tbc0's posterous

This is a hack on twactivism. I'm not a real secessionist, but I visited petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions and searched for Government Reform petitions. When I wrote this, 40 states had petitions to secede. Some states have more than one petition. This is a perfect example of twactivism, short for Twitter activism, which is a shorthand description for activism [1] that is limited to the Internet, focuses on social media, and results in no direct significant change in the physical world [2]. The badges that twits add to their avatars to express their position on a trendy activist topic is quintessential twactivism. It costs virtually nothing to be a twactivist. All you have to do is twitter about something that a genuine activist would take action on. Or "like" a post on Facebook. A lot of posts on Facebook are twactivist gestures.

So twactivists started these petitions, hosted by the White House. They are symbolic of the divide between the "reds" and the "blues." The "reds" are upset over the Presidential election, which marked a tipping point favoring "big government" Federal intrusion (Obamacare, mostly) into state affairs. The blues are elated. Some reds respond with murmurs of secession. Absurd. There are even two blue petitions created as a reaction to the red petitions: "Strip the citizenship of all those who signed petitions to secede from the United States of America" and "Strip the Citizenship from Everyone who Signed a Petition to Secede and Exile Them." See what I mean? They're all absurd.

The red petitions made a few news headlines this week. That's how I learned about them. My first hack was to sign all of the petitions, and this is my second hack. Here's a snapshot of the numbers. The White House says that petitions with at least 25,000 signatures "require a response." I highlighted the six that require a response and put an exclamation point on the line so you can search or filter. Simply click on any number to see the petition for yourself. All links worked when I first published this post. No guarantees how long that will be true. What kind of response remains to be seen.

Update: I cannot update the numbers fast enough, but as of Sat, 17 Nov 2012 12:18 UTC-7, Colorado's number was accurate. I'm guessing most of these numbers are low.

Alabama 29,539!

Alaska 7,557 3,869

Arizona 22,376

Arkansas 22,237

California 14,221 1,882

Colorado 21,398

Connecticut 3,350

Delaware 7,392

Florida 33,697!

Georgia 12,097 31,199! 7,876

Idaho 5,939

Illinois 4,923

Indiana 20,656

Iowa 4,674

Kansas 3,829

Kentucky 18,302

Louisiana 36,139

Maine 3,882

Maryland 3,591

Massachusetts 3,759

Minnesota 5,241

Mississippi 17,939

Missouri 13,430

Montana 13,035

New Hampshire 5,234

New Jersey 13,798

New York 8,126

North Carolina 29,515!

Ohio 11,247 8,238 4,019

Oklahoma 17,487 9,165

Pennsylvania 13,143 8,658

Rhode Island 4,445

South Carolina 23,385

Tennessee 30,193!

Texas 113,377!

Utah 7,947 6,489

Virginia 8,320 4,729 4,975

Washington 4,030

West Virginia 7,474

Wyoming 8,762

Edited to fix typos and to emphasize that the numbers link to the petitions.

[1] I found it interesting that the word activism is less than a hundred years old, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

[2] Secondary effects cannot be avoided, though. I won't argue the fact that twactivism raises awareness in readers' minds. That awareness can result in effective activism.