| Please understand that I have been at an impasse with this blog for some time primarily because I feel that you, the reader, deserve a better idea of who I am and why I have chosen to write here at Left in The West.
The story is messy, it is complicated, in many cases it is downright uncomfortable. The risk is that a short answer may cause you to focus too much on me and miss the core issues I want to communicate or to just dismiss me out of hand.
The conundrum of this situation is that the endeavor to define the complexity of my experience has always been beyond my grasp, yet I must define myself or forever remain small lest someone else will define and I could be caught in the no win territory of a more powerful storyteller than I and become the story not the teller.
It was during the early years of the first George W Bush that I became alarmed that there was a major disconnect between what I believed were American values and priorities and the actions what it was doing so I set about learning how to help bring my country to a place that places a high value on meeting human needs including those of respecting human dignity as well as living in balance with this place we call Earth.
Left in the West was one of the places I found to learn more about local politics. It was a post by one of the guys here that propelled me into politics despite the fact that public life was far removed from my comfort zone.
The third anniversary of the Iraq war drew a larger than usual crowd of protesters, amongst them was a lady that impressed me at the Democratic meeting I had attended six months earlier.
I expressed my shock that the Democratic party was lacking candidates for all of the races in the fall and cracked that I would be willing to step in if there one of the slots was in my district. Joan took contact information from my friend Carrie and I before the crowd dispersed.
A couple of days later the executive director of the Montana Democratic Party called at eight thirty in the evening to ask me to run for office.
That, dear reader begins the story of who I am and why I am here. |
