Who am I?
You don’t care? I agree. I’m nobody, really. Yet since DKos made the mistake of hiring me; and since I still have a few readers who haven’t figured out I don’t know what I'm doing, I figure I owe you an explanation. I promise to make this quick. Goes like this: Married. Kids. Very proud of all of them. Mortgage. Middle-class—if such a thing still exists. My wife reads my stuff. My kids couldn’t care less.
I served in a combat zone in Saudi Arabia, but did not see any combat. I have a law enforcement background, but spent most of my life in the adult education realm. I am a white, Southern, angry, male veteran. I also work in the defense industry. In other words, I should be a rightwing republican. Everyone who meets me assumes that I am. Most people in my line of work are. My boss, in fact, is a rabid conservative. I let him think I am as well. (I’m not talking about my boss here at DailyKos. She is quite remarkable.)
I have been writing on this blog for almost 10 years. In fact, it was ten years ago that I went to a “blog” workshop to find out what you crazy kids were up to with these internets. Back then, our local Dem party was run by a young go-getter who was determined to raise our majority party’s status somewhere to “Barely Visible”. She created a blog for the local chapter and put me in charge of it. Then, for whatever reason, she left. I left soon after her and took the blog with me. Ran it for many years until I closed it last month.
I got something else out of that workshop. The person giving the presentation told me about this young website called “Daily Kos”. To this day I’m not sure if I'm pronouncing it right.
When I first joined, I was clueless. (Why are you offering me pie?) I didn’t know how diaries worked. I thought I had to respond to all the comments. Seriously. The first time I made the Rec list, I couldn’t figure out where my diary went. It never occurred to me to check the list at the top. (That was for good writers.)
I didn’t really start building a following until Rick Scott came along. He did things. Horrible things. Worse, no one outside of Florida seemed to care. (Hell, few people inside Florida cared at that time.) That’s when I got mad. Thankfully, most of you got mad with me.
I know I made a small difference because I got threatened a lot: online and in person. I was called out by name in a conservative paper. One nut sent a “warning" letter to my house. Even this site was threatened with a lawsuit over something I wrote. (BTW, as long as you are in the right, this site stands by its writers!)
My biggest fight hasn’t been with the GOP, or even my rotten state Dem party. (Now we've let DWS loose on all of you. I’m sorry.) No. My biggest fight has been against apathy. Yes, you can attribute that to GOP voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering. Yet none of that would ever have been allowed if people paid attention in the first place.
Things have gotten so bad under GOP rule that our state is slowly regaining consciousness. Corporations here are starting to realize that maybe turning our state into the OK Corral isn’t that good for business. Hospitals are learning it’s not good press to kill children, no matter how easy the governor makes it.
Many conservatives I have argued with come from states where the GOP is NOT in total control. They have fantasies about how their ideology works. I’ve lived it. I can't imagine how anyone who is watching what is going on in Florida, Wisconsin, or Michigan would want to subject this to the rest of America. And yet they do.
I look forward to the day the GOP will cease to be a functioning party. That day may have already arrived with the inevitable nomination of Donald Trump. I just hope they don’t drag the rest of the nation down with them.
Although I’ve expanded my writing to think more globally, I promise to continue to keep an eye on things here in Florida. After all, it has always been a rich source of crazy. Thank you all for liking me, following me, reading my diaries and supporting me in my endeavors.
Allright, done. Now let’s move on...