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.
