Use the News
Your weblog or online journal can be a powerful tool for democracy. Consider using it as a tool to engage friends and family in political discourse.
You might start by tracking the news issues that you care about. In fact you can use google's news service to help you do this. For example, visit news.google.com and enter a search phrase, for example Environment Congress and bookmark it. Now you can simply check this bookmark to track congressional decisions impacting the environment. You can use this same technique for local news as well.
Now, as you see something that concerns you, post a link to it in your journal and state your concerns. It's as simple as that. Friends, family and even strangers can engage you in discussion about this news.
To take it a step further, provide the following links and encourage your readers to speak out.
Write your Representative.
Write your elected officials.
If you are an active citizen, you probably belong to one or more organizations and are being encouraged to take action on a variety of issues. On issues that hit home, post your own thoughts about them in your online journal and share them with friends and family.