Letter to Kev

[crank]

I've made a topic with a poll!

 

if people think its a good idea please post comments or suggestions.

 

Project 20/4/2010

Edited January 13, 2010 by crank

[phreakah]

I think its a great idea. If they get lots of these letters, calls, requests around the same time each year they will realise more than the 1 or 2 people a week who bother writing in care about it.

 

Best of luck to all of us !

[Budman2012]

High there,

What happened to this Thread???

It's fairly obvious most of the major content has been deleted ... why not delete the whole thread rather than leave a few scraps of what once was decent input?

I'm not sure of the circumstances , but it's very irritating to read such a censored topic ... especially when much time is spent on trawling thru the endless InterWebs

 

So yeh , I think I posted here too ... seems entire sections were deleted , I'm not sure if that's the best way to go about things ... *Lock* topics by all means , but don't go all 'Editing Room' on us plz.

Is it too long gone to get a proper summary of what went down here? No Worries either way , guess I'm just a purveyor of honesty ...

Cheerz all and stay vigilant

 

Budman

[Budstedpothead]

I've noticed stuff getting deleted too, it's not necessary.

unless it's absolutely necessary.

 

7 sunrise has something called Asking the PM, i think it's on seven yeah, i'm sure it is.

we could all try getting a shot at asking him questions in that way too,

though theres a good chance that pro cannabis stuff allways gets canned.

[pisspotgrower]

LMAO, is there a topic on this forum u are not an expert on or have an opinion on

 

Dont worry be soon enough u have that post count up there with the best of em

 

I wana see u actually do someting instead of what if what if......and please dont say we as i think its a stupid idea for "us" to try n get on sunrise maybe Koshie is a toker aswell HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Paladin]

Hey gang.

 

Unfortunately, sending a letter to the PM is one of the least effective ways of getting his attention. It's a logistical impossibility for him to read the vast amount of mail sent in by Australians concerned over one thing or another. What happens, as with any large bureaucracy, is that the letter will be passed to a relatively junior member of the correct section to process and reply to. Some aggregate data will be retained, but no chance in hell the PM will read it himself unless you're a cute kid dying of cancer, etc.

 

With politically sensitive or marginal issues, there's no way in hell it would be politically expedient for the PM to read or reply. And it is many people's jobs to keep him out of that sort of situation.

 

The other problem with sending a letter is that it is an 'invisible' private correspondence directly between one citizen and the PM's office. Who knows what has gone on? The sender and the PM's office.

 

This is one reason why mailbombing would probably be a waste of everyone's time. Even if a thousand letters were received, well - so what? Who quantifies the amount of protest received? It's all down to the PM's office to liase with the media about the event, and a simple no comment will likely mute the whole issue.

 

This issue of visibility is why activists have tended to take to the streets rather than quietly go about business behind closed doors.

 

Some social activist tactics to employ can be high-impact, if taking place in a highly visible medium.

 

It may be tilting at windmills, but one thing I would recommend if this were to go ahead would be to:

 

1. Pick a soft issue. Rather than campaign for legalization for recreational use, focus on medical marijuana.

2. Develop a proforma statement. You don't want a bunch of individual replies, as this will likely diffuse the message.

3. Distribute the statement through personal networks, and alert the media to a date when the event will happen (4/20 is nice - tying a protest in with the Nimbin Mardi Grass might be good also, as there are rich visuals for broadcast media available there also).

4. Distribute the message from as many people as possible, in a highly visible medium.

 

On that latter point, you want to use something that is as hard to censor as possible.

 

I'd suggest comment bombing the PM's twitter account and facebook page as a first point of call. These are platforms outside the govt's control, and as such will not be censored.

 

An event where the PM's facebook page and twitter account gets carpet bombed with 1000 very visible public messages will have much greater impact than 1000 letters. Plus, it's a nice story hook for news media. There are built in visuals there (shots of the pages, etc) that will appeal, and online activism is still an interesting enough topic for big media to run with.

 

Ideally, you'd want some sort of 'long tail' resource like a website to refer visitors to to maximise the event impact.