger with no name recognition. If you agree and respect the person, then the burden is on you to get them elected. You’re ready, and if you really want to change things it’s up to the average citizen, and it’s up to you to get them elected. Now go down there and get it done.
Soon after I returned home such a candidate did step forward. His name is Roy Carter and he’s lifelong high school teacher.
I called him the day he announced, and offered my services. Now I’m going to class every morning, finishing my degree, and hitting the campaign trail every night to fulfill that promise I made to my grandmother.
And I’m proud to know that I’m not alone in this fight, for there are others like me doing the same. Donating the change out of their pockets, making the calls, doing the canvassing, protesting, rallying, and exerting every possible effort to somehow make their home, their town, their state, and most especially their country, better than when they found it. Better than it used to be.
We are not alone, we’re standing up.
We’re going to reach out and bring others to our cause with a zeal that’s never before been witnessed, with a passion that will make headlines and a commitment that will carry over for years to come.
We will take to every street, travel down every dirt road, climb every mountain, and walk every field spreading the seeds of redemption.
We’re going to engage our friends, and our family with affection, for if we truly to care for them, we wouldn’t dare let this opportunity to free their minds pass them by.
The elections of 2008 shall be historic, and to remain neutral is to willingly no longer matter.
We’re going to win, not only be conveying issues, but by sharing our values and appealing to the heart as well as the mind.
And most importantly by telling the truth, and telling it to all.
For it is the truth that shall set my High Country free, and our America free, free to spread advantageous ideas, free to dream new dreams, and free to rekindle the dreams our ancestors dreamt when they settled in this land to start a new life.
And now we must make America better than when they first found it
Sincerely,
Mike Cooper, Jr.
p.s.
Please if you would; help out a new DUer by visiting:
www.democracyforamerica.com/gras
And selecting Roy Carter as your Grassroots All-Star
I sacrificed my lifelong dream of being a journalist, and have now laid everything on the line, at times driving six straight hours to get across our large district, to get a true progressive in Roy Carter elected.
I would personally be very grateful if you would take 10 seconds and help Roy and me out by voting at www.democracyforamerica.com
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