Green Party email spam, EU email good!

It would seem that a number of people continue to be outraged by getting an unsolicited email from the Greens. But was it really the method that outraged them or was it the messenger? Now I'm pretty self evidently not the Greens biggest fan (keep it under your hat but I'm a member of Fine Gael off and on since the early 80s) but I suspect that the outrage was a little overdone in some cases given their response on a prior occasion to receiving exactly the same form of contact from another political organisation.

So was it the method of communication or was it in fact the messenger that got the noses of some out of joint? I think the latter and here's why. The EU had a get together of bloggers back in October of last year, and quite a nice day it was too. I was alerted to it by an unsolicited email, as it would seem were the others who posted about it. This mail was not personally addressed, it went to multiple recipients and from their posts on the topic the great and the good had no problem with this method of initiating contact when it came to them from the offices of the EU. So no outrage at all when they are favourable towards the endeavour - indeed they straight out encouraged people to attend - but all sorts of moral indignation when it was the Green Party who contacted them. At least in Michele's case, there is no evidence that he hasn't been consistent.

If we're going to grow the use of the net as a means to increase political participation and involvement it would make sense to have some degree of consistency from the bloggers when it comes to complaining about the method used to contact them. Being all flirty with the EU but getting all huffy with the Greens when contacted in exactly the same manner shows that there is an agenda at work here.

Below is the mail from the eu about their get together.

From: Philippe.CARR@xx.xx.eu
To: undisclosed-recipients, :
Subject: Advanced Invitation: Organise, Activate, Influence: Social Activism Online in Ireland
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:53:49 +0200

You are cordially invited to the 1 day conference Organise, Activate, Influence, Social Activism Online in Ireland on the 4 October 2008.This is a conference put together by bloggers for bloggers. The European Commission Representation and European Parliament Office in Ireland are acting as facilitators for this event.

Please click on the bellow link for the days program and how to register.

http://www.euireland.ie/conference/

Spaces unfortunately are limited and offered on a first come basis.

We look forward to seeing you on the day

Philippe

Philippe Carr
Press Officer
European Commission Representation
European Union House
18 Dawson Street
Dublin 2
tel: 00 353 1 634xxxx
fax: 00 353 1 634xxxx
email: philippe.carr@ec.europa.eu
internet: www.euireland.ie