« Taking Down America, One Step at a Time | Main | Your Guess is as Good as Mine »

August 06, 2007

New Kid on the Block

There’s a new kid on the block at Preemptive Karma.
Except that I’ve been posting comments here for a while so I’m not really ‘new’.
And at 61, I’m not really a ‘kid’ either.
So just who the Hell am I?

I post under Mac McFadden because that’s my name in the real world and it’s easy to remember. Besides, I’m a licensed aircraft mechanic and it’s a requirement of the profession that you sign your name to all your work. Sometimes I wish all professions had that requirement.

I’m a bona fide, dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrat, political activist, homeless advocate, community activist, and sarcastic sumbitch. And those are my ‘good’qualities.
I’m sure a few of you will gleefully point out some of my ‘bad’ ones soon enough.

I first got involved in “polytics” (poly = ‘many’; tics = ‘blood sucking parasites’) in 1960 with John Kennedy’s campaign working with the College Dems in Philadelphia. At 14 I was already 6’ tall and 190 lbs and they all assumed I was a student at U of Pennsylvania.
In ’65, I joined the USAF and they sent me to Oregon (which was good) and then to Vietnam (which wasn’t so good). That got me shot and frequently doused with Agent Orange and I returned with some medals and convinced that the Vietnamese were the colonists and we were the British. I joined the VVAW (Vietnam Vets Against the War).

I actually campaigned for a Republican in ’72 when now Senator Arlen Spector ran (unsuccessfully) for Mayor of Philadelphia against the most corrupt politician I ever met; Democrat Frank Rizzo. Rizzo won, probably on the strength of the ‘dead people’ vote.
I came back to the west coast and settled in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

In ’76, Jerry Brown ran for the Democratic nomination and I got active again. Went to my second national convention in 16 years as an Alternate for Jerry. Jimmy Carter got the nomination and won the White House, so it wasn’t a complete loss. The local party hierarchy (in Klamath County) didn’t appreciate ‘upstarts’ who asked embarrassing questions about the lack of democratic process so after a few years, I dropped out again.

By ’92, I’d moved to Eugene and Jerry Brown was running again. Campaign finance was a big issue in Jerry’s platform (he ran under the “$100 Limit”) and it had been 16 years, so I jumped in again and went to the national convention as a Delegate this time. Jerry had 612 delegates at the convention and I referred to us as “The Light Brigade” after the Tennyson poem about an earlier group who charged headlong into what they knew would be a losing battle. Once again, Jerry was NOT the nominee, but the Dems won the White House.

This time I didn’t let the naysayers drive me away and wound up as Chair of the 4th District Dems, a member of the State Executive Committee, and an Electoral College Voter in ’96 (that, plus $1.50, will get me a cup of coffee several places I know).
As pissed off as I get at the high-handed and unscrupulous tactics that some Republicans engage in, I get even more pissed off when members of my own party do the same.
And I stand up and say so publicly.
(Which doesn’t always endear me to some of my fellow Dems.)

My hot button issues tend to be:
Fair application of the democratic process as embodied in the Constitution.
Torture (I’m agin it)
The treatment of our own poor and homeless (we should be ashamed).
Equal opportunity (not to be confused with equal results)
Equality before the law (should Paris Hilton serve more days in jail than Scooter Libby?)

In other words, I’m one of those people Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and others of their ilk, absolutely HATE.
A liberal.
(Oh, and by the way, I was invited.)

Mac McFadden

Posted by Mac at August 6, 2007 01:29 PM