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 that revealed some things
about him, 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
© 07/07/17
