Well, I'm back to reality. Had my first full week back from my four day vacation. I am now crazy busy at work and I forgot how much stuff I do at home on a daily basis--feeding cats, scooping cat litter, cleaning up cat puke, etc. etc. I know I make my life sound so charming -- ha ha. Netroots Nation was a good experience and I very much enjoyed going to the various discussion panels and learning interesting things from interesting people. I also enjoyed having no responsibilities other than getting up in the morning, showering and making it to the discussion panel I wanted to attend on time. Oh, and the king size bed was great too as was five days without having a cat climb my head in the middle of the night.  

The one consistent theme throughout the conference was that the right-wing can outspend us but we have more people. Maybe but some of the panels unnerved me, especially the ones detailing how the Koch Brothers and the looney far right have their tentacles into all of the state legislatures (or most of then, anyway). That's truly depressing. Voter ID laws, stand your ground laws, the attacks on education, it's all eording our country little by little. I wonder, are the stand your ground laws coupled with the National Rifle Association's obsession with gun ownership by anyone with a pulse designed to decimate the minority comunities -- they shoot each other and now "we" can shoot them too if we are threatened by them or perceive ourselves to be threatened by them ala Trayvon Martin? Just something to ponder.

These people behind these laws say or boast that they are "true patriots," but they are far from it. They are financially destroying the working and middle class, attacking unions, attacking the education system, women, minorities, all the "liberal" groups for the pursuit of power and a buck. So, I want to know, how do you fight against this tide? The voters here in America don't give me much hope. Drunk on Fox News and fear they consistently vote against their own best interests. If this shit was going on in Europe, they would be taking it to the streets to protest loud and long. Instead, we elect right-wing nut jobs to local and national government who promptly sell us out at every opportunity. All of us, me included, have been co-opted by material things and fear of the other. This started with Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and continues to be the playbook of the right-wing republicans.

So, I don't know how those of us who can still think critically fight this. I guess there has to be a way and we all need to find it. I, for one, am going to try to find a good, left-wing, liberal, pinko group to voluteer for/with and start from there.