I’m tempted to petition against petitions. And as absurd as that sounds it’s not out of the realms of possibility given some of the things I have seen being signed lately.

In the early days of the online petition (and at the risk of sounding like a woman on a rocking chair on the porch whittling wood and shooing kids off the yard) there was great power in the petition. It felt like signing your name, or giving access to your Facebook page was going to make a great difference. It felt powerful to be able to add your name to the noise and the rabble and stand up for something that you truly believed in or stood for.

There were big issues being petitioned against – torture, detention, child slavery, animal cruelty, oil spills. Huge issues that allowed you to feel part of something, if not a solution at least a support.

But the tide has changed. It seems like everyone has a petition now. Just last week I was asked to sign a petition by a 7-year old for more toys in an elite Eastern Suburbs play centre. I didn’t sign.

And while I make my indifference heard in my silence there are some petitions that just make me laugh with deep anger (not a pleasant sound). For instance one I saw making it’s way around Facebook this morning.

First some background.

Jamila Rizvi was interviewed on The Project after the debacle we have come to know as the US election. Steve Price was on the panel that night as well.

From news.com.au  

“Appearing on the panel of Channel Ten show on Wednesday night, they engaged in a fiery exchange after Price claimed Rizvi interrupted him while they were discussing Hillary Clinton’s loss.
“It shows you that people in real America, in small town America, weren’t buying the bulldust coming out of the elites,” he said, before Rizvi jumped in.
“Sorry, can we cut this bull**** about the idea of there being a ‘real America?’” she hit back.
“I’m sorry, I was speaking before you interrupted,” Price replied tersely.
“Is it okay if I speak?”
After Rizvi pointed out the question was directed at her, he appeared to become more annoyed.
“This is the reason why Donald Trump won,” he said.
“Because people like you lecture and heckle people.”

Immediately after seeing that I tweeted “I’m with Jamila Rizvi” because if I am not a petition fighter I am at the very least vocal about women being able to speak without being called lecturers and hecklers.

I’m with @JamilaRizvi #TheProjectTV

— Lana Hirschowitz (@lanahirschowitz) November 9, 2016

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This morning I saw a petition calling for The Project to apologise to Steve Price live on air. Yes, apologise to Steve Price, the very same man who called Van Badham hysterical on Q&A and refused to apologise for that.

I read the petition and realised the man who penned it is clearly irate. Irate enough to start a petition. Irate enough to elicit that angry laughter that comes when I read something written by someone who so badly wants to reframe something so he looks like the victim.

If we can’t petition against the petition can we at least call for writers of petitions to come up with some substantiated facts or even to sound a tiny bit educated in what they are arguing for. “In every single facebook (sic) post detailing the exchange” it says “the people of Australia have expressed their outrage of the leftist bullying that occurred, coming out in support of the conservative commentator”. Clearly he hadn’t read the Facebook post his own petition was appended to.

Some 30 000 conservatives afraid a TV program could go to air with left leaning views have signed the petition. A petition of which the writer says “at the core of this petition is a person (sic) right to freedom of speech and how political correctness is degrading it. The left have slowly eroded this right to the point that if you do not agree with their opinion, you are branded a racist, sexist or other deformities. Instead of opening a discussion to debate issues, they merely insult and put down.”

Maybe he will start a petition against being decent, I mean political correctness.

It’s these petitions that reach the news and have people giving them power that makes me despair for the petitions that are truly important.

Ever started a petition? How many do you sign a week?

There is a nine-year old girl making news right now for er, breaking news. She’s just nine and she wants to be a reporter. Recently she reported from outside the scene of a murder where she interviewed the police and the neighbours.

There is a whole lot of grief out there about this young girl – how dare she pose as a journalist when she has no experience and has never studied, how can she be reporting outside a murder scene when she is so young, why is she so precocious. Gosh she’s even getting trolled by haters. Yes, you read that right, she’s nine-years-old and she’s getting hate mail.

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