Beastmomma

This past weekend I had another session of the political fellowship weekend.  I am certainly learning a lot.  The topics for this weekend were fundraising and an exercise in balancing the budget.  As I was listening to the information about how to fundraise and the rules and how much you need to raise to win, it occured to me that this was the reason most of my representatives were rich and/or retired.  I also started to notice that most of my classmates had their own bussinesses. This is relevanant because they are familiar with accounting practices.   I wanted to throw up because here again was another barrier to fundraising.

The next speaker was from an organization called "Democracy-NC" which I thought might be a good option for me.   He was presenting new legislation that had been passed about campaign finance reform.   My classmates were raged against him and saying things like this was political welfare and accusing him of lying with his statistics. In my fantasy, I told them to shut up and let him give his presentation. I also said that just because they thought something was crap did not make it so.  In reality, I raised my hand and put it down when I realized that it had turned into a shouting match.  By the time there was a chance for me to speak, I had lost my nerve.  I replayed that scene so much in my head that it made me sick.  I was glad the facilitators spoke about it the next day and we revisited the ground rules.

The next day we did an exercise in budget stimulation.  I used the energy from my frustration the night before and decided that I was not going to let people get away with saying crappy things.  Turns out that I got put in the Senate, so I got to play a senator which meant that I had to talk with a lot of people.   We decided to around and say what we believe is the role of government.  In my group, there were three Republicans, one independent who is basically a Republican, and two Democrats.  As people were talking, I decided that I wanted to clarify what was meant by handout and governmental parenting and self sufficieny.  What should happen to citizens who were failed by the school system?  One of the people in my group was inappropriate man, who had blown kisses and was generally inapproriate. This weeknd, he kept telling me that he wanted to get me drunk.   As I was challenging him, he told me that I was mean and that I needed to relax.  He then started trying to massage my shoulders to get me to relax.   It was so odd. I felt so frustrated.

The good news is that if I am mean, I must be speaking my mind.