Election Excess

This is a Tom Meyer political cartoon that appeared in the LA Times today. I did not get permission to rerun this work, but hope the link to his site is sufficient credit and acknowledgement of a brilliant and timely cartoon.

If is is not totally readable, here is the dialogue. Two farmers are talking about the low yield of their crop, which is labeled "likely voters".  

      One farmer asks if the low yield is due to the lack of water. (California is in the midst of a sever drought).  In the distance there is a tractor spreading campaign flyers. The second Farmer says, no, "Too Much Fertilizer."

It came on a day when I continue to purge my email and unsubscribe to several political web sites.  Obviously I agreed with the ideas of the group when I originally signed up for emails or contributed funds to the cause.  However, I quickly tired of the relentless email blasts that were not only ubiquitous but in some cases intimidating and insulting.  I "unsubscribed" quickly to one organization that daily told me how disappointed they were in me for not contributing more.  The emails blatantly said that the fight was lost specifically because I had not responded to the emails.  (read "hadn't sent in any money).  

Then there were the blasts that reminded me that I had ignored several emails sent to me directly from high profile politicos. It was as if I had insulted the various leaders of the cause by dismissing their communication.  As I looked down the list of new emails more than 80 percent were being trashed immediately upon seeing the return address.   I was trashing dozens of emails without even opening them.  That is when I started unsubscribing to the ones that were offensive to me or just over crowding my mail box.  

The most egregious was a group that some how gained the names of some of the people I email with regularly, like my Son.  These familiar names would be clearly visible in the return address rather than the name of the political group responsible for the message.  It worked a few times when I thought the email was from a friend or relative but soon they became instant trash when identified. That .org - I parted company with immediately.  This "invasion of privacy marketing" was ingenious but totally offensive to me.  

I know that these midterm elections are important.  All elections are important and although I expect that my phone will be used to proselytize my vote and the mailbox will be full of political junk this time of year,  I do not want my email to over flow with the same crap as well.  

It is not always easy to unsubscribe from these steamrolling monkey mailers. At the very bottom of the offending email there is usually a  paragraph in very tiny print with a link to "unsubscribe".  Right next tot he link to "unsubscribe" is a link that will take you right to the place to "donate".  In one case it took me three steps to get off their list.  I was given the option to immediately donate and get off the list,  receive "less" emails,  receive "only the important" emails or have them sent as snail mail if I would give them my street address.  None of these options were satisfactory when they had already pissed me off from their contact.  

I know that the attention span of the electorate and population in general is very short.  However,  it computer driven email senders assume that I can not remember from day to day about political choices. They also must assume that we all have the intelligence of mushrooms cause only mushrooms can thrive on a relentless diet of bull shit.

As you were,

Jay