Introduction: Human Energy Consolidation - Prologue

Our energy would simply prevail…

It is still uncertain, the consequences of our political action. The feeling, I can assure you, was real to the bone. What we represented was a physical manifestation of the fed-up mind-state belonging to a generation weary of watching its parents bastardize the principles on which they grew. Long gone are the ideals of living happily, embracing love, and realizing how much more to life there is than money. This country was built, and then demolished on the concept of credit… money that does not exist; except for in payments you will make for the rest-of-your-life. So look out for number 1, pull yourself up by your boot-straps, and the market will regulate itself. That worked out pretty well, didn't it?

Regardless of the intentions of the leaders who moved us, the change we personified was as concrete as the White House itself. We wanted a country of which we could be proud. The nation we loved had turned its back on us before… but never like this. Never had we lived through such blatant lies-to, and exploitations-of our citizenry… not my generation, not while we could do something about it. There are those who would try to tell us that it made no difference… that it was all the same, regardless. But the differences in our eyes were basic. We were standing up against war, against oil-politics, against predatory financial practices, and hatred fueled by religious extremism. We wanted affordable healthcare and cars that wouldn’t burn holes through our environment or our wallets. Our message was simple: Hope. Just words? Not to us. To us it was the idea that we could educate each other on the wrongs we had been done. Together, we could go about the business of righting those wrongs.

I came into the Grassroots Campaign completely lost, in every sense of the word. I was barely out of school… I actually took my last undergraduate class at a community college in the mornings, while I worked the campaign in the afternoons/nights. My first week was a mess. The first night I made twenty dollars in contributions. I figured there was no way they would ask me back. I hadn’t even expected to go out canvassing that day. But, they gave me the rap, let me watch for a few houses, then threw me right in. I’ve always been a quiet kid, so intruding on people’s personal property and intimate family time seemed wrong at first. But what I… what WE… were trying to do was much larger than someone’s dinner, or jerk-off session, or favorite TV show. We truly believed we were making a difference, both for the outward attitude of our country, and for the history books.