I really don't see what the problem with signing that petition is. I did
it with no problem at all and I do not find the White House petitions
site to be lacking in accessibility. I can only guess that you might
have outdated software. My own software is not the very latest, but I
still had no problem. However, if you do not keep your software up to
date you will find more and more websites do not work for you and more
and more other software will not be compatible with the software you
have. You have a responsibility to yourself to keep your system up to
date and if you shirk your responsibilities to yourself then you can't
claim that someone else who is unaware of your letting your software
getting out of date is discriminating against you. Of course, there is
the possibility that you cannot afford updates to the software that is
not free, but whether you can or not the same thing is going to happen
to you as your software gets further and further out of date. Some of
this may have to do with planned obsolescence and some of it may have to
do with new software being created and the makers of the old software
have to update their versions to be compatible and it may have to do
with new versions coming out to fight security holes. It is that last
one that is the usual excuse. But whatever the excuse it is a problem
that plagues all of us and that includes the NFB and any other
organization that might even think of posting a petition. Another
possible explanation for your having trouble signing that petition might
be your own computer skills. As a person who has had no formal computer
training at all and so has had to figure it all out on my own I have
most certainly faced that problem a lot. Many times I have tried to do
something on the Internet and found myself unable to do it. Then at a
later time I learned something new and realized that the problem was
with my own limited knowledge. It is my responsibility to learn though.
It is not the responsibility of any group who might circulate an on line
petition to teach me or to know exactly where I am lacking and make some
kind of accommodations for my ignorance. This is especially true if the
organization is using a ready made template on a petition site. Again,
you cannot claim that you are being discriminated against because you
shirk your responsibilities to yourself. As to why the NFB chose the
White House petition site for its petition, I can only guess. One reason
might be that the White House does specify a certain level of signatures
that will trigger a response while petitions on other sites can be more
easily ignored and, indeed, are ignored. You should have learned by now
what with all the petition signing that you do that the main purpose of
these petitions is to collect a contact list for requesting donations.
But if I have guessed correctly about why the NFB chose the White House
petition site they are still deluded. Just take a look at past petitions
that have gotten a response. The responses are just public relations
blather. They are intended to placate and never promise any action at
all unless the decision has already been made for other reasons. And
that shows what that petition site is there for. It is a public
relations gimmick. It is to give the citizenry the illusion that their
government is listening to them. You can sign all the on line petitions
you want and if it makes you feel good then go ahead and feel good. It
doesn't result in good though. I signed this one and I have signed a few
others, but usually I don't. It is wasted time.
On 1/20/2016 9:50 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
In my fourth attempt to sign the thing, and by then it was just a personal
challenge to me, I managed to do it following a set of directions about the
extra key strokes to use when you get to the sign button. But even then, I
had to do it over 3 times before it worked. I wonder what the NFB
leadership was thinking when they set this thing up.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of joe harcz Comcast
Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2016 9:05 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: more on NFB petition
Points well taken.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2016 5:06 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] more on NFB petition
One of the more cynical list members wrote.
So far, only about 1500 people have signed this petition, and more than
98,000 more signatures are required by Feb . 11. This is more than the
combined membership of all the blindness advocacy groups in this country
so
it is unlikely that the 100,000 signature threshhold will be met by the
deadline, especially since this petition is not very accessible to begin
with.
They could have used Change or Move On or the other sites that lalow you
to
do your own petition and that are easy for people to use. But perhaps
those
websites are too liberal for NFB?
Miriam
