I know it’s been approximately a million years since I’ve posted here, but nothing inspires me quite like our political regime administration, and today I am particularly inspired.
Today I took the time to write President Bush an email. Not because I thought he would ever read it, of course, but because I was under the impression that somebody must have the job of tallying feedback and making people like me feel as though our opinions matter.
Perhaps I’m spoiled, but when I write David Price a letter, an email, or even sign my name on a petition to him, I get a letter from his office. A real letter, printed on paper, addressed to me, using formal English, thanking me for making him aware of my specific concern. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled if North Carolinians are so enthusiastic about the democratic process and David Price can’t get to all his letters, emails, and petitions directly. I am satisfied to get feedback that makes it clear that somebody read what I had to say.
In contrast, the following is a message to me from comments@feedback.gov, in response to an email I spent 20 minutes crafting:
To: [me]
From: comments
10:20 am
On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence.
We appreciate hearing your views and welcome your suggestions.
Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the White House cannot respond to every message.
Are you kidding me? You couldn’t be bothered to write a subject for this email? Not even something generic like “Thank you for your comments”? Really? You couldn’t configure a return sender or sign a name, to imply that someone in particular is responsible for making sure that these emails are read by someone who can pass along a message like, “Hey Mr. President, we received 6 billion emails today from people who think it’s bullshit that a woman crossed an ocean to beg you to speak out about China arresting her brother for his religion and throwing him into a forced labor camp where he’ll be held until someone puts a bid on his organs, at which point they’ll kill him like thousands of others, and instead of expressing real concern, you said ‘I’m sorry,’ and walked away… so you might want to schedule a press release and do a little damage control…”?
Am I overreacting here? It seems almost intentionally rude to me. Granted, the kinds of people who write letters to their representatives are by and large not the ones who put Bush in the White House, but damn. You can’t even try?
edit: I consulted Google with hope of getting a statistic on how many emails are sent to the White House a year and found this. Fantastic!
In happier news, the reason I haven’t posted in a while is that I’ve been working on a project that I will announce here shortly. Stay tuned!