Petitions: Who are They Saving?

Wouldn’t it be the easiest thing in the world to send out a huge email shot about signing a petition for a cause that’s likely to raise anger and concern; and then for recipients to click on a link which could send them a virus or collect personal details. And then, still unbeknown to this socially conscious internet browser, when they sign the petition their details are used by phishers?

How many of us would not be moved by the statement that thousands of animals are being cruelly and needlessly slaughtered? The horrid picture accompanying so much anti animal cruelty campaigns turns me away. I hate to be manipulated by horror. Equally I hate the sad eyes of a child or scared puppy. Even the RSPCA has succumbed to this, with a banner advert online where a dog paws at you. The WWF have long used this ploy and it has lost my support for both.

44000 joeys is a website about the killing of kangaroos. The first thing I did was run a search on their name/web domain and ’scam’. When one clicks unsubscribe, you get a mail link to a personal email, which sent me alarm bells. You are asked to agree to a long list of terms and conditions – I would like to set up a petition that says ‘let’s put an end to our litigation obsessed societies’. You are defaulted into receiving more details from the organisation and in having your details viewed by the whole world wide web. Now who in the era of phishing, identity fraud and officials who want to know far too much about us, why would we want to publish or full names and addresses? There is no ‘about us’ on the site – you have to click through to the petition to find out they they are part of a wider organsation fighting for change.

In one of their blogs, the question is raised: ‘are these petitions real?’ But they do not respond to that enquirer; they evade it. They talk about the power of petitions, theirs in particular, but do not give reassurance that theirs are genuine and that petitioners details are looked after.

The other reassurance I need is what do these campaigners do? I have heard of groups against fossil fuels who stop trains and chuck coal on the line; that is not an acceptable way to protest.

Since seeing Made In Dagenham, I’ve been thinking about ways to protest for a just cause. The film kept making a correlation between striking factory workers about equal pay for men and women, and fighting in the second world war. But the reason does not justify the means. I remain anti any form of militant campaign. I am vehemently against the senseless violence and suffering of war, but I see another kind in striking. Harm comes to not only the families of the strikers when they go weeks, months without proper wages; but those households who did not choose industrial action who are focred into it when their place of work closes. Striking is a mixture of childish ‘I won’t play’ mixed with blackmail; the hostages who suffer are the workforce and the public squeezed so hard that officials give in.

I condone neither.

I do believe in the power of the pen as a weapon – in both signatures and letters; in the power of spoken word; but campaigning by actions lead to often other wrongs:  two together may lead to a right but they don’t make one.

So if you make campaigns and petitions and unsolictedly infiltrate email addresses to garner support: beware of how you come across and that if you are misusing justice to cause injustice, we know – and will fight that in its turn.