One Man's Opinion: In a sea of spam, where are our true leaders?
Today, I opened my email. There where 529 messages in my inbox. Only 31 emails of the 529 were legitimate communications on which I spent the time to read and reply.
Sorting through all those messages, I easily found the other 498 messages were very much political and trying to get me to donate dollars to their candidate or a vote for their party. I am a little more than just being peeved. I am just disgusted by all of those who are sending these solicitations to my inbox.
Now you probably feel I am a little unhinged. I am. It is Saturday today. On Friday when I opened my email there were only 262 emails in my inbox. This morning Saturday, 529 emails appeared — as I already told you. These were not in my spam folder — IT IS IN MY PRIMARY GMAIL folder.
This has become a huge problem for me. They are making me more irritated and frustrated every day. I must search every day to find emails that are sent to me to which I should and need to reply. I have on several important occasions not responded to an important post because my inbox is flooded, swamped, inundated and it is driving me nuts. All because someone doesn’t care about who is receiving their pleas for money or votes. I am sick of it.
I have a very bad attitude about all these solicitations. I know there is probably a way to stop the abundance of email flowing into my Gmail account. I have heard it has something to do with cookies on my computer. Maybe so, but I was born in the wrong generation to even begin to understand how to fix something I don’t understand.
I am counting the days when my emails return to what used to be normal. I can handle 50 a day, but 529 is ridiculous. I was told by one of my computer gurus to stop donating. I haven’t donated to political parties since May 2022 and the political machines are even worse now. Can’t wait until it is over. I know on Nov. 9, the emails will stop. That is a good thing. But you and I know it will just start up again in 2024.
I hope I am not the only one out in cyberspace who is bemoaning our leaders. Now I can legitimately realize all the angst Sen. Joe McCarthy caused in the early 1950s. McCarthyism was evident everywhere at the time. He invented the Red Scare by accusing members in all walks of life by calling them communists. McCarthy was taking it to the very far right by calling these vocal American citizen communists. Then came along Margaret Chase Smith. McCarthy was a bully, and someone should have stood up to him sooner. She did on June 1, 1950, in front of the Senate. And the television reporting of Edward R. Murrow on the antics of McCarthy were the last straw that led to the censure of this volatile senator.
A list of 205 names were given by Sen. McCarthy said these people had infiltrated the government and were communists. The list included names of civilians, government officials and names from the military. McCarthy was eventually censured from the senate in 1954 due to his actions which were not becoming of a senator.
Where are the leaders of today? We sure don’t need any more McCarthys. We now have our own blue and red crazies. Maybe if we start to expect more from our leaders by doing what is good for all of us. What we are doing by our “divide and conquer” philosophy on Facebook, Twitter, messaging, email? We should be digging in our heels and looking for leaders who speak truth to power. It may not be the answer, but it will be better than what we are doing now. As usual, this is just one man’s opinion.
— Jerry Donnelly is a Petoskey native who was an educator downstate. His column, One Man's Opinion, appears monthly. Donnelly can be contacted via email at jerry.wheepapa.donnelly@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: One Man's Opinion: In a sea of spam, where are our true leaders?
