Free Robby

It was my junior year of high school. I was in the library when the first plane hit, about to run to Ms. Najman’s classroom for Chemistry or Advanced Physics (she taught both; I don’t know which class it was, my gut recalls the former). We spent the next fifty minutes on her computer trying to find out more, but were blocked by the first and only global internet malfunction of my lifetime. I don’t think we got through to a single news site.

Terrorism was only my gut response (remember, until now only one plane had hit). The act was inescapably intentional, I thought, but the idea of domestic terrorism to this extreme was so far removed from my day to day life, that such an event would put me in a surreality. But that’s what 9/11 turned out to be. Things were suddenly different. My perception of the world matured more on that day than it did in all of my sixteen years preceding it.
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If you’re like me, you’ve endured exhausting outrage with the mainstream media for their reporting on the 2008 Presidential election. It feels like McCain’s gaffes go uncovered, Palin gets a free pass and Obama is left having to remind the MSM of their job descriptions. I concede this is a biased take–but that’s not the point–this is how it feels.

It’s good to vent. It feels good to lay my frustrations upon my Obama-supporting parents, or my apathetic-but-left-leaning friends, or on internet messageboards. But venting is for me. It doesn’t do anything for Obama.

If you want to fight back, you have to take action. Instead of talking the talk, start walking the walk, literally. If you live in or near a swing state, sign up to canvass. No, there’s no alternative for the less outgoing. We really need you to canvass. Even if you’re not good at political persuasion, we really need you to canvass. A lot of fieldwork is just a matter of voter identification–asking people who they plan to vote for so that we know which doors to knock on Election Day. If you have two legs and consciousness, you can canvas. Really, you can.

Your journey into political action begins here.

In the words of David Plouffe, “let’s go win this fucking thing.”