In my blog post Want to help? How to write to your EU MEP. Read here I led you to a link where Clive Bates tells us how to protest by writing letters.
I did it. I know others who did it too, some at the impetus of my blog and also my video. This is my story.
Clive Bates' link caused my computer to open up Microsoft Mail which I don't do, so I had to copy each e mail address individually from the EU Website and send them off from my own mail box.
My letter was very different - but followed some of his points. I wrote on the 8th February 2014.
I know they went through to the following people because I got one automatic reply from Rebecca Harms telling me "Thank
you for your email. Please take note that our office in the European
Parliament is closed. We will be back on January 7, 2013. For press
requests, please get back to Helmut Weixler: 0032 475671340. eMails
will be checked again as from January 3.
Yours , Büro Rebecca Harms
I wrote to :-
To: President of the European Parliament:Martin Schulz MEP (S&D) [contact form for President]
CC: Political Group Leaders: Joseph Daul MEP (EPP); Hannes Swoboda MEP (S&D); Guy Verhofstadt MEP (ALDE); Rebecca Harms MEP & Daniel Cohn Bendit MEP (Greens-EFA); Gabrielle Zimmer MEP (GUE-NGL); Nigel Farrage MEP & Francesco Enrico Speroni MEP (EFA)
CC: My own MEP - Chris Davies
I wrote different e mails to Chris Davies THREE times.
I have had no acknowledgement from anyone.
If anyone else has had a ripple of life from any of these people who are supposed to represent us, it would be good to know. They meet soon.
I have just become too disillusioned for words. I have always hated the double speak and arse creeping that goes on in politics generally, and the corruption and nepotism that exists in it. The older I get the more I see that democracy does not exist. We fought for two years here in my village to stop "the pole" but it was erected anyway - and we are supposed to be in a "National Park" - protected! I'm sure the financial rewards were extensive for them. But not a penny came to OUR village.
So now I'm going to do absolutely NOTHING! I have to regenerate myself.
I am not holding my breath for a separate discussion/vote
on Article 18. Electronic cigarettes were not placed within
the Tobacco Directive for nothing. There are forces at work much more powerful than any of us - including Clive Bates, who is fighting for something in a vicious system which he, as ASH director got implemented in the first place. I'm hoping he has some clout in the rip-tide of antismoking/antivaping tsunami that has overcome our world. But, frankly, I doubt it.
But I have had enough. Right now I think I am farting against thunder.
I am fighting for the sake of fighting, but you are the best of us. xx
ReplyDeleteWell, I feel alive when I'm fighting, but right now I feel half dead! As @Lisa suggests - I need a recharge. God news would help. Thanks for your comment.
DeleteThis too shall pass (lol), I can completely relate, I have brain dead attacks after inspired days and the eb and flow of a sense that the struggle has an attainable conclusion, but philosophically, that is never reached on the moral coil. So, when it begins to seem like an exercize in futility it is time to recharge, do anything other than activism for our cause. I know you may not realize it fully right now, but all you have done Liz is so appreciated by our community and lives on in our minds and hearts. You have made me laugh and even today, the comedic brilliance of "Farting Against the Wind" LOL is hysterical. There are people that are givers, and there are takers, givers give even when they think they are drained and out of giving, it's your nature. Thank you Liz one of my favorite commentators of all time, with talent and style. :)
ReplyDeleteAaah! Very uplifting! Thank you. Lovely comment.
DeleteI've lost count of the number of emails sent, to recipients in the UK and across Europe... without exaggeration it must be close to 1000 or so over the past eight months... and the number of actual replies and acknowledgements I've received in return? A few dozen. But some of those have been heartening... a small handful even show opinions and minds have been changed... but for sake of argument, let's say that my emails have contributed towards just one single solitary opinion change (in an MP, a journo, an MEP, whoever)... imagine a similar result from hundreds of vapers across Europe... that thought gives me hope. My paltry efforts combined with everyone else... gives me hope. Should it take so much effort to be heard? No. Absolutely bloody not. But you're not alone, Liz... really... and there are many of us that do not publicise our efforts or successes, so they often go unsung and unregarded. If you think you are farting against the wind, try and remember how many other flatulents there are out there... and I have to echo Lisa's comments in so far as to remind you that you are one of the BEST farters we have.
ReplyDeleteOh - my husband will absolutely LOVE that! The best farter? I think he might agree! Oh ha ha - lovely laugh! That really made my day. I actually think, I'm forgetting to laugh - I just remembered! Thank you for your comment.
DeleteLiz, take a break and come back with with smellier farts for them than ever. Send them snail mails if you can: they're harder to ignore. And keep writing on the net: without the spread of information that people like you and Jan and Kevin and James and others have worked on over the last few years, vapers would be isolated and powerless and the antivaping laws would all be solidly in place right now next to the antismoking laws.
ReplyDeleteAnytime you see one of those MPs mentioned in the news, add a comment pointing out that you wrote them on the vaping issue and were IGNORED and refused even the courtesy of a "thanks for your thoughts" response. Point out that elected officials who behave like that should be REMOVED FROM OFFICE.
That's the kind of publicity these people do NOT want to see out there. Particularly if they notice that it's being repeated in different venues in front of different audiences and that it's not simply a one-off-fart.
They do what they do in this area because of the organized pressure of the antismoking organizations: you need to duplicate that pressure from the other side, and the kind of organizing and presenting of presence you do on the net is an important part of that.
Take a break 'n come back fightin' gal!
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "TobakkoNacht -- The Antismoking Endgame"
Thank you Michael.I'm gathering wind right now! Good idea to comment on news stories. I do sometimes - but mentioning NAMES might be good. It's always gratifying to find others are commenting too - farting big so to speak!
DeleteLiz, you wrote, "I'm gathering wind right now! "
ReplyDeleteAhhh! Sounds good! And then you can blow the Antis away with farts that will DROWN their thunder'n'bluster!
:>
MJM
Mmm - don't think so actually. I'm not gathering THAT much. Ha
ReplyDelete