The Volunteer Media

Along with many other Americans I desperately want to be able to help my country at this critical time. But what can one person do? Well one person really can’t do much. However, given the wonders of modern technology a group of people can.

A few weeks ago I realized that there was at least one tangible thing that a group of us could do that just might make a difference. Now it might make no difference at all, but I for one will rest a lot easier knowing that I tried.

A little over a month ago a CBS News/New York Times poll asked the question: “Have the Republicans in Congress clearly explained their plans for health care reform”. Only 14% said yes. Whether or not you trust this poll, that number says a lot.

Though it doesn't say this explicitly, this poll hints strongly at the fact that many Americans don’t realize that there is an alternative to the ridiculous bills that the Democrats in Washington are putting forward. They feel something needs to be done and since they aren’t seeing the alternative these people are telling pollsters they support these bills. There are alternatives though, and for a week or two now (using twitter mainly) I’ve been trying to get one of them out there (http://www.smallbill.org/).

Now for obvious reasons the MSM is not going to spend much time advertising these alternatives. But this does not mean that WE THE PEOPLE can’t inform our neighbors ourselves. Some towns have volunteer fire departments. We MUST be the volunteer media.

All we have to do is simply put it in front of the American people. Through whatever means you can think of – twitter, facebook, whatever. Tweet it to trending topics, etc. The idea here is not to preach to the choir. The idea is to inform America. Let them know there is another way. The MSM won’t do it, so it is up to us.

If you know of some other bill than tweet that, and I’ll be happy to help you. I’ve been tweeting the “small bill” because I like it and haven’t felt the need to look for another. If we could just get say 1,000 people to tweet to popular tags/trending topics every few hours over the weeks ahead we could make a difference. Who knows, even 50 – 100 people tweeting this regularly could help. The key here is persistence.

People have been doing great work tweeting/writing/faxing Congressmen etc., but what these people really care about is polls. We can message them all day, but if the polls don’t move they won’t care. Not to mention the act of informing Americans alone, regardless of what the ultimate result is on Capitol Hill, would be a benefit to the country. And it is totally irrelevant what the opposition thinks of this. We are simply informing people. DOING WHAT THE “JOURNALISTS” SHOULD BE DOING. Americans can decide for themselves. A novel idea, I know.

I really hope we can get these ideas out there. Too many people have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice for this great country, for us not to be able to do something as simple as this.