IDEAS FOR THE FUTURE

[Maureen Johnson]

To celebrate this historic day, I have ten copies of The American Journey of Barack Obama by the Editors of LIFE to give away, courtesy of the publisher.

To enter to get one, post a blog with your ideas about what you would do if YOU ran this site from now on. How can we transform it?

[Hannah]

I second YA for Change!

[Good Old Tom Stohlman Jr.]

I just visited the President-Elect's website: Change.gov

How about becoming "YA for Change"?

[Tamora Pierce]

I will study on this and blog, but I think Abby Drumm's idea of following the important bills that come up before Congress is a really good place to start.

[Kelly Smith]

I think that young adults have a lot more power in influencing politics than older people really understand. I think that this place should be a sounding board for other young adults to discuss politics, and also to be a sound board to talk about President Obama.

[Eileen]

I actually have been thinking about this a lot and I wrote a blog post on it yesterday :)

http://yaforobama.ning.com/profiles/blogs/what-we-can-do-now

[Mary Mo]

I really feel like this could be a way to get people organized for their issues. Now, unlike the presidential election, we're not going to agree on all of those issues. This could become a place where people can pimp their cause and get people to volunteer for it. :)

[Hannah]

I think it's very important that this website stays active. Why? Because Young Adults will ALWAYS be the ones to make history. In another four or eight years there will be an entirely new set of young adults voting on a new president. On new laws. On new ideas. I want them to have the same support system that I, as a young vote now, have. I want them to be the most informed bunch of teens you will ever see. I want them to come to this site and see that they will be embraced here, and be given the most important thing...a voice. Because one voice, just ONE voice saying "Yes, I can" is sometimes enough to change a country, to change a nation, to change a world.

I think that the government needs to hear OUR voices. If they listen to us now, then maybe by the time we are old enough in the eyes of the law to vote we won't have to be SCARED. Scared of being ridiculed, scared of having it NOT BE ENOUGH. Scared of not knowing who to choose when they go into that booth. I think we need to make our voice, the voice of YA for Obama too loud to be ignored.

I think we're here mostly to give each other hope. You all cheered me on when I told the world (putting it on the internet basically is the world) that I had a disability. You cheered me on when I wasn't sure if we could win this. You cheered me on when I went to drop off my ballot, a 20 year old woman using a walker. You helped me realize that I needed to be an informed voted not just for the president, but for my homestate.

YA For Obama gave me that, I don't want that to go away. And I hope that it will be something that will continue on for the next generation of Young Adults.

[Merrg]

I have a blog up as well.
and I also agree with pretty much everything everyone's said.

As long as the site doesn't end =D because I rather like it...

[Onwards!]

I don't think it needs to be changed much at all. The Obama cause isn't over; rather, it's just beginning. I say we continue the blogs and videos and all of it, but the subject will be accurate messages of what Obama is doing lately in the office. To me, Obama is not just a President. He's an idea. An idea of unity, hope, and nationalism we've been so lacking. The site could be updates of this movement. Personally, I find it difficult to keep up-to-date with politics and current events because everything I find to read is too in-depth for me to understand with a lack of abundant previous knowledge on the subject. I didn't know anything about politics before this year, and YA For Obama provided me with news that was accurate and understandable by people who really cared and had similar opinions. I say we keep that up. We keep the same site, we just tweak the content a bit. Instead of being about why we should or do support Obama, have the content be about what he's doing and why it's good, and how we can help.

[Diana Rodriguez Wallach]

I love that this site gives YA authors, and teens, a place to post their opinions on politics without muddying their personal blogs that may be geared more towards writing or pop culture events.

Obama has an uphill climb ahead of him, and this site could serve as a great sounding board for people to post blogs on the events of the current administration. For example, Obama names his new cabinet...what do you think? Obama rolls out his health care plan...is it working?

We all know there will be a lot of people...ahem, Fox News...criticizing his every move. This would create a nice forum for like-minded people, and particularly teens, to post Obama blogs that keep us tied into politics.