Rumors in All the Wrong Places

The horrific bombing of the Boston Marathon finishing line was timed to detonate at four hours after the start of the race which was expected and did coincide with numerous amateur runners completing the race and their friends and families waiting to congratulate them. The bombers’ plan to injure and possibly murder as many average people in order to maximize terror was successful in targeting average people and getting huge amounts of coverage by television and news cameras. The one failure was the striking terror in the hearts of the people at the scene of the terrorist strike. Instead what was witnessed was Americans at their best with people who were uninjured not running from the scene but running into the heart of the disaster area tending to the injured applying first aid and even using pieces of their clothing to apply pressure bandages and even using belts as makeshift tourniquets. What was exemplified was the best of Americans and humanity in a crisis situation with these brave people almost immediately assisting each other and not waiting for the first responders giving the world a taste of how not to be cowed by a terror threat and showing disregard for anything other than helping people who were for the most part total strangers. We witnessed people literally giving the shirt off their backs and the belts from their trousers. This is not meant to take anything away from the first responders who also arrived quickly and wasted no time rushing into the heart of the confusion and establishing a frenetic order and began transport of the injured to waiting hospital personnel who had prepared the necessary extra trauma and emergency supplies and beds to accommodate the disaster.

Unfortunately, the same praises cannot be lauded on either the mainstream media or social media both of which were full of conjecture, conspiracies and the entire host of misinformation. The number of people espousing their own hatreds blaming the government, secret clandestine organizations, or any group of people imaginable in Tweets or on Facebook were disgusting and gave examples of the worst in people. The only redeeming facts were those who derided those posting such conspiracies or assigning blame as a venue to castigate their own bigotries. Where the hatreds appearing on social media in not something new but the mere extent of these postings is what was somewhat alarming. The misinformation spread by the mainstream media prior to any actual facts is an entirely different animal. The race by the different new networks and departments to form theories and postulations as to who was behind the bombing was revealing to their prejudices and biases. The number of times there were claims of breaking news only to be followed later by more breaking news each one contradicting the previous startling statement. News reporting, especially by the news agencies that people and the public depend on for facts, should act with more restraint and discipline instead of acting in such an uncontrolled and amateurish fashion. While it is understandable that each news department has a desire to be the first to get the news right, but shouldn’t getting the news right be the first principle? What good is being first to be wrong? Apparently, the news sources placed more emphasis on making conjecture as representing news as long as it was first and might even be the first to finally get it correct. Between reporting every rumor with breathless excitement and expressing their personal biases as honest news the mainstream media managed to further destroy any semblance of trust which had possibly remained. It was my personal experience that the most trustworthy news sources ended up being some select foreign press and media sources which I have previously found to have the patience to wait for facts before jumping onto a story, any story, as long as it is a new story. Maybe they will take a lesson from this fiasco and will learn to actually verify the facts before running before the cameras only to have to retract reports as the truth eventually emerges. And may they please learn that personal conjecture is never good news and only makes them appear more amateurish than the average poster on social media. We should and do expect more from our media and hopefully they will grow and learn that actual facts are news and opinions and guessing is not doing anybody any favors, especially in an emergency situation when so many are seeking answers and expecting the plain and simple truth from their news reporting. As the old Dragnet theme stated, “The facts, just the facts.”

Beyond the Cusp

So You Want to Change Government in Washington

I hear the same complaint all the time. I hear it on talk radio, on the Sunday television talking heads interviews, waiting in line at the grocery store or getting prescriptions filled and in conversations with friends. Time and again people complain that their vote makes no difference and they have no say in what goes on in Washington. They have it all wrong as our vote is seldom the deciding factor in any election, but there is a better way to be heard and heeded in Washington. Some of my friends and I have got this idea and we wish to share it and enlist your help. Together we can change government in Washington, and this also would work at the state and local level just as well if not better. All it will take is a few days of talking, tweeting, Facebook posts, ICQ, e-mail, texting, or even using the phone to call people, or if you’re really brave, talking to people in person. The best starting point is friends and family which happen to share your political outlook. You get a few friends; three is enough to get your own lobbying group started. You draw up a questionnaire with as few as three or as many political subjects you can think of and get anyone willing to help to simply fill out one. On the form you list the subjects you wish to influence and whether you support or oppose the idea. An example might be, “I want to repeal Obama Care,” or “I am in favor of requiring showing a picture ID in order to vote.” Have a check list for agree and disagree and give it to a few friends or paste it on your Facebook page and invite those you have friended to take the survey. Collect a fair number, at least five but the more the merrier.

Once you have a small group who agree on each subject they will serve as your core group, the seed group from which you expand. You can make a group for each issue or you might decide to stress just one issue, it will work either way. Then you have your core group send the same questions, or whatever subject you all agree with, to friends and gather more into your group. This will be most effective if your group all live in the same voting district, or at least the same state, but that is not hard and fast required. You organize and take turns watching the news and reading up and look for any legislation which the group has a consensus about and then you take action. Once you decide to act, everybody in the group should call to the local office of your Representative in the House of Representatives and both State Senators and express your views. The local office is usually easier to reach and they will contact your elected official when they get sufficient numbers contacting them on an issue. The staff of elected officials place great weight on contacts as most of their constituents never bother to contact them. The rule of thumb is for every person that contacts the office they figure that person represents approximately one-thousand others who did not call. So, you can see what effect having ten or twenty people call them on any single issue.

On issues you have extremely strong feeling about, you might consider not only calling their office, e-mailing their office, but also make the effort to go in person and talk with them. If your group decides that a face-to-face visit is necessary, space your visits out over two to three weeks depending on how many of you there are. Secondly, have some of you go in small groups of two to five and some as single visitors, this will have a greater affect as it will make it seem like people are talking and taking action together as well as separately. All the while you continue to collect more people into your group. I believe you see where this is going. You might even eventually gather people from not only your home area but extend your actions over a wider area. With social media one could make a national grassroots lobbying group and have a large influence on the future of the country. Furthermore, since these contacts will be done at the local level, you will find you have more sway and influence than those high paid lawyers and ex-Congress-critters that work and live on K Street just off Connecticut Avenue in Washington D.C.

This is the idea behind such groups as AARP, the Sierra Club, and many Unions who all claim to represent thousands of people simply because they have these people on their mailing lists. The difference is that since you are contacting your elected official as an individual, they know for a fact that you are one guaranteed voter who likely will vote even if there is a blizzard. You may want to name your group but you never want to use this name when contacting your elected officials’ offices. You will have more clout contacting them as individuals until you grow your group into thousands and thousands of voters and have met the requirements to file as an official lobbying group. Trust me when I say you will wish to avoid such action, that is unless you think you can make a living doing so. Since that would require moving to the Washington D. C. area, I will bet most will be happy just to maximize their influence and keep things comfortably manageable. This is not something brand new which has not been done before and many will read this and say that this is already being done in your area. My question to those is, “Are you in such a group and if not what influence do you have? If you know of such a group, then join it and add your voice, each one counts like thousands, loud and firm.”

The sole reason I am even writing about this is not because it is a revolutionary idea but because if I influence just a dozen people to take the time and act on this then our government will be better serving the people. I hope those who I do activate agree with my views more than disagree. Where this has been done for years even at local levels, I have not heard of many small individual private groups which are not members of some club, organization, religious group, or some form of a structured setting doing such work. I know of many people who do this kind of politicking on their own and it is these people who would likely benefit most of having a bug in their ear telling them to broaden their influence by trying this. With the explosion of social networking and other electronic communications making people being in touch and organizing as easy as making a Facebook page, a Facebook friends grouping, a tweet circle, an e-mail list, a chat room, Skype conferencing, or whatever your imagination can invent to keep everyone up on the latest actions; who knows what you might start by giving this a shot. The worst that could happen is you become more active and have at least some amount of influence in our governance and you might even make a few new friends along the way.

Beyond the Cusp