All In All, You’re Just Another Brick In The Wall
The New York Times takes note of the grassroots campaign which has inundated Congress with over 10,000 bricks so far. Meant to symbolize support for a wall, the campaign has been organized by the Send-A-Brick Project.
Leaders of the campaign, which has delivered an estimated 10,000 bricks since it began in April, said they had hit on the idea as a way to emphasize the benefits of a fence along the border with Mexico.
In an age when professionally planned lobbying campaigns have long since overwhelmed spontaneous grass-roots pressure, organizers of the brick brigade said they also saw an opportunity to deliver a missive not easily discarded.
"E-mails are so common now," said Kirsten Heffron, a Virginian who is helping coordinate the effort. "It is really easy for the office to say duly noted, hit delete and never think about it again."
If the impact was notable, so were the logistical difficulties, particularly given the mail screening and other protective measures put into effect at the Capitol after the anthrax attacks of 2001.
I rather suspect the campaign is having an effect. Many Republicans voted against the measure the Senate just passed. I imagine it will stiffen resistance in the House when the conferencing starts. I've been saying all along that building a fence and increasing border security will make a lot of other compromises possible. It will also be a winner at the polls (CNN skewing of samples aside). One quote in the article is something that really should get more attention by the folks on Capitol Hill:
"Given the approval ratings of Congress these days, I guess we should all be grateful the bricks are coming through the mail, not the window," said Dan Pfeiffer, a spokesman for Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana.
There's still time to avoid the bricks through the windows, folks. You really might want to think about that.
By the way, it looks like the bricks will be donated to Habitat For Humanity, a nice place for them to end up.
Immigration Reform, Media, Politics | Gaius May 31, 2006
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Assorted Babble by Suzie — May 31, 2006 @ 8:23 am
By Bricks, May 31, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
‘Build a Protest.’ It would be nice to study exactly how the immigrant protest came into being. Why and who made this an issue? I doubt it was the immigrants, they usually are’nt allowed.