Petitions at WhiteHouse.gov

So the white house has a site for submitting and voting on petitions. If a petition receives enough signatures it gets forwarded to a policy goon for comment. So far the comments have been formulaic and brush-offs. Even so, I think its worth putting the petitions out there as a way of making your voice heard on a national level.

I've created one petition so far, it took me a couple hours to get the right word-smithing. They've shortened the description to 800 characters and upped the signature requirement to 25,000 in 30 days in order to get an official response. I've got a few more petitions rolling around in the back of my head, but who knows if others will agree with what I see enough to sign my petition.

So I'm choosing to break the silence on the social-media front. My first petition is a plee to change the voting system in the US. I'll refrain from repeating my arguments here, you can follow the link at the bottom of this message or copy and past this: http://wh.gov/bWe

Right now we vote for 1 candidate out of many. What I am proposing is we move to an Approval Voting system. (Use google or wikipedia to do research). Essentially we would have the option to say yes/no to each candidate. I think this would improve the situation through allowing us to vote for third-parties and independents without sacrificing a vote for one of the primary parties. We're stuck in a 2-party system because of our voting structure. In order to change our political climate we have to ultimately change how we cast votes.

If you agree with me, please follow the link to my petition at whitehouse.gov, create an account if you don't have one, and sign my petition, and then post this request in facebook/google+ to get others to sign who might be interested.

I've wanted so long for there be a way to actually express our thoughts to someone in the government who might be listening. This petition website is one of the few ways I know about to actually interact with the government apart from stalking your congressman.

If you feel inspired:
1) Follow Link,
2) Create An Account
3) Sign The Petition
4) Forward This Request (or your version of it).

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petition...idate/Jcx62R8g

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There ya go Top ... now you only need 24, 997 :)

Thanks Kate! :-)

It won't get displayed to the front page until there are 150 votes on it, so I'm trying to email different organizations on the net to get their subscriber base to vote on it.

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Just to let others know who try to vote .. the link provided via email (to activate registration) didn't work for me, however i simply copy/pasted the password (provided in the email) into the sign in box on the site and added my email address and it still allowed me to vote!

I'll be checking this out!

If we look at the Revolution in Egypt...a country that in the whole of a 5000 year history has never once been free -- it has always been under the heel of dictator -- is it any surprise that freedom has not come?

Abolish slavery and what do you get? In the U.S. you got the sharecropping system and the company store. In Mexico you got the encomienda. The dictatorship of the proletariat lost the proletariat somewhere along the way. Fidel overthrew the dictator Batista and became king for life. The pattern repeats consistently throughout history, in all times and places.

The year 2021 will mark the death of an old cycle and the birth of a new one in U.S. history. It will be a year of what I will call "great unrest," pivotal in our course as a country. As it stands today, this country -- it's system -- is corrupted beyond remedy. That is why the country has entered its period of decline, from which it is doubtful it will recover.

Good luck in reforming the electoral system. Keep in mind that Joseph P. Kennedy told two of Boston's leading politicos, in 1947, that John would become President in 1960. Joe Kennedy bought the White House for his son as a means of fulfilling his personal ambitions. Dead people, being great patriots, often vote three times.

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." -- Mao

[norseman]

UK is having some success with petitions. Not just on the government site either. The official site states that any petition with more than 100k signatures will be debated in Westminster. But our biggest success was with a private group called 38 Degrees - on the Privatisation of Forests Bill, we forced a withdrawal with a half million signatures. It does work if you stick at it. 38 Degrees also had us all writing to our members of Parliament along the lines of "vote against this or else ! We will remember in the next election" Nothing works better with these people than outright threats.

Originally Posted by Greybeard

As it stands today, this country -- it's system -- is corrupted beyond remedy. That is why the country has entered its period of decline, from which it is doubtful it will recover.

I agree with you. I actually think things have to come to a grinding halt in order for real change, incremental improvements don't fix anything because the incremental evolution doesn't break free of the original architecture. The trouble I'm having is, in the event of a halt, a break down, an opportunity to reconstruct from ashes, what do we put in place? Without struggling to find a working system, without trying to improve the status quo, we won't have the experiential and theoretical knowledge to architect a sustainable, equitable, and holistic structure. So we're stuck trying to salvage a sinking ship, not for the purpose of saving the ship, but for the purpose of understanding how to build a ship that floats sustainably.

[Verunia]

I've signed a lot of petitions, and two have been immediately turned down so far. It's disappointing- especially one petition that had 75,000 signers. I'll sign yours though!