Viral Activism Hits Facebook
Yesterday morning I noted a message from a Facebook friend that:
No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
In the next couple of hours the same message popped up from other friends, many of whom were not directly connected. I updated my status. All through the afternoon more and more friends were doing the same. These folks included the usual political types and included many of liberally inclined Unitarian Universalist acquaintances, but also just a cross section of folks I have known over a long life.
There were many positive comments to the posts, and “likes.” Of course there were a few negative comments, some of them quite harsh and paranoid. But they were overwhelmed by a wave of out-of-no-where grass roots activism.
The phenomenon was not limited to my small circle. It was sweeping Facebook and Twitter as well. It got noticed-by Time.com, MyDD, WireTap Blog among others. Even President Barack Obama’s own Facebook Page gratefully acknowledged the swell of support. At my last visit to his page his entry had generated 72,791 “likes” and 6,970 comments.
Yet this did not originate with him or Organizing for America, issue advocacy groups like Health Care for America NOW!, or the vast activist network of MoveOn.Org, although participants in all of those are undoubtedly involved. No one has yet identified the first post. But it has spread on its own simple power.
People are tired of the screaming, lying and bullying, and of the vacillations in Congress and in the White House. They want their voices heard. And in this simple, dramatic way they have-if only for a moment-drowned out rants of Faux News, the Orwellian double speak of insurance industry shills, the obstructionism of the incredible shrinking Republican Party.
Good for us.