What's politics?

The other day at work I ran into a former co-worker of mine, a hip vegan kid who is attending college. He was a political science major at the University of Milwaukee so of course we talked quite a bit. He was young so he didn’t know much political history but he was passionate about the issues. So when I saw him recently I had to ask how his major was going. It turned out that he was now going to get a degree in I.T.. I gave him a strange look and he told me that he couldn’t do politics anymore. “Politics is great to discuss over a beer (most people polled said they would prefer to have a beer with Bush vs. Kerry) but to participate (at this moment he gave me one of those “you wouldn’t understand” looks) is not cool at all. It totally turned me off.” This made me realize something. Politics is not what the politicians do. Politics is not about elections or even what those politicians do in Washington. Politics is injustice, politics is economic tyranny, politics is black power, politics is equality, politics is direct action, politics is ACTUP, politics is the World Social Forum it isn’t about the bills on Capitol Hill like the cartoon used to tell us. If people think that what happens in the capitol is politics it is no wonder only half of Americans vote. Maybe, just maybe, if people understand what politics really is, change could actually happen.