At What age did you have your politcal awakening?

[SilasSoule]

I'm currently 45 and I myself was a late bloomer as far as liberal activism went. Throughout my life I always considerd myself a democrat and even liberal, but it was a passive and almost apathetic type of political involvement.

It wasn't until selection 2000 that happened on the heels of a B.S. impeachment where, I had my own political epiphany and awakened to true nefariousness of the right wing. This awakening solidified and strengthend my long held beliefs and motivated me into activism. I found many like minded people on the Internet like here on DU and the zeal for my activism increased exponentially.

I do not beleive that I am the only one tha this has happend to during the regime of this fruadministration. I thank you George W. Bush for busting me out of my shell.

[krkaufman]

1. Ditto. Election 2000, though currently 39, was 36.

Kinda expected the politicians to handle things up until then, assuming all I really needed to do was vote. I had my job to do, and they had theirs; I was doing mine, and they were doing squat.

[Crucible]

2. When State and Fed Taxes started

I awoke when I noticed the State and Fed taxes were taking about 35-40
percent of my gross pay every week!

[newyawker99]

10. Hi Crucible!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Crucible]

23. Hi Newyawker

Sorry, I try to stay away for the sauce these days. Thanks anyway though! :)

[jus_the_facts]

3. I registered as a Dem. and voted against DAVID DUKE for Gov. of La.!!

......I was 22yrs. old. :)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedia/david_duke

[Piperay]

4. Toward the end of Jimmy Carter's term

when I saw that Raygun was taking control of the repug party. I was a registered repug at the time (first registered in 1972) but I was a moderate and couldn't stand the RWingers. I registered Democrat in 1979 and have been one ever since. I spent the 'dirty dozen' Raygun/Poppy bush years involved in just about every kind of liberal cause imaginable.

[jobycom]

13. Me, too, at fifteen

I remember being afraid my brother would be drafted when I was five, and that shaped me, I'm sure. But when Reagan began his campaign, I could see what he was up to. At fifteen, in Mississippi in the 70s, Civil Rights was the central factor of public life. I watched my racist neighbors and friends gushing over Reagan, how he said it was okay to hate, to be a racist. I saw my KKK neighbor praising him. So I started waiting for the rest of the nation to turn on Reagan for pandering to racism.

Before that, I believed that most people wanted to do what was right, and the rest were evil dirtbags who mostly hid in allies in faraway cities. But with Reagan, when I saw the mask, I began to understand that not everyone who pretended to be good was. And when I saw how many people were fooled by him, I began to understand politics a lot better. And I learned to trust my own observations, and not the media's, and not anyone else's.

I still despise Reagan more than Bush. Bush is a spoiled child being told it's okay to be bad. Reagan was a grownup, and one of the most cruel and petty people I'd ever seen. He chose the thugs he hung out with. Bush was chosen by his thugs.

[doni_georgia]

5. My political convictions started when I was just a kid

Who am I was very much shaped by the times I grew up in. Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement had major influences in shaping my political convictions. Interesting thing is, my dad is a diehard Republican. I remember talking to my dad about racism when I was just about 8 years old. He told me that was why he always voted Republican in Georgia elections, because back then our Democrats were mostly segregationists. When I was a teenager, though, I started really paying attention to what individuals in the two party's stood for. When Reagan was elected was when my dad and I had our big political break. At that point I realized that for whatever reason my dad had become a Republican he was now Republican no matter what they did. In college, I travelled throughout Europe and saw how America and Americans were hated by many Europeans. For a moment, I had a reactionary response "How dare you hate us, you creeps, we saved your asses in WWII." But then I began to listen to some of these people's concerns, and began to see how our policing of the world could be viewed as imperialism. This was all during Reagan's administration. I was in the Soviet Union when we bombed Libya -- that was pretty scary - Radio Free Moscow reported that Libya had bombed the US. Our passports were held by the hotel, and we were not allowed to leave (although many of us snuck out our windows, went down the fire escape, and hoofed it to the embassy, where we learned the truth). Anyway, on that trip, I saw all the Soviet propaganda (including a supposed news broadcast of racial tensions in Georgia - which included video footage of the KKK from the silent movie "Birth of a Nation." I saw that the Russian people were not our enemies any more than the American people were Russia's enemies. We all were victims of our country's propaganda and rhetoric. There was no turning back at that point.

Edited for early morning typos

[Hubert Flottz]

6. I was nineteen and too young to vote when I got drafted!

The Army will wake you up quickly! I voted against Nixon the first time I was old enough to vote! I protested the WAR when I was still in the Army! I've never figured out how the student killings at Kent State were any different from the student killings in Red China! Bush is every bit as dangerous as Nixon was IMO! The US Constitution does not call for secret Armies or secret government like we see now! I have NEVER been more afraid of losing forever America's freedom and liberty than I am now! A vote for Bush is a vote for more National Insecurity and more economic pain for everyone but the millionaires!

[Kremer]

7. When I was about 10 or 11yrs old. I started out, please don't kill me, as

a repug. I started watching Reagun run for pres in '80 and was hooked! Stayed a repug until early Bush Sr. I was pointed to the light by a family of dems and a strong dem Mother and Grandmother.

[maxpower]

8. At 19 or 1988

I was in college when Poppy was running. I couldn't stand him then, and still can't. His demon spawn is worse shit and more of it. Then came the Big Dog in 92 and I had hope again. I became even more aware after they impeached him, and then 2000. Now I am mad as hell.

[jus_the_facts]

9. kick

:kick:

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. It's come in phases

Was always a Green from the moment I was old enough to vote, but the older I get the more I learn about how broken our system really is.

2000 was a real shocker to me and made me switch my concern about issues like the environment and non-violent foreign policy to election reform first and foremost.

Until we get that, we won't get decent elected officials, and without them policy is going to suck.

[gpandas]

12. lifetime demo but vietnam awakened me to abuse of power n/t

[Carolina]

14. Age 7 at JFK's inauguration

That man was an inspiration. NOTHING, absolutely nothing, anyone can say today about his health or his womanizing will ever negatively impact how I felt at age 7 hearing and watching him.

That first stirring was followed by actual campaigning for Bobby Kennedy at age 15, and by campaigning and first vote for McGovern in 1972. Since I lived in DC at the time, presidential politics was all we had and all that mattered. Local politics, then as now, was virtually nonexistent; the "taxation without representation" status still holds.

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. I felt that way about Carter.. I was 8 when he left office

Maybe that is a very impressionable age? Seems to me that was when I became aware of the world at large. The Iran hostages are my first political memory.

[bobthedrummer]

15. When I was 15 I became an anti-fascist for life! That was my political

awakening as an American citizen, I'm 54 now.
:hi:

[Catfight]

17. 12-when I started to read the newspaper.

I loved debating my Republican father because I loved to get his blood pressure up. I still tell him I was born solely to cancel out his votes to restore balance in the world!

[gypsy11]

18. Same here

I was like you, and then 2000 came along... I felt like it would be a very, very bad thing for the US and the world if bush & co. got into power here. It was actually a very strong feeling. I've since become pretty active politically.

[supernova]

19. 10-12 The Watergate Mess

I had always been very aware, being the baby in the family. I read the newspapers every day almost as soon as I could read.

But it was Watergate that riveted me. I understood that:

Grownups didn't always know what the hell they were talking about
Grownups didn't always do the right thing.

My mother and I watched the Watergate hearings in 1973. We sewed our clothes and watched Sam Ervin Rip John Erlichman a new one.

I've been hooked on politics and the way things get done in this country ever since. :-)

[cclark401]

20. at 10 or 11

I remember reading the headlines about Nixon and his pending removal from office. It was then that I developed my dislike of Republicans.

The 1st election I paid any attention to was the Regan/Carter election held the fall of my senior year (still not 18 at the time). I despised Regan and still do.

Clinton will be forever the mark I'll hold all other presidents to (minus the sex nor non sex stuff). In my mind he really did what was best for America.

Bush* will go down in history as our worst I think. We really need to take back the senate, house and WH soon to prevent the utter destruction of everything our nation holds dear!

[Beacho]

21. Age eight

campaigning with mom for McGovern

[dumpster_baby]

22. last year at age 46, I finally understood our immigration policy

I spent years of trying to figure out what was happening with respect to immigration in America. When I finally got a handle on what was going on, I started reading more leftist writings. I had been a rather right wing conservative/libertarian PatBuchanan/Ross Perot supporter type for over a decade. But reading the leftist writings really clarified things for me. I had come across Chomsky's ideas decades ago, but had dismissed them as paranoia. But now they really put the world in a much more easy to understand light. THe writings of chomsky and other well known, less well known, and completely anonymous lefties then made complete sense after what I had determined in my study of the immigration situation.

I began supporting Kucinich's campaign.

I am now a confirmed leftist of the chomskyite persuasion.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

24. Fourteen. Margaret Thatcher and the Poll Tax.

Enough said, I reckon.