Why pay attention?

When I was in school, history was always my favorite subject.  The farther away I got from school, the less I paid attention to politics.  I felt like, why would it matter if I paid attention, I am no one important.  Not to mention, I just assumed, the people in DC knew what they were doing, and would do the right things for the country.  Then April 15th happened, considered black Friday in the online poker world.  The DOJ decided to act on the UGEIA and enforce it by shutting down the 4 major online poker websites.  With my new found free time, I figured I better start paying attention, and find out the what and why of the shutdown. 

Since then, the mainstream media has basically ignored the poker shutdown, so I was forced, to pay attention to subjects, at the time I knew little about.  Between the debt crisis, the Arab spring, and the general state of politics today, I didn't know much.  But with the help of DVR, wikipedia, and even facebook, it didn't take long to get caught up.  Once I did, I certainly didn't like what I was seeing.  From my viewpoint, there's so many things wrong, I can't even begin to hit them all in one blog post.  After getting over my initial shock and depression of the online poker shutdown, I realized I had been sucked into politics.  Honestly, it's not nearly as boring as I thought for the 10+ years, but it doesn't bring much joy either.   

So why pay attention, to something you probably care about as much as I have for the last 10 years.  Because, no matter what your party, republican, democrat or independent.  I believe the time has to come to start holding our leaders more accountable.  And with the technology we have, it's incredibly easy to pay attention and get involved with out actually having to do much to change your normal routine.  Facebook and twitter are incredible tools at our disposal.  We no longer have to sit down and watch some boring 6:00 pm newscast, that by the end of it your probably on facebook anyways and not listening.  This blog is the beginning of me getting involved, and I challenge anyone who reads this, to get involved in your own way.  Follow your congressmen on facebook, like the page of your favorite news organization, or do whatever your supposed to do on twitter(I don't have it yet) to follow someone other than Anthony Weiner.