He was talking about a budget agreement to forestall the fiscal cliff and not specifically about Social Security and Medicare, but President Barack Obama in a press briefing yesterday repeated something several times that can be applied to Social Security and Medicare too.

Calling on “Americans all across the country to make their voices heard,” he said:

”When the American people speak loudly enough, lo and behold Congress listens...The lesson is when enough people get involved, we have a track record of actually making Congress work.”

One of the stumbling blocks to a budget agreement that would forestall immediate tax increases on 1 January 2013 is that a lot of Republican and some Democrats want cuts to social programs in exchange for such an agreement.

In the past few days, some – including the White House – have gone on record saying that Social Security does not contribute to the deficit and should be off the table. That sounds like progress but you cannot trust any of them to stick with it.

So today, I'm giving you some tools to, in the president's words, “make [our] voices heard.”

PETITIONS
The easiest, of course, are petitions. There are two important ones:

One, organized by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) is titled, Lame Duck Session. Unlike most online petitions, the NCPSSM will print hard copies of signed online petitions to combine with mail responses they have received to deliver to Congress members and the White House.

Boxes and boxes of petitions make a much bigger impact than electronic pages. The delivery from the NCPSSM is intended for an event at the U.S. Senate on 11 December, so get on over there to sign the petition now.

Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has a similar petition I've mentioned before. You can sign that one here.

Do not think you are duplicating yourself. The more, the merrier and the president concurs with me. In his speech yesterday he noted that millions of people's tweets, emails and phone calls made the difference in holding down student loan interest rates earlier this year. So...

TWEET CONGRESS
You can sent short messages by tweeting senators and representatives. Not all of them tweet, but you can find out if yours do at this page. Type in your state and your Congress members who tweet will come up with their twitter names.

I cannot swear the page is up to date, but it's a start.

FACEBOOK YOUR REPRESENTATIVE
I'm told that most members of Congress – Senate and House – have Facebook pages. The easiest way I've found to locate them is search their name in quotes followed by the word facebook and it will come up. You can leave messages there for your representatives.

EMAIL AND PHONE YOUR REPRESENTATIVES
Each representative's official government page has telephone numbers and an email form.

The House of Representatives. Enter your Zip Code.
The Senate. Enter the name of your state.

EMAIL THE PRESIDENT
The NCPSSM has made it easy to email President Obama about Social Security and Medicare. You can do that here.

Twitter, of course, requires short messages – no more than 140 characters. So it is good to craft those on one succinct topic. Examples:

• Social Security does not contribute on thin dime to the deficit. It is wrong to try to balance the budget on the back's of elders.

• Medicare is too complex to try to fix in a rushed budget deal. Save it for 2013 to avoid what could be terrible unintended consequences.

• Don't you realize how insulting it is to call Social Security and Medicare entitlements? We paid for those benefits all our working lives.

I'm sure you can do better than those.

In longer form email and Facebook messages you can craft your own messages. If you're having trouble, crib from petitions and anything on this blog. You don't need to credit anyone. Be polite, be succinct, but explain what you mean and make your position clear.

You can send the same message to each of your Senators and your Representative. And the White House too.

You can send as many letters on as many topics as you want.

Messages to Congress in large numbers really do, as the president noted, make a difference. I know that every member's office counts every message – letter, email, phone call, tweet, Facebook – and tracks the positions pro and con issues.

To paraphrase an old voting joke, write today and write often. Get your relatives and friends to do it. Post what you've written on your blogs and urge readers to do the same (copy any information you need or want from here).

Keep writing on as many different related issues as possible because the billionaire and millionaire forces are against us.

Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles are talking to rich executives all over the country about cutting Social Security and Medicare.

A whole bunch of zillionaire CEOs have called for cuts to Social Security and Medicare while hanging on to their corporate welfare.

And there are no-nothing pundits and columnists all over the print and electronic press throwing around statements about cutting entitlements and Social Security going broke.

They all have money and influence. But millions of us together can overcome them. Write, call, tweet, Facebook. Let us together make a great noise unto Congress. The president again:

”When the American people speak loudly enough, lo and behold Congress listens...The lesson is when enough people get involved, we have a track record of actually making Congress work.”

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Marcy Belson: How to Search for Relatives