Sometimes we all think people know where we basically stand on issues. And sometimes we learn that people either don’t really know, or they don’t really care.
There’s smart political activism, and there’s dumb political activism. Here’s some dumb political activism via Citizen Smash, one of the best known “milibloggers.”
I SAW IT IN MY INBOX this evening. It was an email from a familiar name, someone very close to me. But it was the subject line that got me really steamed:
FW: Oppose Escalation in Iraq
Opening it, I read this single line from a loved one:
Let your conscience decide…
What followed was, as the subject line suggested, a forwarded petition urging Congress to cut off funding for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Here is my reply:
And he most certainly gives it (read it).
The person didn’t take the time to consider that Smash might feel QUITE differently, and not because he is a lockstep political partisan (I have met him, and he is not). He also has a bit of personal background and additional considerations that impact how he views this request to cut of funding — which, by the way, the bulk of Republican and Democratic war criticism in Congress right now are not prepared to do, anyway.
Read his whole post. (P.S.: If you’re a fulltime or part time political activist, you might want to do a teenie bit of homework before you send something out to someone or at least elaborate on your request and re-write it.)
UPDATE: Riehl World View went through something a bit similar on the issue of blogging. Read this.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.