I'm a national kind of girl....

I am of course interested in local politics, I read the local papers and I watch the local news and I listen to local talk radio. Or it would be more fair to say I talk back to the local talk radio and call in once in a while.

There are alot of things that happen locally that I think about writing about from time to time but my focus is usually on the national. Not so much because I think that our local happenings aren't important but we here on the net are from all over. It's kind of hard to talk about local issues and have any comments except for the few of us that are from the same area.

I've been visiting around some of the "local" message boards having learned to avoid the ones by the one local paper some time ago. It's kind of refreshing to see some local issues discussed, but as the title states I'm a national kind of girl. I think part of the problem is enough of us don't pay attention to what is happening in Washington, D.C. We get so caught up in our own lives the day to day existance that takes up so much of our time we don't know the majority of times what Congress or the President is up to. At election time wow they are around and willing to respond to your emails but after the election is over? Don't expect to hear much until they need something from you again. Since I'm so much into the whole personal responsibility aspect is that also our fault because we don't demand answers from them most times after the election is over, or take the time to tell them when we like something they did do. Positive feedback, yes such a novel concept but how many of you have ever written your Congressperson or a state or local official to tell them "good job".

I'll be the first one to say I write more please don't do this than thank you's. However I do write thank you's. Even though the chances that my congressperson actually sees what I write, more than likely it's a staffer but I still plod away. I also keep kind of a mental record of who responds back and how. Form letters that basically just acknowledge you sent them a letter or an email are pretty much the standard. Some don't even respond. Hillary Clinton's office so far has the best record of responding. Her staffers have even personally called me in the past when I was trying to help raise funds to get a soldier home after he came back injured from Iraq and didn't have a way to get there. Not only did they call me to tell me what Senator Clinton was doing and what I could do, but when it became clear that he was going home? They called me again to let me know. A rather nice touch especially given I don't live in New YOrk and they knew I was not a constituent. I'm not a Hillary fan, but I believe in giving kudos where they are due.

I started my letter writing back in the Carter days, I still have somewhere in my archive of old papers that get's misplaced during every move that I will someday find, a letter from him. Personally signed not stamped. My grandfather was photographed with FDR when he received an award for Goodwill Industries, I still have that too. I guess I've always been political, though of course during my teenage vietnam war days I was alot more "liberal" than I am now. Some of the same beliefs I had then I still have, some with age, maturity and becoming a parent have changed. I've never posted this here, I have on excite in the past but this to me is still the definition of what being a "liberal" is.

"...liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies.

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label 'Liberal?' If by 'Liberal' they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal."

But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal.'"

President John F. Kennedy

Ironic how many of the things he stated as concerns we are again dealing with...which makes those words from him seem just as true for me today as it was when he said them.