Well last night we wrapped up the show.  We ended with a keynote address by Linda Chavez-Thompson, whom I discussed yesterday. She is an amazing and moving orator and a proven effective organizer.  You need to check out her site and give her scrill.  Texas can really make a change this year. It’s within reach, but we progressives need to step up and make it happen. Go to TexansForLinda.com and get it done.  Let’s show up these right-wing swine who have been destroying Texas.

The final keynote address was by the ever brilliant and humorous Senator Al Franken.  Franken’s overriding message was the need for progressives to keep fighting on.  Too much complacency, likely fueled by impatience at a perceived lack of policy change, has been growing among the progressive netroots and in the broader progressive movement.  He reminded progressives about the out-of-power passion they had felt in 2006 that swept the Democrats to a majority and that this is the same kind of passion the right-wing clowns are feeling today.  Franken also announced the location for next years’ Netroots Nation which will be in Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 16 – 19, 2011.  I can’t wait!

Following that I didn’t attend the official Netroots Nation party but instead went to a party hosted by Mike Rogers, the guy who does the good and necessary work of outing anti-gay closeted gay hypocritical politicians, star of the documentary film Outrage.  A very sweet man, it was an honor to hang out with him.

I want to give a shout out to my Netroots homies, Tom Torres, Scott Sims, David Castillo, Nezua, Carlos Quiroz, Marc Love, Miriam Pérez, Edward Headington, Wendy Carillo, Marce Gutiérrez, Lizbeth Mateo, Yahaira Carrillo, Oscar Rosales Castañeda and so many more.  Lots of love and respect, my friends. You all have a place in my heart.  Here are some of the crew. Unfortunately, the photo came out a bit blurred.

A couple of follow ups: My friend Carlos Quiroz has a post on the DREAM kids who peacefully demonstrated when Leader Harry Reid spoke yesterday afternoon about CIR and the DREAM Act.

A group of undocumented students held a symbolic and silent protest in front of the Netroots Nation stage, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was speaking about Immigration Reform, during the last day of the progressive conference held in Las Vegas.

Senator Harry Reid didn’t acknowledge the students protesting, not even mentioned them. This was taken as “one of many signs that shows how [Reid] has approached Immigration Reform” said one of the students. The protest was well received by the attendees.

I also failed to mentioned that during Friday’s talk on immigration reform, there were mock Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) guards asking for ID of all non-brown looking people designed to make the point about the effects of SB1070.  There were some drama eruptions.

Maybe I’ll write on that further later this week. I could end up doing a follow-up piece.