Have you ever contacted one of your government representatives?

I do not have a government representative in this country. I do not follow the politics of my home country closely...

I've contacted many reps over the years, over many issues. It's so easy now, with web pages listing current bills, links to each rep which lists their stand on the bills. When I had Ted Kennedy for a rep (yes, it's true) he would only send form letters in response, and half the time it was the wrong form letter! My current reps are great - respond quickly to email, and even send me email when a bill passes or fails, letting me know what happens next. I think the web's "letting the common person see easily what's going on" has made it easier for us to track them, and easier for them to keep in touch with us.

I've written all of my state reps/senators when I was in college. I went to a state school and the then-governor suggested closing the state colleges to save money. Nearly everyone who was in school wrote a letter. Also, I've written letters to Clinton, Dole and Gingrich. I haven't had the time recently to be an active letter writer, but I should start doing so again. ****Reality: MassPIRG is very evil to its paid employees. If anyone here is a paid employee and not just a drone, you know what I mean.

lisashea. *** yup.

Haven't yet had a need to...

There are people in government who represent a majority of voters in my district, but few, if any, represent me and my interests.

I know that my reps don't "tally" anything. They have their own personal agendas (the complete opposite of mine) and couldn't care less what I want. They mail form-letter-responses to me that say "Thank you for your concern on this important issue, blah, blah, blah" and assure me that they're doing the opposite of what I asked them to do.

There's a really neat website where you can mark "Support" or "Oppose" for many different issues, then it will show how your Senators voted (whether or not they agreed with you). Highly sobering. Here's the page.

I sent an email about Lori Berenson, a former housemate of mine who's now serving a life sentence in a Peruvian prison after an ugly joke of a trial. I like Joe Kennedy, my current rep, and I'm sorry he's leaving. I'm dreading the fact that Ray Flynn may become my rep; he was leading in the last poll that I saw. ***Thank you, BadtzMaru, for that URL; I went there and my senators (Ted Kennedy and John Kerry) scored 87 and 88% with me. I love Massachusetts! (Kennedy is in the spell checker's dictionary?!?!?)

When I lived in Massachusetts I actually worked in my rep's office for a while and I've met both him and the person who represented my parents in high school. Now I live in CA and I need to figure out who my rep actually is. Somehow I feel much more isolated from politics here.

I haven't been very involved in politics, since I haven't lived in the country where I can vote since I was 14. I don't think I wrote letters to the king when I was little, or anything like that, either.

mass media is a propaganda machine, american empiricism is destroying humanity, and the corporate charter is the most powerful weapon of the wealthy elite

When there's an issue I care about and I get email with specific directions (call/email so-and-so at this number/address and say this) I'll sometimes do it.

I checked both "knows what he/she is doing" and "completely clueless" because I have multiple reps and they are clueful/less on different issues. My state house rep, fed rep, and both Mass Senatahs know me (or their staffs do) mostly because I have been a big-mouth wrt net/crypto issues and the plight of my friend Lori Berensen who is being held as a political prioner in Peru.

I wrote a letter to Jimmy Carter, about the ozone layer and the concord airplane, I got a polite "thank you for your interest" form letter back, with a machine-made signature.

I wrote President Nixon when I was in the 4th grade and got a postcard back! I wrote President Clinton when he was voting to close the base where I worked and never got an answer on that.

When working for MassPIRG I wrote acouple letters (part of the job.) ** actually MassPIRG isn't evil to the employees much.. they are just evil in general. it was okay working for them, until I figured out that they were providing false information and were doing 'personal' vendettas against various companies (targeting environmentally bad things from specific companies rather than across the board).