Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Petition Update

I'm not updating news on a petition.  I'm updating my news on my pledge not to sign any more stinkin' petitions . . . with exceptions.


I still sign the odd petition form Care2.com to save endangered species, and when a friend urged me to sign an animal-rights petition via Facebook, I signed that too out of friendship, but I'm still avoiding petitions for anything else - fleeing them like a vampire from a cross, in fact - and I'm still unsubscribing from all these damn activist groups. Especially those who ask me to call my congressman and ask him to vote against TPP or abortion restrictions or whatever. Because it's becoming increasingly clear that what you want your government to do and what it actually does are two different things. 
The truth is, I haven't been an active volunteer or or crusader for any cause for along time.  All I ever did was sign petitions for causes without much of an attachment to them beyond that.  Right now my attitude is similar to the noncommittal chorus of that old Ten Years After song - I'd love to change the world, but I don't know how to do it, so I'll leave it up to you.  Journalist John Strausbaugh once asked if that had been people's attitudes all along.  In my case, I guess it was. 
And life went on no matter who was wrong or right.

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