By Tamar Abrams The global COVID-19 pandemic has upended our lives and, possibly more significantly, many of the assumptions we make about the impact it is having on the world. For example, with human beings on every continent engaging in some form of quarantine for an extended time, early reports were that our lack of activity was greatly impacting the…
May 19, 2020
Immigration and Family Separation: a personal story
You can catch Sascha Burns representing her clients on the Hill or talking politics on Fox News, MSNBC, and local and international news channels, but Sascha’s life beyond the camera includes helping refugees seeking asylum in the United States. “When family separation came to light, I was so angry at what the Trump administration was doing in the name of…
Here is a piece I wrote in October of 2014 for the now defunct Connectivity blog at CQ-Roll Call. It called for campaigns and organizations to make social media a top priority, with appropriate staffing and resources. This is still a message that too many have yet to embrace. With the rise of fake news on social media, it is…
November 25, 2015
Social Advocacy and Politics: The Idiocy of Crowds?
Byrony Gordon of the Telegraph wrote in frustration this week about how social media is turning us into idiots. She chronicles several tweets and trends across social media in the aftermath of the attacks on Paris as evidence that, “…social media hasn’t just turned people stupid – it has also turned whole organisations into unthinking idiots whose knee jerk reaction…
November 17, 2015
Social Advocacy and Politics: Is Facebook Gutting the Power of Social Advocacy Tools?
Facebook, Twitter and Google+ have all added or turned on features in the wake of the Paris attacks this past Friday, November 13. These features incorporate many of the behavioral uses of these platforms into their code. For example, Facebook turned on its “Safety Check” feature, where people can mark on their profile that they are ok instead of just posting…
November 10, 2015
How “digital refugees” choose their own escape route
The refugee crisis in Europe continues. An estimated of 700,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in Europe this year from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iraq, North Africa and beyond. Most of them have spent thousands of dollars to take their families on this dangerous and unsafe journey. Despite the tragedy of the situation, a new development that has made it easier…
November 10, 2015
Social Advocacy and Politics: Politics and Entertainment
One of the biggest criticisms of the current presidential election campaigns is that the candidates’ ability to entertain trumps their command and discussion of the issues. As this story goes, image appears to matter more than the ability to lead the “free world.” That is what is being said, but is it really true? Have presidential elections degenerated into White…
November 9, 2015
Getting the most out of foreign aid
No wonder Americans are skeptical about foreign aid. They think we spend 25 times more than we actually do, they don’t know what it has accomplished, and they are fed a steady diet of reports about waste, fraud and corruption. This puts members of Congress in an awkward position. Most of them know that diplomacy and development help create jobs…
November 6, 2015
Future of LGBT Rights: Seize the Conversation on Nov. 18
I’m a big fan of horror movies. The scarier the better as far as I’m concerned. One of the lessons of just about every horror movie is that you don’t turn your back on Jason/Freddy/Michael Myers just because you’ve knocked him down. He WILL get back up and he WILL come after you again. That’s a lesson the LGBT community…
October 19, 2015
Help the Refugees With Debt for Dignity Swaps
Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis a bigger challenge to European unity than Greece’s financial woes. She reminded her own country that Germans should be proud of a post-war heritage based on the principles of dignity, human rights and the right to political asylum. Spurred on by the increasingly dire human and political costs of…