This week, C-SPAN was more exciting than anything the Kardashians were doing. Following months of activism by hundreds of military spouses, they finally had their day in court, or specifically, Congress. You can read about it here. If you have time, you can even go watch it here. It was EPIC!
Military spouses confronted the corporate owners and officials as well as the Department of Defense Secretaries who all have responsibility for the shameful situations in military housing across all installations. Congress is also to blame for not providing oversight of the privatized relationship between the DoD and these companies. The whole situation needs to be overhauled from the ground up AFTER addressing the immediate health problems of these military families.
This demonstrates the power of social media in generating interest, sharing information, and moving ‘eyes’ to problems. Reuters was approached early in 2018 about the housing at Benning. They started looking at the problems, but it was not until petitions and Facebook groups emerged with thousands of participants that they ran with the story. Organization and social media is powerful. But it needs to be used with caution. One of the topics discussed by spouses is retaliation for reporting and complaining about housing conditions. Much of the retaliation was against service members whose social media posts, or their spouses’, illustrated the problems in their homes. Employees of these companies retaliated and so did some military leadership. Always keep in mind that anyone can see what you post.
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