Petros provides a recap of the progress of isaacbrocksociety.com since its official launch on December 12, 2011. (Warning to readers: What follows resembles a high school pep talk!)
Between midnight and 7:30 this morning, isaacbrocksociety.com surpassed 15,000 views according to WordPress metrics. The official launch of isaacbrocksociety.com was December 12, 2011. Our initial idea was to put together a forum and a resource site that would help us as a group to deal with our common problem: the financial attack of the United States government on its expat community throughout the world. Our initial focus was Canada and so we chose a Canadian hero to give a name to the site, for US persons in Canada are the most affected by these issues we are the least able to ignore the problems caused by our behemoth neighbour to the South. With the addition of Victoria in France and geeeez in Brazil, as well as the multiple contributions of Just Me in New Zealand, we are truly a global site, and that was our original intention.
I am not ready to proclaim isaacbrocksociety.com a success, but I am pleased with our progress. It takes a long time to build up a reputation as a blogger. My own site gets an average of 100 hits per day, and that’s after two years. Our numbers at isaacbrocksociety.com really show the synergistic benefit of group work. Since our December 12 launch, we’ve had an average of over 550 views per day (by WordPress reckoning which isn’t supposed to count our own hits–i.e., it doesn’t count hits from blog members when they are logged in). Moreover, we’ve averaged 1050 hits per day over the last 5 days.
Our top post was the Santa Claus arrest, with 574 views at isaacbrocksociety.com (plus who knows how many thousands of views at Daniel Mitchell’s blog and Townhall.com). Mitchell picked up the story because Just Me sent it to him. He has suggested he could post more stories like it, and I hope he means important stories about our issues and not just gag posts that make you first laugh, then think and weep.
But I am not satisfied with this. I think we can accomplish great things working together. I would hope to break out of our enclave and to establish a real political presence. We’ve been doing some cutting edge research and thanks to the help of Just Me, Calgary and others, I think we are also one of the best compilers of breaking news stories.
The idea of isaacbrocksociety.com is simple: put together concerned individuals, some bloggers and perhaps some experts, at a single meeting ground devoted to our issues and run by us (in distinction to other forums run by their own commercial interests). Four of us had our own blogs before contributing here: renounceuscitizenship, expatinca, Victoria, and myself. The MVP award for promoting the isaacbrocksociety.com goes to Just Me, who managed to get us cited by Daniel Mitchel and to promote our cause with James Fallows, with the result that Fallows cited two of us in his second FATCA article (Ladyhawk and me).
I think we should make our goal 10,000 views per day by the end of the first quarter of 2012. If we continue promoting the blog and writing quality articles, we will become the go-to site for this issue. We will be helping thousands of people to sort through their problems with information, peer-to-peer advice and comfort. Furthermore, we will be able to put pressure at the governmental level (esp. Canada and the United States). How do we do it? Here are three suggestions for promoting the blog:
(1) Put links in the comment streams of mainstream press articles.
(2) Promote the website by send links to friends, family, politicians, authors, lawyers, bank managers and accountants who have been concerned with the issue. Invite them to subscribe via e-mail.
(3) Tell everyone you know about what we are doing. Don’t be bashful.
I want to thank everyone for your contributions–including all commenters. Let’s continue to make an impact until Congress changes the laws or a presidential pardon makes them irrelevant. Cheers, Peter W. Dunn
Yep, that REALLY sounded like a prep-talk, but it’s nice to know that the word is getting out.
One thing that maybe not be effective but I think is worth a try in Canada is to get this in front of either the Senate National Financial Committee or the Banking, Trade, and Commerce committee both of which tend to delve into issues like this far more than members of the House of Commons. I have posted links to the members of both committees below:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/sencommitteebusiness/CommitteeHome.aspx?parl=41&ses=1&Language=E&comm_id=3
http://www.parl.gc.ca/sencommitteebusiness/CommitteeHome.aspx?parl=41&ses=1&Language=E&comm_id=13
My personal opinion is that Canadian Senate hearings a far more informative than their US equivilents and it might a be a good forum to get Finance Canada and the Canadian Bankers Association down on where they really stand on this issue. Also I personally consider it far more important than the future of the penny which is the last arcane issue the Senate National Finance committee took up.
That’s a great suggestion. We should start writing up press releases that we can send to folks, like the members of this committee and bank managers, etc.
Petros, BRAVO and congratulations! This is due in no small part to your tireless efforts of thought and emailing and skyping and perusing news and blogs, and encouraging us to contribute our separate unique talents and to get involved, and above all your many many posts on which this young bark floats. I am proud and grateful to be a part of this.
Thank you for your dedicated and hard work, Petros, allowing us all to stretch and think in different ways. Thanks to all who conceived the idea of the site and all who have contributed in whatever way. I’ve learned from you all and wish I had the way with words and thoughts of so many of the posters here. It is a privilege to be part of a site with literate, thoughtful essays on the “International Robbers Society, ” all things IRS, FBAR, FATCA, relinquishment, renouncement, staying citizens, LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL UNITED STATES PERSONS IN CANADA AND ABROAD.
In no small way, the conversation going on here with fellow US persons abroad has helped me with coping and staying sane! Thanks for bringing us all together so we do not roll over and become just more collateral damage.
I agree, it’s wonderful to see the rippling effect 😀
I very hit the very poor rating star by mistake, and can’t undo it….. grrrr… Sorry I am such a klutz!
So, this is my editorial 5 star rating. Well done Peter!! Good start, but it will be hard to maintain momentum. Persistence will be the key.
Never be satisfied with where you are, and constantly work on incremental improvements.
I have been experimenting around with Twitter and on how to get broader visibility on the subject.
I notice this is trending in the US on twitter right now..
#100thingsihate
So, I just sent a tweet to there, as I know the average Kansas homelander isn’t going to go to #FATCA. 🙂
Keep looking for those opportunities, and pass them on to the rest of us.
… and you’ve passed on much food for thought and ideas, Just Me. Thanks!
I don’t want to mention any names yet but I came across a foundation that is lobbying in favor of FATCA in Washington that obtains funding from several large name brand recognizable US corporations that do a lot business in Canada. Once I can confirm more I’ll post their names. Let’s just say I smell boycott. I’ll give one hint now one of them is another foundation called “Tides Foundation” a familar name to some of you in Western Canada who follow energy/KeystoneXL/Northern Gateway pipeline issues or watch a lot of Evra Levant on Sun News Network.(I am not at all making any political statements about these issues or whether Sun News Network is a good or bad tv network or Ezra Levant is a god or bad tv host).
More to come later.
Peter, once again I would like to thank you and all the others who have been on top of this. I’ve been hitting the topic on and off on my blog but my meager efforts pale in comparison to what you, Just me, geeez, foxyladyhawk and others have already done. I’ve hauled out my address book and I will send the link to anyone and everyone I can think of. I’ve also started posting comments on various sites (thank you, Just Me, for the excellent links on your Twitter feed)
This is a terrific (the best and most comprehensive, I’d say) site for much needed information, resources, exchange of ideas and raising awareness on this issue. Especially impressive in that it’s only been in existence for a few weeks so far. Thanks to Peter and all the contributors!
Congrats to the founders of the site and thanks to you, Petros, for inviting me here. This site has proved to be a wealth of knowledge and has given us all the most important weapon we need in our arsenal for this battle: information. Let’s keep it up!
Thanks everyone. I am not congratulating myself. One of you e-mailed me and said that we should be getting 3 million hits a day, and that only because the other 3 million US expats don’t have computers.
Something to works towards, n’est-ce pas?
Wait, are you saying the Tides foundation is taking corporate donations to advocate in favour of FATCA? Not sure that makes much sense… Wouldn’t US corporate interests be hurt by having to comply with FATCA in other countries?
I put a widget at the bottom of the right-hand side bar showing total hits to give you all some encouragement about our progress. The growth continues as you can see we are already at 16,905 as I write this comment.