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    • AMMDI is an open-notebook hypertext writing experiment, authored by Mike Travers aka mtraven. It's a work in progress and some parts are more polished than others. Comments welcome! More.
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My personal political journey

15 Aug 2026 - 17 Aug 2026
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    • Not very interesting but I feel compelled to write it down. Always been a leftist temperamentally, but also too antisocial to be much of a joiner.
    • Pretty thin resume compared to actual activists, but in my defense I was always more interested in computation, not politics.

    • Young peacenik (1971)

      • In Evanston I volunteered at a storefront Peace Center that was involved in the antiwar movement. I remember stuffing envelopes for a group of religious pacifists who had poured blood on draft records
      • I also got in trouble in middle school because I walked out to go to an antiwar protest.

    • Socialist-Zionist (1976)

      • See Hashomer Hatzair. The group was pretty seriously Stalinist although that never filtered down to my level, I would have rejected it.
      • In this group I was by far the most techie hacker, I built a lot of black box phone hacking devices to help the far-flung local groups stay in touch.

    • Having a life

    • Online antilibertarian crusader

      • See libertarianism and Yarvin. Man I put a lot of energy into fighting the right-wing tendency in tech, a complete waste of time although it helped clarify my thinking I guess.

    • Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

      • See CPSR. Unfortunately I got involved with this org just at about the time it was on its last legs. I keep thinking it should be revived but the times are different.

    • Or Shalom Social Justice Committee (2012?)

      • Didn't do a whole lot but notable in that it actually involved working with other people.

    • MSNBC liberal / Antifascist / actual conservative (today)

      • We (wife and myself) go regularly to TeslaProtest in Colma, which feels like doing something. At least when fascism takes over, we can point to that as evidence of our resisting.
      • I call myself an "actual conservative" because I'd really like it if we'd just keep the system we have and tweak it here and there to make it better. That would be great, compared to the efforts of the right (and possibly the left if they ever gain power) to tear it down. This is boring but an entirely appropriate viewpoint for someone of my advanced age, I just want to live out my remaining years in peace.k