An Introduction

I've been trying to figure out how to start writing since Kyle asked me to part of this project. I think Welcoming Massachusetts! is one of the best and most important ideas I've heard about in a long time. The focus on positivity and community are vital and expect me to try to focus on those in the weeks and months ahead. I think people have a lot of ideas about what they want this place to be and what they want it not to be, so I think I'll be talking about that, but first I'd like to introduce myself:

I came to this country from England with my family as a child, first to California and then to Massachusetts, where I have now spent over half my life. I'm located in the Central Mass and Metro West areas, and look forward to delving into the communities I call home: since I'm just about to move, over the next month and half I'll be living in Waltham, Mendon, and Framingham, and beginning work in the wind energy industry in Lowell. I really believe a sense of place is important to building a sense of community, and I think all these "homes" can contribute as launching pads to the conversation.

I'm a scientist and computer guy by practice and training, but I'm also an activist and civicly engaged (I was going to use the word citizen, but didn't for clarity, as even though I am legally a citizen, a much more important quality is the meaning of being actively and civicly engaged in the community). I was first active in anti-war activities in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, and since then became active in electoral politics, both through Green-Rainbow and Democratic candidates, most actively with the campaigns of Deval Patrick and Barack Obama, and also to a degree with Jill Stein, John Bonifaz, Jamie Eldridge, Andrea Silbert, and others. I've also been tangently involved with organizations like Clean Power Now and the MIRA Coalition, and it's great to be becoming more involved.

I have a few vague rules I want to write by, and I present them now because in my next post (floating in my head), I plan on breaking them all:

• I want to be positive: the last thing I want to dwell on is being anti-anti-immigrant. Being pro-migrant in a natural and constructive way has to be a positive mindset, so I will try to practice that.
• I want to be locally-focused: building a Welcoming Massachusetts community means working and acting and thinking locally. Though immigration by its nature tends to be a federal and international issue, building a positive community can only happen locally.
• I want to be focused on social justice not political strategy. As a scientist, this rule is the hardest for me as quantitative factors are often mostly about who's winning and how, and that's where my skills lead me to gravitate. I am frustrated by many occasions when people, especially within the Democrats, are focused only getting more people with D's after their name in offices: as the governor has said "Democrats need to talk less about how to win elections, and more about why we should". There are plenty of people with great intentions and progressive values at all levels in Massachusetts, but plenty of people who don't, and party ID factors into it very little. But my primary focus in writing on politics will be on who is doing good work in government, and how can we be helping then help all of us.

So I hope that gives you a good idea of who I am, where I'm writing from, and what I hope to do as part of this community. I look forward to us growing, to hearing feedback from anyone who reads this. Thanks!