Democracy in Action

I spent the day at my Democratic county convention, where I served as both a delegate and as a sergeant-at-arms. No rough stuff, it turned out -- amazingly, a well-behaved bunch of Democrats -- so mainly my duties consisted of counting the "ayes" and "nays" in close votes.

It really is democracy at the grassroots level, and we spent a good deal of the time debating the planks on the county platform. I managed to shuck off my sergeant-at-arms duties long enough to impose my will on the body and add three sections to the Veterans plank of the platform.

Sight unseen, I am willing to bet that the corresponding Repugnican platform is completely silent on veterans and veterans' issues. (They are the party that "supports the troops", you know.)

I encourage all of you to get active in politics at the local level, the most basic grassroots level. Most of the progressive ideas on the national scene are happening at the state level, and those ideas are ones that percolate up from "the masses" at events such as this one. But they start at the precinct level, so in 2008 please consider attending your local precinct caucus. You could ultimately end up as a delegate to the national convention and have a strong say not only in who becomes president in 2009 but also what course this country will take for the succeeding four years.