The HIDDEN LETTER BOX BUTTON can only be found if you OPEN the "READ MORE" button and scroll down to the bottom left of the "Overview".

For Petition Authors/Signers/Recruiters
The requirement to fulfill this pledge is to really read it n give some serious consideration to these things.
There is no requirement to agree with my viewpoints/suggestions/etc but I encourage comments, debates, obsrervations, etc.
The purpose of this pledge is to seek ways to accomplish more ... create bigger impacts with the work we do.
In many cases, we activists arrive fired up n hot t trot ... we often gallop along at unsustainable paces n at a certain point most of us poop out and/or become disillusioned to some degree or other, sooner or later.

Now try to put yourself in the shoes of our legislators, our President n their staffs ...
If you received continuous onslaughts of petitions about the same things from the same people all the time, how long would you continue to REALLY READ them?
How many repetitive petitions do WE REALLY READ?
Our representatives n mis-representatives n President rarely read ANYTHING we send them.
It is impossible.
Their staffs do the reading n make recommendations.

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I think that debates should come BEFORE votes ... common sense, logic ... therefore:
    I think it is a mistake to separate blogging and actions.
    I think it is a mistake to not be able to make public comments on the same pages as PETITIONS.
    I think it is a mistake to not allow comments from people who have NOT signed petitions or pledges.
However these are our limitations here that we must find ways to work around.

With any PETITION, there IS a small but effective way around one aspect of this limitation ...
IF YOU DO NOT CHECK THE BOX TO ALLOW SIGNEES TO EDIT YOUR PETITION, THEY WILL AUTOMATICALLY BE ALLOWED TO ADD A COMMENT IF THEY WISH and can make a choice as to whether or not their comment can be seen publicly.
    These INDIVIDUAL comments are DIFFERENT so they are more likely to be read n taken seriously.
    They also allow those of us with a few disagreements to still sign petitions that we MOSTLY agree with because we can make our reservations/additions clear to the targets AND to each other.
Thoughtful reservations are very important to pay attention to and debate.
    Further, when these comments can be read publicly, they help us make connections with each other, get to know each other, share different viewpoints with each other, DEVELOP SOLIDARITY, eventually leading to synthesis of new approaches to try.

SOLIDARITY IS KEY TO EFFECTIVE ADVOCACY and we cannot achieve it if we cannot understand each other.
Indeed, the powers that be are terrified of SOLIDARITY and that is probably the main reason why there is soooo much secrecy and obfuscation, lying and propaganda, fear mongering and hate mongering out there ... {beside the fact that they have something to hide!}.
They stop at nothing to do everything they can to drive us apart, make us mistrust each other, ... to prevent us from comparing notes n discovering that we indeed share common feelings, common concerns, etdEtcETC. ... in other words, THEIR MAIN MISSION IS TO PREVENT SOLIDARITY.
Theirs is a quiet war against us, a mind war, a campaign to undermine the best in us and bring out the worst, individually and collectively.
Being aware of this enables us to better n more easily counteract it WITHIN and AMONG ourselves.
Indeed, this is part of the meaning of "BE THE CHANGE" ...

Far more than half our work is to educate each other and spread the info to other people.
It should be OBVIOUS by now that most of "our" gov is NOT acting in accordance with the petition requests/demands they receive.
Indeed, we seem to be completely ignored on many issues.
Don't kid yourself tho, ... we are NOT being ignored.
    First, many strongly opposed bills with supposed vote deadlines have been endlessly postponed/stalled and/or tossed ... for instance recent progress with banning mountaintop removal coal mining, tossing of some bad food safety bills, getting single payer closer to being put on the table ...
    Second, everything we say is being OBSERVED by "higher powers" ... the keepers of the public records have access to ALL ... tho they cannot read EVERYTHING either.
These observations are NOT being made by "our" gov per se ... thus I call these observers "higher powers" not to be confused with the twelve step Spiritual meaning of a "Higher Power". 

To understand a bit more about what I am referring to, do some research on the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group for a start.
You can also direct your research toward FOLLOWING THE MONEY ... you may be surprised how many orgs have corporate sponsors. ... why? because it is the only way they can continue to exist in these days when ALL the "money" {coinage and paper} we see is really DEBT.
This is because "our" gov is so deep in debt that the money they "create" has no foundation built upon goods n services to support it ... fantasy finance ... borrowing from Peter to pay Paul ... future generations are 'Peter' n the Global Dominance Group is 'Paul'.
I have a theory that the orgs that slam us the most with replications {esp those where we can sign the same petition multiple times} n have the most spam, the most waste esp in the form of snail mail requests for donations, super fancy sites, lots of commercial biz, etc are probably most likely to be corporate sponsored ...
Other orgs generally cannot afford these kinds of  SLICK, high priced advertising strategies.

The "higher powers" control almost ALL the REAL money on the planet.
The "higher powers" want to SEE what we say so that they can prepare themselves to deal with it without giving us what we are asking for AND without revealing their hand in it ... so that they can always be learning better how to MANIPULATE us n con us in a myriad of ways ... but mostly thru mainstream media propaganda aimed at the lowest common denominator ("Manufactured Consent") and thru ECONOMIC MANIPULATION.
If you get a chance to see Michael Moore's new flick you will understand that the destruction of our economy {and ALL economies in the world btw} is being done ON PURPOSE.
The purpose behind this is to CONTROL us and CONTINUE to rip us all off until there is nothing left because they have it ALL.
AT which point we are all "expendable" to them.

Please understand that I am neutral about "conspiracy" theories.
I do not automatically believe that the powers that be are organized and have solidarity among themselves to "take over the world". 
Neither do I automatically believe however that they do not WANT to do so and share a common "special interest" to rip off whatever they can ... this is the purpose behind mainstream media censorship, "propaganda" and advertising.
If you automatically associate the Trilateral Commission with "conspiracy" theories, that is your own set of associations based on whatever info you have seen so far.
There MAY be some truth to them and there may not ... we cannot yet KNOW for sure since they are soooo secretive.


The terminology "Global Dominance Group" comes from a research paper: 
  "The Global Dominance Group: 9/11 Pre-Warnings & Election Irregularities in Context" By Peter Phillips, Bridget Thornton and Celeste Vogler.
​ action@ucsusa.org
which can be found by searching the Union of Concerned Scientists site ... I am not sure if I have the right email addy here.

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TARGETS:
There have been quite a few cases where selected targets are inappropriate.
It is important to understand that local, state, federal govs have jurisdiction over different things.
    If we slam the wrong targets, they are more likely to stop listening to us when we happen to send them petitions that ARE in their jurisdiction.
    Further, sending things to the wrong targets allows them to make more lame excuses about why they do not take actions on the things that ARE in their jurisdictions.
Most of the time, common sense and taking a little bit of time to employ it is all that is necessary to choose the appropriate targets.

It is also important to realize that when our target is another country, organization or individual ... please do NOT send the petition to US or state gov officials.
In these cases, a specific email address is necessary and I urge petition authors to do a test run FIRST to see if the email addies they have found REALLY WORK.
I have repeatedly received notices that messages were not deliverable ... and I can therefore feel reticent to sign "custom" targetted petitions.
{Do not beat yourself up over this ... established orgs do it too upon occasion!}

All of the above has resulted in a limitation of targets per petition we are allowed here on ch.o which can be a real pain in the butt for everyone when an occasional petition really needs to go to state AND federal gov officials for instance.
It is very important to not contribute to burn-out esp among ourselves.
There may be very little we can do about targets which claim to be "out of the office" etc ... except to take note of who they are and seek other targets who have influence over the specific issue entailed.

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REPLICATIONS:
This is a highly debatable issue.
At this point my sense is that it is probably more effective to find one or two that seem really strong on each issue and recruit the `BLEEP!` out of em. 
This of course will end up being ultimately decided by a democratic process because different people will feel that different petitions are stronger than others when they recruit.

A few reasons why I have come to this conclusion:
    1. I think if we can get MORE DIFFERENT SIGNATURES ON A SINGLE PETITION addressing a particular issue, it will be more effective than numerous replications signed by the same avid activists over n over.
    2. When an action REACHES A CERTAIN NUMBER OF SIGNATURES, IT WILL BEGIN TO RECRUIT ITSELF, because it will then be displayed on "most popular" indices front pages - right there, easy to find for those who do not visit the site very often. This requires that we keep petitions open for a long time and that we set our signature goals high. There is one petition in particular that I really want to sign for instance but I cannot because it has reached its signature limit of 100 {actually, 108 have been allowed to sign, but I have no idea how many others besides me have tried ... it must be at least a few}. I tried to contact the petition author asking  them reopen it n increase the signature goal but have received no answer yet. I considered trying to repost it but there was some obstacle which I do not remember at the moment without going back and looking at it again. 
There is probably nothing we can do about "hit n run" petition authors other than report that their petitions need to be closed. They are long gone and perhaps even have communications from ch.o completely blocked.  There is a 'REPORT' button bottom left on each action.
    3. We will cause and experience LESS BURN OUT ... and/or have a means to take temporary breaks without letting whole issues slide thru the cracks.

I am not discouraging people to sign a lot of replications ... these also serve their purposes. PLEASE SEE CALARIFICATION OF THIS BELOW IN THE COMMENTS.
I am merely suggesting a course of action to add a further level of impact and better harnass the input of those who do not have the time and/or energy and/or motivation to keep up with all the actions.

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RECRUITING:
I strongly recommend, to those who have the time, energy, desire to make more of an impact, that we make new friends whenever possible specifically for the purpose of recruiting.
We are allowed to send a max of 10 friend requests per 24 hours.
I really think we need TWO lists, one for 'just friends' and one specifically for recruiting with the option of  anyone being on BOTH lists.
Since this is not available, those of us who recruit heavily must find practical compromises. Many of these will happen quite naturally.
    1. I think it is important to INCLUDE AT LEAST A FEW FRIENDS WHO FOCUS ON CAUSES THAT ARE NOT OUR MAIN FOCUSES BUT CAUSES WE WANT TO SUPPORT so that they can help us keep up to date on actions in causes where we do not spend much time. Ideally, these will be friends who want to keep up with our focuses but do not spend much time in those causes.
    2. I think it is important to MAKE THE BULK OF OUR RECRUITING LISTS A GROUP WHICH HAS THE SAME OR SIMILAR FOCUSES AS WE DO so that we do not waste time  -- sending invitations to those who will not accept them and/or -- trying to keep track of skipping over certain people when we are sending invitations. I tried to keep track at first but found it was mostly impossible. We also want to be considerate of each other and not slam each other with things we do not want ... this is important to help each other not reach burn out states. This is a very complicated issue with many incalculable variables and I cannot claim to have solved all the details, tho I am continuing to work on it.  
    3. I think it is important for EACH OF US GET TO KNOW OUR OWN PERSONAL LIMITATIONS of how much each of us as individuals can deal with in terms of receiving and sending invitations.
    4. I think that WHEN OUR LISTS BECOME TOO LONG TO DEAL WITH, WE NEED TO REMOVE SOME NAMES, namely those people who NEVER accept our invitations. In the course of something like this, we also need to learn how to NOT TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY. This is not personal and has nothing to do with "rejection" of someone as a person or as a friend. If/when we have time, a personal note to each one we intend to remove is a good idea. Some people may surprise us by suddenly becoming very active again ... others will have a chance to let us know they were merely on vacation or something for a certain period of time .... etc, ... many unforeseeable possibllities.  However, it is probably just a waste of time trying to reach someone who has not been active for a looooong time or who has NEVER been active.  But some of them can surprise us too. Ya nevah know if ya nevah give it a shot.
    5. I think it is important right from the start to MAKE CLEAR TO NEW FRIENDS WHAT OUR MAIN PURPOSES FOR OUR LISTS ARE , ESP IF THE MAIN PURPOSE IS RECRUITING, so that they can make their OWN decisions about whether or not they want to remain on our lists or perhaps seek others who are more active in their main focuses, etc ...  
    6. I think it is important to understand that AFTER YOU HAVE REMOVED SOMEONE FROM YOUR LIST, THEY MAY REAPPEAR ON IT WHEN THEY TAKE AN ACTION THAT YOU SENT THEM AN INVITATION TO PREVIOUSLY ...This does not necessarily mean that they actually received the invitation from you. They may have their invitation channel blocked or may have received an invitation from someone else who also sent one for the same action. This does not mean they will continue to be active, but it is worth waiting awhile to see.
This also means that if you have been removed from a list that you really want to receive invitations from, all you need to do is to accept one of the invitations you have received. However I would like to suggest that you try to be considerate of recruiters with long lists if you do not intend to accept almost any of their invitations ... because it can be extremely time-consuming and tedious work to recruit long lists, esp when an attempt is made to be selective and skip the people who do not take actions in certain categories. 
    7. I think it is important to PURGE OURSELVES OF EMBARRASSMENT FOR BOOBOOS N NOT JUDGE THE BOOBOOS OF OTHERS ... We are here to learn from each other, from our successes AND from our mistakes, the latter of which are often the most effective ways to really learn something. We are here to do experiments and try things and combine ideas in search of ever more effective ways to "make a difference" in beneficial directions. If something does not work, make note of it so as not to repeat the mistake and instead try something different. I do however recommend removing our own mistakes whenever possible to keep the board as uncluttered as possible.  

I think it is not at all important to concern ourselves with whether or not we share recruitees with other people's lists ... the ch.o invitation system is set up quite well with respect to this.

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There is no such thing as "failure" as long as we continue to learn. The only real "failure" is giving up, which is what "they" want us ALL to do; it is part of the agenda of the mind wars.

Again, please feel free to comment about things you see about these things.
Thanks for your patience since this is not a good example of "LESS IS MORE" to say the least! LOL
N thank you for your determination to read/understand n the b@lls to apply new ideas, get involved n try new things.

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