Tag Archives: Boss Tweed

Holidays

Tweed, not Tweet!

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jacket_tweed_3How fitting that today is Tweed Day!  Not because you are stunting in your tweed jacket, but because it’s “Politics Gone Wild” out here.  Rather than calling attention to your sophisticated sense of style, Tweed Day is calling you to pay attention to politics and the possible corruption taking place.

“Boss Tweed” born, William Magear Tweed, is most known for stealing millions of dollars from New York City in the mid-1800, while serving in a political office and as the “Boss” of Tammany Hall.  Get the entire story from Wikipedia or Biography. That’s not what I do here.  But, stealing millions of dollars in the 1800’s is like a billion dollars today, right.   So, the point of today is not to celebrate this crook, but to remind us to get involved in our local, state, and the federal government.  I suggest you:

  1. Find a cause you are passionate about and join a local activists organization of like minded people trying to make a difference.  It’s not enough to complain on Facebook and Twitter.  Who are you, Donald Trump?  You’ll never get anything done that way.
  2.  Know more about U.S. government than the most recent legal immigrants.  Refresh your basic government knowledge.  There are three branches of government and Washington D.C. is not a state, although they would like to be.   I found this video to help you out – Introduction: Crash Course U.S. Government and Politics.  This guy is funny and informed!
  3. Watch the news once a week, so you don’t become the physical manifestation of “duh” in the next political conversation you accidentally wander into trying to get to the food tray at a social function.
  4. Finally, if you are of age, please register to vote.  It does matter and I can’t believe I still find myself having this conversation with adults.

As individual citizens, we can feel very removed from politics, but we don’t have to be. When we come together, our voices matter.   Just read the Consitution and think about how some of those amendments got there.  It wasn’t because people sat around wishing for a change to come.

Let’s do better.  Otherwise, we’ll wind up with an inexperienced celebrity as our next president.

HOLIDAY ON MY FRIENDS!