Am I the only one that finds these petitions pointless? They marginalize any real activism down to just some signatures by loosely-connected individuals and really just provide a forum for speaking to your elected officials - something they're supposed to be there for anyway - in a format that has none of the financial "umph" that lobbyists bring.
They aren't inherently totally pointless. If they reach the 25,000 "signatures" required to trigger a response, that becomes somewhat of a news item more likely to spill into the mainstream news, thus drawing some attention to whatever the issue is, which is always somewhat helpful.
But certainly they are less effective than real protest, or real physical letters sent to lawmakers, so if done in lieu of those things then that's a problem.
I suspect that the data driven Obama administration has full capability to estimate the likelihood of citizens rioting, and determined that providing a "lazy" outlet for frustration would undermine real protest.
It's like how facebook lets you complain about some horrible injustice, which makes you feel like you've done something even though you've done next to nothing.
Very worried.
Especially since I see it happening to me too. When we went to war in Iraq, I was out in the streets marching and holding protest signs. So was almost everyone I know. If we declared war on Iran, would the same happen? My bet is you'd see lots of complaining on facebook, and a petition to not go to war. Maybe emailed letters to representatives in congress. But actual street protests? No way, we can just let anonymous annoy some people for us.
I think these are actually one of the few things that can be done, showing the government, that there are many people unhappy about this case out there, and that something has to be changed.
It's true, that these petitions are not big deals, but usually things don't change rapidly, it's a process, and cutting the arms that hurt us is it's first step. Obviously, most probably they won't get cut, but at least they won't get promoted, for God's sake.
