Birmingham protestors take to Facebook for fallen mayor
Birmingham mayor Larry Langford was convicted in federal court last week for bribery, but the story doesn’t end there.
With his conviction, several activists sprang into action on Facebook, with one “Free Larry Langford” group racking up 3,600 members. Can Facebook help his cause, lead to an overturn on appeal or a commutation of his sentence?
(I wrote about it on my other site, Wade on Birmingham, but wanted to also mention it on this blog.)
Certainly, thousands of supporters on Facebook is a stronger showing than the 55 or so attendees at a prayer vigil the night before his trial started.
Does it mean much if three groups and one fan page have the same mission, but aren’t even merged into one big group? Or does it show more widespread support?
And can Facebook save a guilty man?
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Numbers mean something. Now whether it will mean a thing to a judge is iffy. Would be sad to think so, but they are human. This could just reflect the number of people who gained from a criminal’s nefarious behavior. If the public was made aware of how each of us has been and will be suffering from those proven criminal actions, we might have a walloping big facebook presence as well. We’ve just not had that backlash listed out for us. Or did I miss that complete list of jobs going to incompetent friends/family and that ongoing consequence to our county and city, or the work going to sheister vendors. Heck I’m unclear as to why Larry, McNair and the other indicted council members not regularly mentioned whenever the painful, embarrassing billion-dollar sewer fiasco that is Jefferson County hits the airwaves or Net.
It’s one thing to join a Facebook group, quite another to actually show up, lend support, sign a petition, write a letter.
That number is faulty at best. Some people joined to see the comments, or to leave antagonistic comments.
We’ll see how it plays out.