Goodbye to all that.

During the buildup to the Iraq War in 2002-2003, I was serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Helena, Montana. One thing most people don't know about AmeriCorps (until they enroll) is that there are some restrictions placed on members' abilities to engage in public political activities. The purpose of these (confusing) restrictions is to preserve AmeriCorps' non-partisan image/status--public service is by no means exclusive to any one political party, so it's crucial that AmeriCorps as a whole not be identified as "belonging" more to one over another.

The sticky thing about these restrictions, though, was that they applied only when a member was "on-duty." But technically, AmeriCorps VISTA members (unlike some other AmeriCorps programs) are on-duty 24/7. Primarily, that "24/7" rule exists to prohibit members from getting second jobs or attending school during their service, but in many respects it was also read to imply that we were representatives of VISTA and our projects in the community, and that we should keep that in mind during our hours out of the office.

In order to take part in some political activities, a member had to be either "off-duty" or on leave, but in many of the communities where VISTAs serve (particularly in Montana, where we had VISTAs stationed in towns with smaller populations than some high schools around here), our members' identities in their communities was "the VISTA." So even after their 9-5 day had ended, they were "the VISTA" when they went grocery shopping, or out for pizza, or at a bar. Their identity in their town was their public service. You couldn't turn it on & off like a switch.

This put many of us in a bit of a pickle. The VISTAs I worked with were of a variety of political stripes--liberals, conservatives, independents--but one thing we had in common was that we were very engaged in politics on the local/state/national level. I think people drawn to public service and volunteerism are, by nature, the same people who are very interested in politics and who get fired up about elections. So here you have a group of people who are incredibly passionate about the issues and knowledgeable about community organizing...who are essentially told no, you have to sit on your hands and ride this one out.

There's a part of me that agrees with why those restrictions are in place, because it's important that no side of the political coin tries to commandeer AmeriCorps for itself and it's a slippery slope. But there was another part that hated having to tell members to "watch their step" if they wanted to write letters to the editor or show up at an anti-war rally. I understood why AmeriCorps needed the rules, but I felt like a tool sometimes for having to enforce them.

Anyway, long story short: I promised myself that after AmeriCorps, I wouldn't sit on my hands again.

This has been a fascinating, frustrating, infuriatingly long Presidential election. It's been building up for, what, almost two years? God, that's absurd, isn't it? And kind of awe-inspiring, too, seeing so many people get so fired up about this choice we're about to make. Granted, I haven't lived through a lot of Presidential elections, but this one, by far, is the most intense I've ever experienced. It seems like everyone except the most jaded and/or oblivious among us is on edge right now--whoever they're rooting for, it feels like we're standing on the brink of something. There's a lot of shit hitting the fan right now in America, and I think we're all a little freaked out about where the next few months (and beyond) are going to carry us. (And I think the rest of the world is pretty nervous, too.)

I don't get into politics too often on here--not nearly as often as I do in my everyday life, anyway--because, well, I get that fix elsewhere. And because I see this blog as an outlet for fun and frivolity, for the most part, and because I'd rather debate politics than just climb up on my soapbox and preach. So I'm summing up why I'm voting for Obama and not for McCain in one sentence:

Out with the old, in with the new.

And however you vote tomorrow: there's a lot of work ahead of us. It won't be time for either side to gloat--it's time to roll up our shirtsleeves and start building out way out of this mess.

Let's get things done.

"One of my favorite quotes is from Theresa of Avila—‘All the way to heaven is heaven.’ If you’re looking for heaven you can find it here, and you can work for heaven on earth. And if you’re looking for hell, it’s easy to get there, too, on earth. And before you’re dead, before anybody can say what’s going to happen to you later, it’s important to work for the stuff you see in the world that you really feel is important. I just don’t see that in a lot of the shouting back and forth across the aisle and self-righteous screaming at each other.
It’s more complicated than that and we deserve more.”
- Josh Ritter