As much as anyone, I want to see Karl Rove “frog-marched” not only out of OUR (taxpayer’s) White House, but right into courthouse and prison.
“Petition-fatigue”. Maybe (if not probably) this has been brought up before. If so, I apologize and I doubt I will be mentioning anything that hasn’t previously been said.
Are we reaching a point where there are so many petitions, that each loses their potential impact? 500,000 for Rep. Conyers to investigate the DSM was extremely impressive, and I believe ultimately effective — to what extent remains to be seen.
But as I type this, I see an ad not 1 inch to the left to “pink slip” Karl Rove, which I received in my email from Rep. Louise Slaughter. Representative Slaughter is a true hero, I respect her and her thoughts quite a bit. I wish her continued success as she works against powerful forces and Republican-controlled levers of power. In fact, I like the “pink slip” Karl Rove, and think it to be a creative approach.
But I do not only have the request from Rep. Slaughter in my email inbox regarding Karl Rove. I have one from John Kerry. I have one from Howard Dean. I have seen others, and won’t take up time or space to go and research them.
I don’t know of a more serious issue than treason; I believe the cost of the Iraq War, and the lack of accountability by this administration over this war of choice ranks pretty high, and there is no irony that Karl Rove is right in the stink of it. The snake of secrecy starts at the head.
But are we reaching “petition fatigue” or “petition saturation”?
I worry that on this the biggest of issues, the “petition” idea is getting splintered. And I also receive petition requests on many issues these days. And I sometimes feel as if I am being fed into a database, tracking what issue will “push my buttons”. I signed Rep. Conyers petition for the DSM, a proud member of the 500,000 plus. I have decided to carefully review every petition signature request — and I fear that any that fall short of the high standard set by the DSM petition will allow other serious issues to be dismissed.
Part of my frustration stems from living in California, where we suffer from “Legislation-by-Initiative”. If our Legislature and Governor, both Democratic and Republican, would do their jobs, I would like to think that there would only be need for initiatives to meet egregious situations that need to be rectified “by-the-people” (of course my definition of egregious might be different than the other 35-million Californians). But because it is easy (if expensive) to put people in front of the supermarket and put out a catchy headline like “prescriptions for the poor”, almost any initiative with enough deep-pocketed organization can qualify for the ballot, thereby leading to soundbite TV ads that do not allow for the full investigation of issues and their full impact that our Legislature should have done in the first place.
“Petition Fatigue” — anyone else suffering? Any thoughts about channeling the legitimate frustration so many of us have into the most effective campaigns possible? We are a representative democracy, not a true democracy — and we also live in a 24-news channel, blog world too.
And I sometimes feel as if I am being fed into a database
You are. Didn’t you realize that? It’s how mailing lists are built.
I usually ignore all petitions. But these from our Senators and our Representatives are different, and the situation is different … it involves a breach of national security.
I haven’t signed Kerry’s because I suspect he’s doing it mostly to advance his presidential campaign and grow his mailing list.
But Jay Inslee has nothing to gain except to fight for his close friend Joe Wilson — they went to school together at the Univ. of Washington, and had the same professors.
I think it’s VERY important that we should people like Inslee that there’s a huge group of us out there who are at their backs.
these from our Senators and our Representatives are different
No, they’re not.
I’m not decrying petitions; I merely pointed out that yes, politicians and interest groups use your data from petition signing to build their mailing lists.
My biggest objection to petitions is that I fear many people’s political involvement ends rather than begins with signing a petition. I hold the same fear about rallies.
I have fond memories of petitions — my political activism began with sitting outside the polls with a nuclear freeze petition. Yeah, it was a long time ago. 🙂
Actually I am familiar with the concept, and realized that putting my name and address anywhere is being built into a database. My breakthrough thought recently (I know, I can be slow) is that not only are the petition signatories able to be tracked, but they are able to be tracked with a bit of demographic data able to be “mined” later for whatever reason. What is the issue on the petition about? What prompted me to arrive at the webpage with the petition (i.e. what website or email link did I follow)?
asked about all these petitions on another thread today. I will sign almost anything to get Rove the snake out of the White House. My point I think, as well as others have mentioned is why are not these folks all working together for sigs? What good does it do to have my name on 10 different petitions all asking for Rove to be fired? I would hope our party would all work together on something like this. This isn’t about politics anymore and should not be used for its gain but to bring justice to a national security breach. just my nickels worth.
ha! we were thinking along the same lines
I actually saw your post, right after I created this diary. I was going to post this in that diary, but didn’t want to distract from that topic or that petition.
I think most here are in agreement about the need to voice our opinion. And on top of that, this is the most serious of issues — treason. A difficult choice for me to create this diary today, because I am torn and don’t want to slow any progress made on the Rove frog-march.
I felt petition-saturated yesterday. I had several e-mail petitions in one afternoon, including the ones you mention. The barrage is beginning to feel like spam.
I do wish that Kennedy-Boxer-Kerry-Conyers-Slaughter-Dean-Ickes could share email lists, since I have misguidedly gotten myself on every one of theirs. But many people have not tuned in to the issues so much, and for that reason these messages are useful.
I am very selective about responding to the petitions and hardly ever forward one, but I have heard from friends that they have learned new information from my forwarded messages. I figure it is softening them up for when I ask them to get more active. For example, I’ve started working against Prop. 73, California’s Parental Notification of Abortion initiative, and will be emailing my friends to get involved.
Need I ask where you stand on prop 73?lol Well, I even get emails from Tedy Kennedy. Yes, yesterday was unreal with at leat ten to fifteen emails. Again, why are they so disoraganised and maybe this warrants a phone call or email to these people stated that they need to get it together. The Treasongate issue is very important, the beginning of the end I hope but God let’s get it together. I am so on the side of the Wilson’s. K.I.S.S. Keep it simple stupid as they used to say. This is about Bush’s coverup to hide the truth about going to war…PERIOD!