Brandon TurbevilleNatural Blaze
March 29, 2018
Perhaps one of the most effective means of misdirecting the energy of activists and the public at large taken during the Obama administration was the creation of the White House petition site that guaranteed the White House would address any concern that could receive 100,000 signatures. Of course, the Obama administration routinely ignored many of those petitions and simply refused to listen to others that did reach the signature threshold but that didn’t stop activists from trying.
Now, with the Trump administration, who has never agreed to such a policy, activists are still trying and it’s having even less of an effect.
One has to admit that these petition drives do often have a minor positive effect of raising awareness. They are short, details are kept to a minimum, and they are usually accompanied by one evocative image. That’s about all most people can handle in terms of research and news in 2018. But that’s generally where the positives of sharing petitions end.
The problem with the petition obsession is that it doesn’t actually inform anyone beyond a short burst of text and it gives signatories a false sense of accomplishment in terms of activism. In searching social media, for instance, one can come across a myriad of petition links (sign a petition calling for the end to killing elephants, an end to zoos, an end to glyphosate poisoning, etc.) that contain a few sentences of the problem and ask readers to sign their names to the petition.
What is lacking is any intelligent discussion of the subject with a succinct description of the problem, what is causing it, the responsible parties, and what can be done about it. There is no evidence or citation. Also lacking is any organizational structure to direct the energy of those concerned in a constructive direction that will enable them to do something about the issue.
