New Mars Forums

Bill White

Member

Registered: 2001-09-09

Posts: 2,114

Re: Political effectiveness - Will broad based appeals work?

Why not have members of the Mars Society (I don't know how many members there are) each mail a copy of Zubrins "The Case For Mars" (along with a brief letter asking for Congressional support) to their Congressman and Senators.   Plus a dozen or so key people in the Executive Branch (President, Vice President and et cetera).

This quote was lifted from a parallel thread.

IMHO - the problem is not that Zubrin's ideas are unknown to the powers that be - the problem is that Zubrin's ideas are rejected by the powers that be. Many, many reasons for this - more than I know and way more than I could ever explain.

Anyway, a broad based, shallow political campaign will fail. Too diluted.

Space advocates need to be like the Cuban exiles of South Florida who influence US foreign policy towards Cuba far beyond their numbers. Why?

They control the tipping point in Florida elections - its 49.5% versus 49.5% and whoever the 1% of Cubans vote for wins.

(The numbers are for illustration only and are not alleged to be accurate - thought the concept is)

And, as Al Gore and George Bush know - a few votes in Florida makes all the difference.

Making 125 million Americans into space advocates is one heck of a task. However, many many fewer but well placed space advocates might get the job done.

Maybe we need to read Machiavelli as well as Voltaire!

If only I knew how to do this. . .