On Feb 24, 2011, at 2:07 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> Just wondering, do we know whether we accomplish anything by doing this?
Probably not much more than clicking "like" on Facebook.
I would agree, though when the petition is circulated by some person or group that needs her/its own morale boosted, then it is probably worthwhile.
Paper and ink petitions are another thing because of the physical reality behind each signature: two people have talked to each other. Have you noticed how often government officials or legislators proclaim that they only respect personal letters. Precisely: they can ignore personal letters. Merely an isolated individual. But when agitator knocks on a person's door, and that person then signs, sometimes that is a lasting political meeting. When, during the long interim, we circulated some petition or statement of solidarity, we met people that, were a mass movement afoot, we could have recruited to it. When we circulated a really strong statement of solidarity in support of the (all white-male) Normal firefighers during the strike on a public housing project, there were Ldatino women in that progject who volunteered to circulate it also! That kind of think is potentially explosive.
Carrol