By Judi Curry
Several years ago, when first receiving holiday catalogs, I kept all of them to see how many I was sent in the six months prior to the actual holidays. As I recall, it was over 160 and I felt sorry for my mail person who had to schlep all the catalogs from house to house for months. Since I am not a shopper, I never looked at those catalogs and finally threw them in my recycle bin just before the holidays.
Today (Sunday, September 29, 2013), I am not receiving catalogs but requests for money to help get the word out about the dastardly deed the Republican members of the House of Representative are doing to stop “Obamacare.” Not that it matters, but I support Obamacare, and think that every representative that voted to shut down the government should be recalled immediately; their salary should stop; their health benefits should be removed and they should be run out of Washington.
With that said, I can’t help but be irked by the number of e-mails I am receiving asking for $3 to help the fight; more if I can afford it. Sure, I will sign the petitions telling my Congresspeople what I think about their vote, but even if I could I would not donate monies to all of the groups asking for my help.
It is 6:30pm, and so far today I received 22 requests for money. That is just for today. Some organizations e-mailed me more than once – still asking for money but with a different reason as to why it had to be done NOW. (Only hours to go and your donation will be doubled if you send it in before 9:00pm, est.) The Democratic Headquarters sent me three requests; Move-on.org sent two. These requests came not only from organizations, but from individuals that belong to these organizations – Joe Biden, Lindsay Siler, Grant Campbell, etc. And these are organizations and people I trust and support!
I realize that a lot of money is being spent to do away with Obamacare. A lot of money is being spent by a lot of Republicans to get their way. I cannot understand why they want to harm the poorer members of our society. I cannot understand why they, who live so high on the hog do not want others to also benefit from the same resources that they can tap into.
I can’t understand why they want to lower my Social Security payments; money that I worked hard for over many years; why do they want to lower Medicare payments? Over and over again we hear of different schemes to make the poor poorer – food stamps, for example – while they have no sacrificial entities removed from their life style.
I am treating the requests for money the same way I react to the Holiday catalogs. May I suggest that all the organizations get together, create one letter, and send it to their constituents one time. If that had happened to me, I might be more apt to take out my checkbook or my credit card and contribute.
As it is – the 24 – two more emails since I began writing this – will not receive anything from me. How can I send something when the GOP and the House of Representatives will effectively shut down the government in less than 48 hours, leaving me with even less than I have right now. It sure is a screwed up mess!
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I get more than that – somewhere along the way, the Tea Party and its affiliates picked up my email address. Torn between keeping an eye on them and comparing them to the same ones that Judi gets, I swallow a double dose. The Tea Party is more designed to inflame indignation amongst the faithful, with a last line “donate now” instead of a first line “donate now.” I suppose emails can’t be checked to see that I am a registered Democrat. This article inspires me to unsubscribe from all of them.
I thought I was squashing the calls and e-mails when I gave to some PACs, but No. I still got them.
Funny thing: I actually get thank you notes from one candidate I send $3 a month to. Thirty-six dollars a year is a decent contribution, in my opinion, about $16 more than my usual $10 one-time donation.
The quality of catalogs go up depending on where you buy from. The “better” companies share with each other. I bought from the Smithsonian once and started getting some great cats I couldn’t afford, either. And the window shopping was better.