What a perfect in-your-face campaign for actions directed to government officials. It seems that Yekaterinburg, Russia is like many cities with problems of decaying infrastructure – in this case, lots and lots of pot holes. Well, the citizens finally reached boiling point and got some graffiti artists to use the images of pertinent city officials to call notice to the problem, along with a quote from that politician promising a fix. Like most people who dislike negative PR, the politicians sought to hide the evidence of the public response. But hidden cameras were turned around on the city workers, proving that graffiti removal was the only thing on their work order. After the news traveled from Ura.ru, a local online news group, to other cities far and wide, the politicians were finally forced to do their jobs…as they should have done in the beginning.
This isn’t only happening in Russia. It’s happening all over the world, by politicians who believe that they can keep making empty promises. Our leaders have gotten away with doing too little for far too long (actually they only do a lot for those who pay a lot of money for their attention), but the citizens are no longer disengaged with the process. If you’re planning on entering into the political arena, you might want to remember all of those promises you made during your campaign. Because now you’re looking at citizens who are more than willing to headbutt the process until it works as the people want it to.
And citizens of the world, take note of what other citizens from around the world are doing to ensure that their government is running for all of the people. You might be able to use one of their ideas to address your own situation.
Just saying…
– Thanks Colossal for this priceless moment!
