Dear MoveOn.Org Intern

I got yet ANOTHER MoveOn.org email asking me to sign yet ANOTHER petition. This was my response email. Dear MoveOn.org Intern, SO let's be real. I'm gonna make a MASSIVE bet that you are an intern. HI INTERN! Right now your "job" is to read through emails. I'm sorry. No really, that is a pretty thankless job. Actually, in my experience, being an INTERN is a thankless job. It's also mostly PAYLESS. My guess is you probably care a lot about what is going on in the world. My guess is everything seems a little bit off to you. Why in God's name are there people starving when we have a food surplus? Why are the national politicians arguing about issues our High School text books say we already settled? Why do the people "representing" us not understand what rape is? Why is the burden of the state of the world resting on your shoulders? Why does the good, healthy delicious food that grows out of the ground cost so damn much money? Why does a landlord collect all your wages once a month so that you can live in a shelter? WHY DO YOU HAVE A WATER BILL WHEN WATER FALLS FROM THE GODDAMN SKY??????? These are excellent questions, and very good reasons to get involved in activism. Unfortunately I have very bad news for you. MoveON.org is NOT activism. WAIT!!! STOP THE PHONE!!! DON"T MOVE THAT MOUSE!!!! I know that is an incredibly rude thing for me to say to you, not knowing you, but just let me get a little farther along before you abandon my email. Here's the deal. The petitions are NOT feeding the hungry. The petitions are NOT challenging the cultural norms. The petitions are NOT changing the world we live in. They just aren't. I know somewhere deep in that compassionate heart of yours you probably know this to be true. Just think about it for a minute. The voting drives and anti-Romney events are absolutely NOT feeding people. They are not stopping the ecologically destructive machine that's killing nearly every species on the planet. They are NOT representing the people. YOU KNOW THIS. Here's the thing. You deserve to do work that makes you feel good about yourself, that makes you feel whole, that meets your needs and helps meet the needs of others. THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN IN AN OFFICE. You HAVE to get out of the office. While you still have the PASSION that is required to help stop the cogs in the machine, GET OUT OF THE OFFICE. PLEASE. Your recognition that this is thankless, payless, pointless work is actually incredibly important. You are being tricked. Tricked into a false outlet for your feelings of guilt. You are not alone. We ALL feel guilty. We SHOULD feel guilty. But we don't have to feel guilty if we get OUT OF OUR SEATS and get to know some of the other people working on building stronger communities, alternative mutual aid networks, making fusses in the street and saying HELL-NO to the system in which we were born into. It ISN'T right. YOU KNOW THIS. See you in the streets (hopefully), Jo Robin