My Online/Activism
Story
The
Long and Short of It
In
the spring of 2006 I sort of stumbled into right wing Christian
activism. People who had made me their reason for waking up in the
morning had inadvertently unleashed me onto the whole of society
after having gotten me kicked off of AOL, where I had been part of a
Christian chat room for five years. Actually, I was pretty much a
main character, so-to-say in that chat room. Some might even say
"The Star of The Show." Yes, that sounds odd. But that was the case.
People liked the living soap opera that we had all fallen
into. While I grew
to love many people in that chat room, many bad people grew to love
causing me trouble. And after five years it all came to an abrupt
end, which prompted me to write my first article: Click Here
It was actually a long time online friend who
found another AOL article online written by a man who worked
for Alan Keyes and for a website called Renew America. After
reading his article I contacted him and told him a bit about
what had happened to me. He then asked if I would send him an
article about my AOL situation, and I did just that. Renew
America then posted that article of mine on the website and
soon another article and gave me a column there. In the
mean-time, I learned that site's owner was a Book of Mormon pushing
Mormon, and I ended up off of that site quite quickly. The man
who had asked me for my AOL article ended up off of that site soon
after as well. That man and I worked together in activism work for
roughly two years till he had a very serious car accident, and we
never worked together again.
Saddened by what had happened with my activism
partner of two years I was basically a sitting duck for some nuts on
another website, a site called Blog Talk Radio. Yes, I did not seem
to learn my lesson and soon found myself thinking that I had fallen
into a place with a lot of great Christians to work with. I was
wrong again! For that article, Click Here.
That stunt gave me another long-time internet person
in activism who is the one person I do still occasionally correspond
with. Over the past 17 years I have spoken with countless people and
got close to some forever special people. I learned a lot about
people and was able to even help some (here is one story: click here). The best was in the very beginning of my AOL time when
some people came to believe on Jesus Christ for salvation. My
activism included fighting the health care law, Obama Care. Fighting
Obama Care involved speaking at a Tea Party event in PA and a
local town hall style meeting of my own near my home. During that
time, I exposed the second most powerful woman in congress, Louise
Slaughter for the monster she is and even ended up on a national
news show, as well as a local news station. The local news station
actually had me on for a few other topics too. Perhaps the most
emotional activism that I worked on was on the 9/11 Flight 93 story.
I had met the parents of Tom Burnett Jr. over the phone and had
several phone calls with his mother. For those articles Click Here. There was
much more, but I want to keep this short.
I no longer work
with others; it's just, me, myself and I now. And for the most part
I can only be found doing activism work online these days (not to
say that I'll never do anything off-line again).
To all who
have been with me at some point in my activism, I wish you all
well and joy in our Lord. I know I summed it all up quickly here.
But we all know the wild ride that at times in the past it
was.
Debra J.M. Smith ©
