What was the first political issue you ever started caring about?

For me it was videogame violence and related censorship issues...may seem frivolous compared to other things but it did get me to start paying attention to politics.

when I was younger. I remember in 2000 when I was a 5th and 6th grader following the election, hating Joe Lieberman for that, but still wanting Al Gore over George Bush.

Too young to remember Al & Tipper Gore and the Parent Music Resource Center!

back then, but not too young to learn about Tipper than. I still knew that George W. Bush wasn't smart enough to be President. Also, good thing I had a die hard Dem mother and her entire family too

I was in high school when John Lennon was killed and was part of a student group that organized a gun control rally.

Then came Evolution.

When I got out of high school.

It was going to be a dead heat as to whether the war was stopped, or I was drafted to go fight it. Got a high number, and Nixon imploded.

Though it didn't really dawn on me until "Mission Accomplished" day

I met Bob Weir when I was 16. Some people that I used to babysit for moved to Montana from NY. Billy was a model and they were really environmentally active. They organized a big protest and Bob Weir showed up for it. So that was cool. I went to Yellowstone National Park with Jon Oates (of Hall and Oates) Jon and his then wife were the baby's god-parents.

I met some pretty cool people back then and firmly planted my "Liberal" roots.

My parents still aren't sure where they went wrong.

On Edit: I was I think 14 when we went into Iraq under Bush 41 too, and that right there felt wrong to me. I remember getting into a big argument with some of the kids during a History Class. I fully opposed that war too, and I think it was the first independent political choice that I made.

i got in a fight with my history teacher over iraq I too! as a pacific northwestener myself, clearcutting was a huge deal back in the late 80's/90's. lucky you to meet bob weir!

:hi:

I remember clearcutting, I lived in Marysville, WA in 7th and 8th grade. One of my friend's dads was a logger. He had a sign in their house that said "Save a Logger, Eat An Owl." I always that that was funny. Not a big fan of actually killing the owls, but that sign was hilarious.

i'm from tacoma - graduate in '92. your grandfather was a tribal leader right?

He was Chairman of the Blackfeet Tribe and later President of the National Congress of American Indians. I graduated in '94, in Cut Bank, MT. :)

City passed an ordinance that said people hanging out in public parks had to have a specific minimum amount of cash in their pockets to prove they were no indigent. But they only harassed certain people though many of the elderly seldom had much money to carry around. A bunch of us students took just enough money downtown to catch the bus back to campus and dared the city police to arrest us. They did not and whichever lawyers were trying to fight the cases of the homeless had plenty of ammunition to get the cases thrown out.

After that it was Noxin's abuses of power and election tampering, then Watergate.

I'm sure there were others, but that's the one that really tripped my trigger (at least that I can remember).

I was born into it, my grandfather was a politician. As far back as I can remember I've been interested in politics. It started from listening him talk about doing some work with JFK etc. I was hooked ever since.

As a teacher, I was enraged that the Repubs wanted to take tax payer money and give to families to send their children to private schools (Christian particularly) rather than to help reform the public school system. When I first heard George Bush talking about school vouchers I couldn't believe anybody would buy this. Later, when I heard he wanted to privatize social security and health care, I was a little shocked. Now, after seeing this crowd at work, nothing surprises me. Actually, I did once question what Reagan was all about. A professor told me a satire about marriage I wrote sounded very Reaganesque. Later I knew exactly what that professor meant. At that time I was in a Reaganesque marriage and only after I got out did I realize how destructive these people can be.

listening to Bill Clinton give a speech. I was raised by Republicans in a red state amongst other Republicans. I had never taken a big interest in politics, but I always voted. My parents had drilled it into my head that you were supposed to vote. But I couldn't ever get excited about the politics of my parents. Then one day I was watching TV, probably when I started staying home when my son was born, and heard a speech by Bill Clinton. I remember thinking something along the lines of, "Oh my god...This man is talking to ME. THIS is what I have been missing in politics." And I was hooked from there on.

There were other things before that but that really pissed me off! It was very scary to see that kind of behavior from people in our own country.

That would be my first political issue, I think.

I was only 16 so I couldn't vote and didn't follow things too closely. I knew enough to know Bush was an idiot. I was pretty pissed about the fact that Bush stole the election too. But it was around the time of the Iraq war when I started really caring about politics.

In sixth grade while in my Catholic school my teacher announced a class project to write letters to the president asking them to repeal Roe v. Wade. I disagreed and asked if a I could write a letter asking him to uphold it. My principal, a nun, to her credit allowed me to write my letter. I actually learned this year that she told my parents she was going to pray for me. It was the first time that I started to think about issues like this and the first time I really had to defend my views.

Yet we all came to the Democratic Party. Velly Intelesting indeed.

My dad is an environmental geologist, and always taught me that every living thing on the earth has as much a right to be there as I do. We went camping a lot and spent most of our trips together in nature.

It's strange because now he supports all of the people who seem to care the least about the environment. At least I got the best part of him.

I used to say that I don't get a discount on my groceries, utilities, gas, car payment, rent or anything else equal to the difference in salary.

marched the freeways in college...
absolutely shocked by the Kent State incident

oh, wait - I cared about the Cuban missile crisis - is that a "political issue?"

edit - oh, wait again:
desegregation - they made a big deal of it when "Negroes" were admitted to my high school
but I didn't really care - so I guess it doesn't count

I was a first-time voter in 88, and was still a registered Republican in 92. But Buchanan single-handedly turned me off to the rethuglican platform. I have been a Democrat ever since.

pro choice
pro gun
pro pot
pro gays
etc.
etc.

1957-58. I was in the third grade and went to school with black kids for the first time and saw the raw pain that racism caused.

The event was Eisenhower's intervention with the National Guard on behalf of the Little Rock Nine in 1957. I was to young to be much aware of the '54 SCOTUS ruling on Brown v. that led to the showdown in Arkansas, but by '57 I was very much interested in current political events. I listed to the radio news, and my family was very political and we had many long discussions.

It was later, during high school that I became actively involved in the Civil Rights movement.

I remember studying it in world history class in high school and not being able to understand why we had troops there. I remember expressing how perplexed I was to my teacher and her answer implied that she was helplessly unable to explain it in a way that made any sense.

My friends were being drafted to go and die there, yet they were not old enough to vote.

That got me started paying attention to politics.

main advocacy issue. I was born in 1941 into a very political family who were poor farmers.

as it currently exists.

Before 9-11, I was too busy raising a family to pay attention to politics (a world I felt I had no voice in, other than my vote).

During Bush's run up to our invasion of Iraq, comedian Mo Rocca was a guest on the Phil Donahue Show, he spoke about how much Dick Cheney's Halliburton made during Bush Sr's Gulf War. ...That's when it became an obsession with me to expose war profiteering.

In high school (I graduated in 1991). I do remember my parents supporting Jimmy Carter so I supported Jimmy Carter, and I recall Ronald Reagan was a lying bastard because my dad, head of his steel workers union, called him so when he was on television, and I recall feeling uncomfortable in 6th grade when a classmate got visibly upset about homosexuals saying they were an abomination, but flag burning got very popular as a subject in my small town, and I think I was one of the few people in my class that number one defended the practice and number two said it was a stupid waste of time as a topic since I didn't, "see the skies choked with black smoke from all the burnings of American flags made in China." My republican (but still a good guy) history teacher got a chuckle out of that.

It did earn me a sucker punch to the gut from a classmate who was going into the marines (eventually the army since he couldn't pass the marines fitness test) when I was on the way to the weight room one day. He was a little surprised when I just stood there while his fist was planted in my stomach, and I just smiled at him. Like I said - the marines didn't want him. :)

TlalocW

When I was about 8ish, a kid's science magazine, 3-2-1 Contact ran a cover article about the condors and how there were less than 2 dozen left in the world. It made a deep, deep impact on me that carries on to this day, and I think it shaped a lot of my environmental attitude. For the first time knowing of something sooo close to the brink and see that if we all tried we might actually be able to save this magnificient creature, was a real awakening.


There are over 330 California Condors alive today.

I also remember getting in trouble for throwing my sandwich across my parents' bed where we were eating when the networks declared that Jimmy Carter had lost re-election in 1980.

David

dying of cancer and I was able to stay home to take care of her I was very thankful to Bill Clinton. Even though I didn't get paid, I had a job to go back to after my mom passed away.

Watching your friends brothers come home in bags does that.

of Richard Nixon and shutting up of witnesses, killing at Kent State, equal rights, the killings of the Civil Rights workers and the murders of the Black Panthers...

When I was a college student, I became acquainted with a couple of women who were homeless. One was a senior who was living off her SS check. She'd pick it up from the post office every month. She was a devout Roman Catholic...went to mass every day and was convinced that she had visions.

The other woman was the daughter of a neighbor of mine. Her mother would periodically take her in for a day or so, then kick her out again. I'm pretty sure she had substance abuse problems, possibly the result of self-medicating. She made cash by selling sex.

Both were victims of circumstance who should not have been living on the streets of Baltimore.

I was a strange 13 year-old.

The right to choose, abortion rights, whatever you want to call it. To me it is insulting and degrading, as a woman, to know that there are still people who feel that they have ANY right :mad: to decide, or for that matter to have any fucking input on, one of the most personal and private decisions that I could, god forbid, ever have to make.

I have two beautiful children, and I'm getting too old and don't plan to have anymore. Help me jeezus if I do!! But if I do become pregnant, then I would CHOOSE to continue the pregnancy and have the baby. I choose; my choice.

By the way, side note to other pro-choicers ... please don't use the term "pro-abortion" (which I'm sure was added to the dialogue by the anti-choice folks); the term is "pro-choice". It's not about abortion, it's about choice; my choice. My body, my choice.

Pro-abortion is misleading and wrong.

Okay, I'm done... whew.

and the Ray-gun years were just starting.

Well, That and Global monetary policy/trade policy/ environmental issues/ peace/Israel/education/health care. Thats where I started, but I've expanded my horizons since.

after Dr. Martin Luther King marched through my neighborhood, and busing integrated my school, I could not help but notice the strong correlation between "militant racist" and "neighborhood bully". I hated bullies, ergo, I knew which side I stood on with race issues.

when I saw may father come home from a picket line after he'd been beaten up by strikebreakers and he was chased from one newspaper to another by S.I. Newhouse and friends.

Based on that I was already leaning when Vietnam came along.

I was bitterly disappointed when Prop 22 passed in CA.

Some of my earliest remembrances were of JFK giving speeches. We all had to be quiet when he was on TV, and his charisma jumped off the screen at me, even as small child. Later, in the late 60s, we had bitter fights at the dinner table over the war, and whether Oswald was the lone assassin.

That was 40 years ago, and I still go at it with my father. This year, I finally won. He is going to let my 17-year old fill out his absentee ballot...for Barack Obama. Yeah, my old Nixon-Reagan-Bush loving dad can't stand McCain, but also can't bring himself to fill in the D bubble. It is a good thing my son volunteered for the job.

:patriot:

When I was a kid, I heard a lot about the ERA on TV. I couldn't understand why some people didn't want women to have equal rights. I just couldn't wrap my head around it. As a little girl dreaming about my future, I knew I wanted equal rights. I think I was around the age of 9 or 10 when I began to think of myself as a feminist and a Democrat, much to my father's disappointment.

Afghanistan was fine. Al-Qaeda was based there, and they took responsibility for 9/11. I also had no problem if they started moving to Pakistan if Osama Bin Laden was there.

I saw through the BS that was getting into the Iraq War from the get go. I was barely in high school at the time. I thought the evidence that Bush/Cheney/Powell was giving was ludicrous. The happenstance evidence and tenuous links wouldn't have saved me in a debate with my parents, and the US Government is using it to get into a needless war?! That is when I knew our country made an enormous mistake. (I also know that Bush was a moron that should never have been in the White House from his nomination, but this sold that notion.)

when I quite young. My father thought it was right and I just could not understand how he could take that position. I was vocal in my opposition and it pissed him off, but my mother very much appreciated my opinion.

As a public school student in a poor state, I felt the financial crunch that our schools were in while the Reagan Administration spent money in ways that outraged me, such as the Strategic Defense Initiative (Yes, I was a carefree little thing). I couldn't understand why that was so important while the schools were in such a shambles and there were hungry people on the streets.

That is what got me interested in politics in general.

I don't get it. Were you in ROTC?

Sorry to be nosy. I can't tell if I'm confused or not clicking on all cyliders.

(Does that ring a bell for any other UK or ex-UK DUers?)

In the post below, I said 'education and schools' - and that started when I was a schoolchild myself and she was Minister of Education and cutting everything! I think I knew that she was Minister of Education before I knew who any other politician was, including Ted Heath the PM. I have hated her for about as long as I can remember. And when she got to be PM, she swiftly became my negative role model for what I DON'T want in a leader. Unfortunately, she seems to have been seen as a less negative role model by Blair and Brown. I sometimes wonder what the UK would have been like if she'd never come to power.

I was holding consciousness raising seminars for other students in the local library when I was in high school in 1973. I was completely outraged by the inequality and wrote my first LTTE about Title IX and was soooo not an athlete LOL Built bridges between the cliques of girls to show they had more in common than they had differences. I never thought that today there would still be no equal rights amendment for women. I have my ERA bracelet in my jewelry box as a reminder of those dreams that seemed so possible then.

I came around to women's issues a lot in the last several years. I was always somewhat interested and cared about women, just as I do all people, but never fully got into their specific issues much. I took a Race and Gender class for a requirement in the summer of 2002 and that peaked my interest. So after that whenever I had a chance to take any crosslisted courses that fit both my majors (creative writing/Political Science) and Women's Studies I took them. I was often one of only a few males in those classes, sometimes the only straight one too, and it was eye opening. Probably the best thing I have ever done was to specifically focus on learning about women's issues. Feminist literary theories etc, those all truly augmented by other writing skills and political analytic ability. I am so glad to have done it.

I think I was always interest in politics to some degree. I remember crying when Ford lost but ended up being fiercely pro-Carter, and in a much less complex way being against Reagan the whole way for the exact same reasons I'm all out against McShame now.

The first "issues" I was interested in were gun control (as I am now a strong opponent against most measures) and that resulted into a more wide ranging interest in civil liberties and rights overall.

I was a republican at a very young age until I came out gay at 22-years-old. I heard the filth being spouted about gays from Rush Limbaugh and I overnight became a democrat. I still am conservative on some issues (ducks) but I am a democrat through and through. If my Grandmother is a democrat...then I am a democrat

I am a liberal before I am a democrat. Just want to make sure we are all on the same page here. I like nascar, i like the idea of universal health care,i don't support the bail outs, I support the raise in the capital gains tax. I like guns. I like meat. I guess i am some sort of quasi-hybrid liberal. But most of all...i am LIBERAL!!!! and that is because I am gay with aids.

I'd already been raised in a staunchly Democratic family, but the first time it really occurred to me that I should care about a political issue was when I was in junior high and Columbine happened. Thinking about that event, and realizing that, you know, these were kids my age, it really started to come into sharp relief how serious of a problem guns were in our society.

And I've only gotten more liberal with time. :D

I didn't want my brother to get drafted.

cities burning/martial law, Chicago 1968, Nixon no-knock...

It seems like one big blur.

Specifically Union labor issues.

i was about 13.

...the VN War.

Vietnam War.........

Wasn't this a multiple choice test?

Which is a bit interesting.. I began shifting to the left when I was in grade school because of the environment, and then gay rights as my own process of self-realization unfolded, and now - perhaps fittingly - back to the environment.

If we don't address the coming energy/environment crises, we won't recognize our society 10 or 20 years from now and every other hot-button issue will seem petty in comparison.

The biggest thing I remember was staging a walk out at my Jr. High School in rememberance of the Kent State killings.

I was surprised that almost half the school, 7th 8th and 9th graders walked out.

This was in 1971.

I was in first grade and got in a playground fight with the kids across the street. Me Kennedy...them...Nixons duh one.

The buzz on the playground was that Goldwater was going to make us go to school on Saturdays...

It took a lot to get my attention but there it is. I have lots of other issues I care about...but the sheer dangerous ignorance of the 8 years of Bush misrule finally hit me like smelling salts.

...for me - two of my cousins were present, one as a student and one as a member of the Ohio National Guard.

The Cold War.
The Vietnam War.
The war on drugs.
Grenada.
Panama.
The Gulf War.
Kosovo.
Somalia.
The war on terror.
Afghanistan.
Iraq.
Iran.
Korea.
The war on the working class.

I was a teenager in the 80s and wrote a paper on it for school. My research really opened my eyes to injustice and the heartlessness of the Reagen era.

It was the height of the Moral Majority in the mid-80s and around the time of those infamous hearings. I was about 12 years old and into the Dead Kennedys, so you can imagine I was less than thrilled about Tipper Gore & the gang. The PMRC was like my own personal Satan. Also a huge horror movie fan my whole life to that point, people were going after everything I loved, and that undoubtedly set my core beliefs in stone early.

My two bright ideas were (1) that if I got really rich one day, I might be able to bribe all 'the soldiers' not to drop it; and (2) that someone might be able to go around and do something to all the bombs in the world to make them not work!

From a somewhat older, but still pretty young age, education and schools: still one of my key issues today.

and all the concomitant issues....

I could never imagined today.

to appear for a physical. He spent the entire day before the exam eating confectioner's sugar, hoping they might get a high blood sugar and exclude him for diabetes. Dumb, I know, and it didn't work. He later applied and won CO status.

Well I think my parents were raising a democrat no matter what. At least I wasn't a rebel. But when I really got into it was when we drove up to DC a couple of times to protest Clinton's skirmishes. I had a Peace sign hung from my dorm and all..

Now my issue is the environment because I think all the other issues just don't matter if we're not making sure we even have a future.
.. Like Oh Yeah we have to stop everyone from having abortions so we can make sure to give those innocent babies THE NEXT NINETY YEARS!! ??:eyes: People are fricking idiots.

Needless to say I -loved- Gore, despite being too young to vote.

I remember discussing Watergate with my Mom and finding it amazing and repulsive, but I was only 4 or 5.

I remember thinking Ford was a dumbass (and watching Chevy Chase reinforce that).

I remember working on the Carter/Mondale campaign in junior highschool and that was definitely about civil liberties and abortion.

I first hated rethuglican thinking when Reagan took credit for Carter's negotiations for freeing the hostages and my schoolmates refused to believe that Carter had anything to do with it.

I thought Reagan was an asshole for politicizing the Olympics and keeping our athletes at home.

I remember when my parents had to extend the terms of their gigantic loan to send me to college so that it was twice as long in part because Reagan eliminated the tax breaks for education loans.

I remember boycotting (which I do to this day) Domino's Pizza...the first corporation I realized donated millions of dollars to the extremist right-to-lifers.

It is so hard when my DH (an independent) lionizes Reagan. I guess opposites really do attract. At least he likes Obama.

These are the issues that changed me from being a republican to a democrat. I was fortunate enough to serve in the military and that experience really opened my eyes to civil rights issues.

Being a straight, white southern girl, I held the views that my republican parents did until I had to face the fact that they were flat out wrong. Serving alongside blacks and many homosexuals in the military was a life-changing experience. It forced me to see reality and take a good, hard look at myself. Not only did it change my political views, it also changed my religious views and I will be forever grateful.

I was in Economics class, in 9th or 10th grade, and the teacher was a hard-core Reaganite. He was teaching us about how the trickle-down theory was the best economics theory and I started arguing with him in the middle of class that it was the most patently stupid idea I'd ever heard and that anyone with a brain should be able to tell that it wouldn't work. He wasn't a bad teacher - political views aside - and actually encouraged the debate when most of the rest of the class just wanted me to shut up, which was cool of him.

Much better than my World History teacher, who showed us "The Ten Commandments" to illustrate Egyptian life and "Ben Hur" to show what Rome was like...

I wrote a short paper supporting in high school.

My mom was surprised one day to see an envelope NOW addressed to 'Ms. Ronnie Marshall'!! I donated to NOW when I was 17.

And what that means to me regarding the separation of church and state. I do not believe that any religion has the right to force its views on everyone.

For those that are anti-choice, they never need have an abortion. But that is where their rights end on that subject. For the rest of the world, it is a personal decision.

And if we lose this battle, what will they go after next? We are already seeing them start after birth control!!!