Deadline extended: Our Open letter to Congress on the bailout
will remain open for drafts and editing until midnight tonight
Please get involved! More here. See the end of the post for a quick update.
And it's not just the web. Deb Price's Politicians' phones ringing off hook on bailout in the Detroit News quotes Raymond Miller of Mackinac Island, who spent a couple of days trying to get through to the White House or Congress before an aide to Deborah Stabenow finally picked up. Like me, Miller doesn't seem convinced they particularly want to hear from us. |
Price adds:
Miller called the White House, was put on hold, and after 30 minutes was disconnected. He dialed multiple numbers trying to reach U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee....
At times, the Capitol Hill switchboard is so clogged that callers get a recording, and lawmakers' answering machines sometimes pick up during regular business hours because all telephones in their offices are in use....
Jameson Cunningham, press secretary to U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter, R-Livonia, said their office has received up to 1,000 phone calls a day.
Well, that's 1,000 phone calls that actually get through.
According to Wikipedia, there are about 650,000 people in McCotter's district. That means that less than .2% can contact his office on a given day ... which of course is fine most of the time but breaks down in a crisis situation -- exactly when communications is most important.
Not to sound like a broken record or anything, but ... Representative McCotter has a Facebook page, and I'll bet his Facebook wall can handle at least 10000 messages a day. I added McCotter to our Links of politicians' Facebook pages. Hopefully some of his constituents will take advantage of it!
Ron Wyden doesn't have a Facebook page, at least not one that I could find. So instead I created a thread on our page to thank him -- and my own Senator, Maria Cantwell, who joined Wyden and 23 others in voting against the bailout in the Senate.* If even a handful of people respond in the thread, I'm sure we can find a way to get the link to the Senators.
And from an activism perspective, I'll send this thread around to friends and relatives in the Pacific Northwest who also might want to thank the Senators ... if a few of them post, and others see it in their feeds, there are enough highly-connected people here that it could possibly get a little traction. If I chose the title and location of the thread well, so whenever anybody replies their feed will say something like "Jon discussed 'Thank You Senators Cantwell and Wyden' in 'No blank check for Wall Street'" If somebody's energized about the bailout, this could catch their eye, which is valuable brand awareness at no cost. And it's likely to bring another 10-20 people to the No blank check for Wall Street page, which helps broaden our network. And with luck, similar network effects will happen with McCotter or Stabenow's walls. We shall see.
Even putting that aside, though, the important point is that there's a viable communication channel here, at least for now.
Quick No blank check for Wall Street update:
- Thirty-one people, thirty-eight posts in our Tell Nancy Pelosi how you feel thread.
- 810 fans on Facebook
- a link! Micah Sifry's After the Wall St. Bailout: More Plutocracy, or the Rise of Net-Powered Politics? in the Huffington Post very briefly mentions the work we're doing with MixedInk on the open letter to Congress**
Between now and the House vote, we'll concentrate on the open letter and the Nancy Pelosi thread. After that, no matter how it comes out, "thank/spank" threads are a likely next step. Next week, we'll get to work on the open letter to the Presidential candidates for the debate ... beyond that, we'll have to see what events bring.
jon
* Kagro X has the roll-call on Daily Kos
No blank check for Wall Street is a group of people demanding accountability for Wall Street for its role in the 2008 financial crisis. We welcome those who oppose a bailout as well as those support a bailout with accountability. Please see our website for more. Our Facebook page and #bailout on twitter are the best ways to follow events. For earlier posts in this series, please see Jon Pincus' page on Pam's House Blend. Help get the word out!
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