Now, with that in mind, along with the fact that we moved to New Hampshire because my father's factory in New York closed, only to find the continued economic recession brought nothing but further factory closings and unemployment in New England, you can understand why upon seeing Bowling for Columbine, I knew precisely what Michael Moore was talking about when he began to talk about his hometown of Flint, Michigan. Right now, my father drives airport limo, and my mother works at Wal-Mart. The majority of their news comes from the six o'clock news on the television when they have time to watch it, and when I went home at Christmas, I bit my tongue several times regarding their views supporting George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.

It's a very odd thing when you start to realize that your parents and their views are not infallible. For you see, the more I learned about the world, the more I found that I disagreed with the Bush administrations (yes, both of them) and their policies. By the time I graduated college, I'd worked at two different factories that were "streamlined" - which is just a nice way of saying that a bunch of people lost their jobs, including me. Growing up and watching your parents pay with food stamps gives you a different viewpoint on things when you hear the words "trickle down economics". It's no small stretch to say that by the time I was 21 and attending the graduation ceremony for my BFA, I could be classified as a Democrat in philosophy, even if I wasn't in official affiliation.

However, I was by no means an active Democrat. Like many Americans, both my age and of many ages, I had bills to pay. In this day and age, that doesn't leave time for much else. In the midst of George W. Bush's "booming economy" and "plummeting unemployment rates", I was driving 140 miles round trip a day to go to a job doing tech support because no one in the Boston area was hiring graphic designers that had less than 3 years experience - for those of you wondering, when you have to cross the state of Massachusetts to get to and from work, that's a 12 hour day on average. On the weekends. I worked at a gym, which meant I had barely enough energy to snort derisively at the message of "getting about America's business" that was being purported to me, the average working American.

I was never one of the "political" people amongst my friends. I didn't attend meetups, I rarely post articles in my LiveJournal about the stupidity of our present administration, and even then, I'm not someone to be found picking apart the intricacies of constitutional law. (Hello Closet Buffyholic!) I watched the debacle of the 2000 presidential election and asked, "So, why should I bother to vote if they're going to ignore it?" then promptly went back to trying to carve out a living for myself while saying a fervent prayer that the next four years would pass quickly and painlessly.

Not. So. Much.

next....