Do you think online petitions don't work?

In 2007 Snopes debunked the idea that online petitions were worth the time it took to forward an email.

A misdirected petition is of no more use than an undirected one - though the voices it contains may be shouting, they won't be heard.

According to Snopes.com, the average e-petition isn't worth the pixels used to create it, but stated the popularity of online petitions comes from the instant sense of relief for people who otherwise feel helpless to impact the world or its policy makers.

A popular online petition site is change.org. It addresses concerns about the validity and potency of online petitions this way:

...what if you started to receive emails from each of your neighbors asking you to mow your lawn more often? Or, what if your company received thousands of emails from valued customers asking you to use a different supplier for your parts? How quickly would you act? That’s the unique thing about creating an online petition on Change.org: when you specify an email address for your target, each time a supporter signs your petition, an email is automatically sent directly to that person. Governments, companies and individuals value their reputations and feel accountable to their neighbors, constituents and customers. When hundreds or even thousands of emails arrive in their inboxes, the message is very hard to ignore.

iPetitions.com states:

Online petitions can be a very effective way of gathering support for a cause you care about and drawing attention to that cause. Many of our petition hosts have gathered tens and even hundreds of thousands of signatures on their petitions—petition recipients have had to stand up and take notice! To be truly effective in creating change, however, you need to be actively involved in promoting your petition.

Both sites emphasize the need for the petitioner to move beyond creating the document. If the petition is not promoted and promoted and promoted, it truly is worth no more than the pixels from which it came. Email, social networks and word of mouth are all necessary to make a petition take precedence when the emails do reach the inbox of the person working on behalf of the organization targeted for action. The sites also stress the importance of reaching out to officials through personal emails and even postal mail - yes, the old fashioned kind of mail that is written on paper and sent through the USPS inside an envelope, paid for with a postage stamp. Phone calls are also effective. If you wish to reach someone and draw attention to your concern, don't stop until you have exhausted all of your options.

The beauty of online petitions is that sometimes, the media picks up on these issues and runs a story. Sometimes, the media runs a story that leads to the petition. Often, if the issue affects enough people, these events run simultaneously.

Such is the case with the United States Navy and its enlisted personnel. Media knows, the sailors know and now, thanks to online petitioning and social networking, many more civilians know that during the final months of 2011,  two enlisted retention boards evaluated nearly 15,386 sailors ranked E-4 through E-8, who have served between seven and 15 years in 31 overmanned ratings. The week after Thanksgiving, 2,947 sailors learned they will be involuntarily separated from the Navy on Sept. 1, 2012.

Some have resigned themselves to finishing out their broken contracts, but many are outraged. They had planned their lives around retiring from the Navy after serving 20 years. Some bought homes after their most recent re-enlistments, certain they would retire and settle down in their current locations and expecting to receive military pensions and continued benefits for life. Instead, during the height of the holiday season, they discovered they have until the end of August to adjust to the idea of being a civilian , through the summer to attend classes and transition to a new way of life - and look for employment.

Sailors Against ERB is a Facebook community page that decided to create petitions online at change.org and on the WhiteHouse.gov site, hoping to impact the policy makers at what sailors call "Big Navy" and within our government. The group is taking the petitions straight to the Commander in Chief. The group is also encouraging the thousand or so members to share the word, spread the word, and talk the words to their families, friends, colleagues and elected officials. It even has links to the House of Representatives and Congress, as do I in a previous post.

Whether or not you believe in the cause of Sailors Against ERB, whether or not you believe in the power of online petitions and whether or not you decide to sign a petition, I urge you to find that within you that makes you want to take action and do so. Find a cause worth supporting and support it with all your being. Seek out that which brings you joy or riles you. Take steps to spread the joy or soothe the anger. Do something. Let people know where you stand. If you're not sure, come stand beside me. I tend to get things done!


  

Let's be fair

I've been called a blogger in ways that make the word sound disgusting. One commenter called me over-protective. Another used the term overbearing and several have called my son anything from a brat to a little whiner or a mommy's boy. One even said members of the airwing were like rockstars in hotels. Why all the name calling?

I've read comments from strangers who suggested that I tossed out an incorrect number of years my son has served. Yeah, yeah. I know he's a grown man, pointed out in one blog as a 30-something Petty Officer who should know better than to cry to mommy when things aren't pristine and perfect. That blogger also suggested I should have kept quiet, rather than detract from the ship's true mission while on deployment.

I will admit I don't understand military life, especially ship life. That doesn't mean I can't become righteously outraged as a taxpayer and patriotic American when I believe our deployed military deserve to be able to relieve themselves without having to search for a head, only to find it locked.

I never intended to detract from the mission of the USS George HW Bush or to minimize its military might or position in the fleet. My only intention was to voice my concern as a taxpayer - more than my opinion as a mother - that there is something inherently wrong with a $6.2 Billion aircraft carrier that did not have a back up plan for the most basic of human needs. I don't mind for one minute, spending the taxpayers' money on ships as technologically advanced and powerful as the USS George HW Bush. I know the need for a show of force in the world.

My son's first deployment was on one of the older carriers, so why not end his career on the newest? When I started hearing about the toilets - and not just from my son - but from other Navy Moms, Navy Wives, Navy Dads and Navy Husbands - even from friends of sailors on the ship - I became annoyed, then upset, then angry. When our loved ones are suffering, we suffer at home, too.

Maybe starting my blog wasn't the wisest decision I have ever made. Perhaps, I shouldn't have sent the link to my blog to quite so many media outlets, but when I found out about the locks, I think it unlocked my rational thinking. I couldn't imagine there would be something so barbaric happening in the 21st century. What blows my mind is how many people have visited my site and have linked it to their own blogs or news stories - people I did not contact.

Samuel Johnson said, "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company."

Born at the beginning of the 18th century, Mr. Johnson had no clue about aircraft carriers. The Wright brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk would come nearly a century later.

My point is that with strict instructions to relieve themselves only in working heads - and for a short time, those heads being locked - the men and women on board the USS George HW Bush may as well have been prisoners confined to POW cells.

It's unfortunate that people have resorted to blame, name calling and finger pointing. Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda....

Still, here are some amusing and some poignant comments I found.

On Old Salt Blog:
Bill Whalen says: November 16, 2011 at 11:57 pm
NCIS is investigating this but they have nothing to go on.

Steven Toby says: November 18, 2011 at 9:56 am
I’m remembering similar reports on the vac-u-flush system first installed in Spruance class destroyers in 1977. By the time I did sea trials in 2 different CG 47 class cruisers (same basic design as the Spruances, in the 1980′s) the system worked perfectly. But carriers of that time had an older system with gravity drainage. Is the Bush system the first installation of vacuum flushing on a carrier? Maybe the equipment can’t handle the larger extent of piping? Whatever the problem, 6 months is plenty of time to fix it. Crewpeople shouldn’t have to relieve themselves over the lee rail.

Comments on the report on Neptunus Lex led me to research Dr. Samuel Johnson's full quote.

MikeD November 15, 2011 at 8:15 am
Unless they’ve taken to flushing cloth towels down the commode, any toilet that is rendered inoperable by what those sailors are flushing is too damn delicate to be on a warship.

SK1 November 15, 2011 at 8:16 am
This issue was a key one in AFGHN. IF you found working toilets, it was a miracle of sorts and also IF they were usable. PORT-A-POTTIES were the norm, and imagine what those were like after sitting in the 120 degree heat for a few hours/ days…..They had a firm there to take care of it but no amount of effort ever made it adequate…..I can imagine the same issue on a ship would be intolerable….

This may be my favorite:

Busbob November 15, 2011 at 8:13 am
“When used properly, the system works as designed,” the Navy said. “Ongoing education is a key part of the solution, ensuring that all hands understand the appropriate use of the system.”
Bulls***. Put the design engineers on the ship. Feed them well. Water them well. The “Ongoing education” they get will get whilst searching for a suitable relief station should lead to action, not words.

Blogger is not a dirty word

After reading Captain Luther's message to "Families and Friends," comments were decidedly for or against one version of the truth. Fence riders did not take a stand. I used to ride the fence about many issues. I thought that by remaining neutral, I could remain objective. I wanted to keep an unemotional detachment, but what's right is right; I believe I did the right thing, the right way. Being civilian, my chain of command is limited to my workplace and that happens to be the media. I didn't have any special connections. I have the skills and the determination to research and reach out.

One person I know who has never opted to ride the fence had this to say in response to the skipper's letter:

oh wow. I think it's interesting that you are only referred to as "the blogger." He might have well called you any other name, like the insurgent, for how he was picturing your presentation of information. I found it interesting that he tried to use factual information to back up his retort - however, when you really analyze the information given, it doesn't make anything better. If the #1 cause of the problem is sailors flushing objects that shouldn't, then provide some means for them to dispose of material that is biologically hazardous.

She's right. I'm not just "the blogger." Captain Luther knows very well who I am and which sailor is my son. I have never tried to hide, because I have never had a reason to hide behind a "blogger" name. Ten days ago, I started a mission to bring attention to the fact that every sailor on board the USS George HW Bush, at some time, did not have access to any working head and that some sailors on that ship were unable to perform basic bodily functions due to a system failure for which the United States Navy did not have any sort of contingency or backup plan. When I started this, I had no idea how it would spread, I just knew that as an American, I had the right, nay, the obligation and the responsibility to speak out for the sailors and the taxpayers. Ten days ago, only a few hundred people in my circle of family and friends knew my name. Today, this site alone has been viewed more than 4,000 times. Thank you for reading!

In addition to the thousands who have read this blog, many others have read my writer, editor and photographer website - found only through search engines. I sent this site address out with 700 or so press releases, but the Navy found my other site and started circulating that link. Many Navy Wives and Moms, and a few Navy Dads told me their sailor had forwarded the link to them. That site has generated more hits than this one!

Navy Times and Virginian-Pilot reporters scrambled to get the scoop after interviewing me, sailors on board "the Bush" and after contacting AIRLANT and the Navy for comment. Once their stories hit the wire, other media picked up the story. Some headlines reflect the unfortunate humor behind the catastrophe. Others take this very seriously. Navy Times and Virginian-Pilot have run follow up stories.

I haven't discussed toilets or body functions with or in reference to my son so much since he was a toddler - even then, I probably wasn't as vocal as I am now!

Blogger is not a dirty word. I am not an anonymous entity hiding behind a meme or clever user name. I am Mary Brotherton. Foremost I am a mother. I burst with pride when I speak of my firstborn son, a career sailor with the United States Navy, war veteran and skilled aviation mechanic. Like it or not, his name has spread on his ship. I felt and expressed publicly, his frustrations when is attempts to follow the Chain of Command weren't met to his satisfaction. The Virginian-Pilot story took his anonymity from him. AM1 Richard Frakes is the father to my grandsons and brother to my other source of pride. Aron Matthew Frakes is my lastborn son, a talented author and illustrator. I have the honor of editing his first novel, Prob'ly Not Katie.

In addition to being a mother and blogger, I am a four-time award-winning journalist, a three-time award-winning editor and my photography has been noted and earned awards as well. I'm also an actress. I founded my own writers group and work with emerging writers some might call "up-and-coming." I'm much more than an unnamed blogger.

I'm a wife, a sister, a daughter, a cousin, an aunt, a friend. I guess, now, I'm also an advocate. Go ahead. Google me. See what you find.