Last night, a friend posted this message on Facebook:
“I wonder what would happen if everyone changed their icons and avatars and profile photos to this.”
Well, I don’t know what would happen, but I suspect that people would notice everyone had changed their icons and avatars and profile photos. Maybe this would, in turn, lead people to do things to create change in the off-line world. Maybe this would lead people to say, “Hey, wow,” and then tune in to the latest episode of The Family Guy. Maybe I just don’t understand this new-fangled “social media activism.” Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t.
I have a different question:
I wonder what would happen if everyone went to thomas.loc.gov and found one languishing bill for a more peaceful world, then called their member of Congress at (202) 224-3121 and asked him or her to support the bill.
Take, for example, H.R. 981, a bill to to severely limit the deployment of cluster bombs, weapons that linger across the landscape and kill innocent children. I wonder what would happen if everyone called their member of the House of Representatives and told their Representative to support H.R. 981.
No, actually, I don’t wonder what would happen. I know what would happen. If everybody called their member of Congress today and asked him or her to support the bill, the bill would move forward, and it would pass, because representatives respond to pressure, and they respond best to heavy pressure. If everybody called Capitol Hill, the bill would be passed before Thanksgiving. And some innocent kid somewhere wouldn’t have his legs blown off.
If only some people called Congress, I admit I don’t know what would happen. Maybe the bill would pass. Maybe the use of cluster bombs would be stopped. Maybe some innocent kids’ lives would be saved. Maybe not. I don’t know what the magic number for success is.
I do know what would happen if nobody called: H.R. 981 would continue to languish, as it has for years and years and years.
I’m making my call right now, and I’ll see what happens. What would happen if you considered doing that, too?
Not a chance. Pelosi has gone so far off the progressive path she now rejects actually reality and substitutes her own. Frankly, power has driven her nutty….
The bills before Congress are window dressing conpared to what’s already been done to and the neglect of the Constitution. While fashioning far too many domestic policy changes toward the enforcement of the now burgeoning rubber-stamped code of criminal conduct, we’ve allowed the president entirely too much power (especially with respect to signing statements), allowed Congress to basically stop working for us, upholding the Constitution (same problem as the Justice Dept.), and allowed the corporate take-over of the entire system of government.
Now it’s too late – the system no longer responds (a lot like HAL in Stanley Kubrick movie 2001, A Space Odyssey) and pleading with it has produced nothing of significance over the past (at least) 9 years. It’s only getting worse. We vote for change and THIS is what we got a year in. It looks and feels like the third term of Bush, Jr.
So since we’ve all ceded our government to the corporate sector and now are either so distracted or apathetic that they can basically ignore us and do whatever they want. We no longer have any power to effect change because we’re too busy playing our roles in the great game of capitalism and individualism.
We’re neglecting the one thing that could bring the whole world together in peace and be inspired to work toward – the changing our world energy system to a more sustainable one and trying to ameliorate the mess we’ve already made of the place in the process. There’s so much work to do on this front that it would require EVERYONE on the planet to buy into it to get it done. Unfortunately, people that advocate anything along the lines of peace and cooperation are considered naive and summarily dismissed as dreamers, idealists.
Do you recognize that your statement is circular?