Saturday, December 14, 2013

The SpamaScamaCramajama

I don’t understand it. I have gone for years relatively untouched by spam and scams but somehow in the last two or three months my server has gone berserk and I now find that anytime I turn on my email there are anywhere from seven to twenty seven entries. These are not all spam or scams but many are. While I find this irritating and a nuisance, and I know I will eventually have to have my friend, “The Fixer,” do something about it, it is also a bit of a learning experience.

First, I guess you have to admire the apparently desperate optimism of those who try to sell Viagra and Cialis to dead birds. I wonder if they are in league with the nubile Russian and Asian girls who offer themselves, apparently without reservation, to a broken-down 84 year-old widower. Then there are those who seem to believe that people will rush out and buy stocks because they receive unsolicited tips on the internet. I know, I know, the optimism is limited and the offers are sent out randomly looking for lonely and/or stupid suckers as desperate as the senders themselves must be. While I resent having to take the time to delete all of this hopeless effort, it doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as the incessant solicitations.
There are at least four things about the apparently endless solicitations that offend me: first, the amount of them, second, the assumption that I must have endless amounts of money to donate, third, the nature of the requests, and, finally, what happens to the money if donated.

I receive requests for money for so many different reasons I find it overwhelming. Save the wolves, save the Grizzly bears, save the whales, save the dolphins, save the sharks, save the pygmy rabbits, save the sage grouse, save the Butterflies, save the Polar bears, save the Puffins, save the Manatees, save the baby seals, save the coral, and even save the oceans and the forests. I firmly believe all these creatures and natural treasures fully deserve to be saved. But I wonder, why is it up to me to save them? Where are the governments and all the governmental entities that exist presumably to monitor and guard them? Where is the Forest Service, Fish and Game, Environmental Protection, and all the other agencies responsible for protecting them?

I can understand how a rare frog or snail may have been overlooked and thus need private help to survive, but then you encounter something like Wounded Warriors. Of course I believe wounded warriors need help, but where is the government that wounded them, where are all those billions of dollars of taxpayer money that is supposed to care for them? I’m sure their needs are real, and I also believe they should get absolutely first-class treatment in every way, but why should they have to depend on private donations for what they need? Perhaps some of the billions being spent on creating more and more wounded warriors could be diverted into caring for those who already exist? No, probably not, the Military needs more useless tanks and planes, and more trillions of dollars they can’t even account for. Our military/industrial/political complex is the most gigantic scam of all time. It exists primarily to siphon taxpayer dollars into the pockets of those who promote it.

This brings me to the subject of political contributions. Apparently most every politician in the United States believes they can get donations from me. I get requests for donations from places like Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Florida, and many more states. Interestingly enough, I don’t get many requests from Idaho Democrats who are, of course, a truly endangered species. Donating money to Idaho Democrats is essentially the same as flushing your donation down the toilet. As I don’t donate much to the rare Democratic candidates who do, from time to time, actually exist, I should have more money to donate to politicians in other states, right? Thinking about where the money goes hurts my aged brain.

Now I get requests for money because the Koch brothers or other conservative groups are spending hundreds of millions backing conservative candidates. The idea is, I guess, that donations from me and others like me will somehow match those of the billionaires. This seems to me a questionable goal at best, if not just another scam. Let ‘s say I do make a contribution to the campaign of, say, Ito Pucci. Ito will use that money to buy advertising space mostly on television so he can match the ads of his conservative opponent. The billionaires own the television stations so, in effect, Ito is spending my money by enriching the very people he is opposing. Why should I donate money to Murdoch to help Ito Pucci? Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) I have so little money to donate I am not personally affected much by this little scam, but isn’t it beautiful? Limbaugh, and others of his ilk (I love the word ilk as to me it kind of reeks of slime and nepotism), and the media they represent, make their profits no matter who wins or loses. Is it any wonder that campaigns are encouraged to spend more and more each time?

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