Hi! Are you maybe just a bit horrified at the GOP's efforts to turn the House of Representatives into an Oil & Gas Industry crack den? I've been following it online but apparently they've been all over cable news promoting their sick addiction to oil, and even more so, to the truckloads of campaign cash that comes with it. (what a deal: even office managers can max out to the RNC!)
It's time for an intervention.
Past time really, but check the flip for how we can get started...
Now the best way we can do that is by administering another thumping this November. For an intervention to work, the addict has to want to at least crack the door. You might think the combination of the 2006 mid-terms, a President with approvals in the 20s, the greatest preventable military disaster in American history (that'd be 9/11), the greatest preventable domestic disaster in American history (that'd be Katrina), gas pushing five bucks a gallon, an economy sliding off a cliff and us mired in two eternal-seeming wars... you'd think that might be rock-bottom.
But as it turns out, you can skip right along the bottom for quite a while. It ain't pretty but it's possible. (I've been there even, but that's a story for another post.) So we might just have to ride them out of town on a stack of rails.
But in the meantime, let's see if we can give them a chance on this issue. It's sporting, at least. And how great would it be to see them renouncing something they've made such a stink over.
So what do we do?
The battleground for this intervention is twitter.com, a new(ish) "social microblogging tool" as those SF web 2.0 types (like me) might put it. Basically you can go on there and send short messages and links that your friends & followers can see. You can even get and send the messages on your phone. It's easy to sign up - and once you do, you're welcome to start following me and browsing my friends list for other progressives...
http://twitter.com/...
The GOP leadership has been using this tool to coordinate and get the word out about what they're up to. One way they're doing that is with something called a "hashtag" or a "poundtag." This is just a single word proceeded with a "#" sign. Anyone can use a hashtag - which means progressives can join in the conversation on this topic just as easily as anyone. The hashtag they're using is "#dontgo", and you can follow the traffic on this tag at summize.com (the search engine for twitter), like this:
http://search.twitter.com/...
You can also reply directly to people - the twitter trick for this is putting an "@" sign in front of the persons name. One of the great things about this is that it's a simple, public and polite way of speaking truth to power. Like this:
@johnculberson $67,750 (so far) from the oil & gas industry acc. to opensecrets.org. Kick the addicts out of the House. They need help.
One of the other great things is that it forces you to be succinct, and brevity is the single most important factor in effective messaging.
Now I'd hoped that our leadership might push back on this sooner rather than later, but we seem to be a little off-message. (what! muddled progressive messages! say it ain't so!) Obama's plan is OK (even though he's willing to compromise on drilling, argh) but he hasn't been nearly as clear and succinct as Van Jones was at Netroots Nation, where he said "we can not drill & burn our way out of this mess, we have to invest and invent our way out." Or as one of my smart progressive twitter pals put it:
s/t "crisis" message: "Drilling won't help prices. GOP thinks you're dumb and is pandering." l/t message: Van's. Easy!
(s/t = short term, l/t = long term. See, you can pack a lot into 140 characters!)
So your mission, should you choose to accept it:
- go to twitter, pick a snazzy login and sign up
- start following some folks on both sides
- Use @replies and tag relevant posts with #dontgo to confront the addicts with a better way out of this mess: investing and inventing, not drilling and burning
Have fun!