.....so do small efforts create very significant results.
My husband and I are a slightly odd pair. He's a devout Lutheran, I am a contented non-believer. He's a staunch conservative Republican whilst I am an increasingly progressive liberal, with no party affiliation.
And yet we have loved one another for 29 years, love that's like the Rock of Ages, because we are kind to one another and in complete agreement on what's really important; Home and hearth, family and friends.
In the year 2000, I voted for Gore and Kurt voted for Bush. But I was frankly more enthralled in the machinations and the insanities of that fabulously hilarious election than I was of it's eventual outcome.
By 2002, Mr. Bush was making me a little hot under the collar. By 2003, I was hopping MAD! (I still gag a little when I see that picture of him, resplendent in flight suit and codpiece, posing on the deck of a ship where there would hang the sign "Mission Accomplished" to commemorate a victory in a war that is ongoing almost six years later.)
My fingers began to fly! I wrote to every politician, publication and suitable institution to voice my protest. I issued strongly worded rebuttals to all those lunk-headed, hoo-rah, bigoted emailers who had the balls to clog up my inbox. And I made connections (Rich Simon, Sandy Randall...) that I never would have made otherwise. My like-minded sister started this blog, and I sent blog links like a cyber blizzard throughout the ether of the Net.
Kurt noticed my activity but didn't comment on it too much, except to smile wanly when I ran into the bedroom yelling, "Hey, I got a REAL reply from the Congressman", or, "Look! They published my letter in the New York Times!" As it happens, his Lutheran pastor is my political ally, so he was kind of getting it from both sides. But Kurt loves us both and has never been snide.
Now it's February of 2009 and President Obama is pushing a nearly one trillion dollar economic stimulus package to jump-start the economy. (Which is why you should always drive a standard transmission, by the way.) While my husband is not against a bill that would support housing and improved infrastructure, he's convinced that we are rushing in a blind panic, that there is too much 'pork' in the bill and that we should discard it and start anew. He may be right. I haven't studied the bill.
Last night he said to me, "Back when you were so busy on the computer, trying to get Obama elected, who were you writing to?" I realized that he had come to believe that I, and all my subversive family and friends, had actually made a difference! (As I firmly believe we did.)
So, I told him. I said that he should write to our Congressman and Senators, to the NY Times, to the Washington Post and to the White House. He didn't think those were good ideas at first, because he thought it would be a waste of time to write to Democrats. I told him that it would be a real waste of time if he was just going to write to people who already agreed with him. Our Democratic Congressman, John Hall, might ignore a letter written by one dissident Republican, but he can't ignore letters written by 3,000 dissident Republicans! I told him that he has to participate in government every day, to some degree or another, and not just consider his duty done by walking into an election booth every four years. He may not have voted for the present administration, but they are his representatives as surely as they are mine, and he has the right and the responsibility to voice his opinion. Because that's what America is all about.
- Maggie (Finally!)
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