Agist junk mail rant

I get mail. Not just email, either. Some of it provides employment to the letter carriers of the US Postal Service. I don't mind that; they need those union jobs.

Recently I received this oddly shaped gargantuan envelope. The New Yorker is included in the picture for size.

On the envelope was a personalized message.

There was a return envelope which will go back today, by snail mail, to "Max Richtman" with this note.

Dear Mr. Richtman,
I am fully in sympathy with the proclaimed goals of the "National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. These vital, earned, benefits are one of our country's great achievements. In too many respects, we in the United States do not seem to know that the only legitimate purpose of a country is to care for its citizens. All of us, not just the one percent.

Any politician who threatens these programs will be hearing directly from me as well as finding me supporting any worthy challenger. This is bottom line stuff. In fact, most politicians I support already back extending Social Security rather than cutting it.

But YOU are NOT going to get from me your petition and a donation, a "membership renewal." Your outfit has repeatedly sent me expensive direct mail packages designed to scare money out of older citizens. These communications treat us as credulous suckers.

To have any chance of getting money from me, you would have to explain that your efforts are part of a political strategy for extending Social Security and for protecting Medicare by extending a single payer system to ALL residents of the country. We need that sort of leadership from Washington advocacy outfits, not creepy direct mail appeals.

And you would reach me through modern communication media. I'm sure you have my email address. True, I won't get it if my filters decide you are sending spam because you fill the letter with attachments and other frills, but that is your problem. Stop wasting trees on junk mail. And please remove me from you direct mail list.

Indeed, sincerely,
One annoyed elder!

I do not expect this to stop the flow ... but I've tried.