General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnybody else getting requests for money?
from various political groups and individuals, requesting money to counter the Karl Rove ads that are coming out?
Who have you heard from so far?
They sound pretty desperate for money? Money is the mother's milk of politics. They cannot win without it. Even though they know money in politics is the problem, they cannot disarm. It's all they have. Without it, they are helpless.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)I don't have any money to give to anyone.
hlthe2b
(102,270 posts)given nothing... And, they have glommed onto the email addresses of friends/colleagues of mine. Yet, when I have emailed them directly from my personal contacts, it is not clear they gave permission to use their names this way...
Not saying it isn't appropriate and maybe they have to do this, but it is disturbing too, in more ways than one. Nonetheless, I've given all I can right now.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Adam051188
(711 posts)which will be in....10....9.....8.....
newcriminal
(2,190 posts)he is already requesting money. Does that count?
frazzled
(18,402 posts)I get at least 30 a day, and have been doing so for the past six years. It gets worse and worse, and the effect has been that I've simply closed my eyes to them all. I used to donate quarterly to several of the groups (DSCC, DCCC, OFA); now they have me so pissed off I haven't even given anything in this election cycle. They need to understand that their haranguing people with emails is backfiring.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Once you get on their email contact list, it is relentless.
So, you email support for one thing or another, and now you get more and more unwanted solicitations. It's really the equivalent of junk mail and roto-calling.
Considering who it's from, not likely to end through legislation, right?
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)Gillibrand sending me tales of the world falling apart unless I send them 3 bucks. At least 5 times a day.
OFA can bite me. Never hear from them except begging time and last year they refused to share their money or lists with our local committee when we had a tough election. Two of their people are on the committee, but they seem more interested in the OFA conventions than our real elections.
Help me pay my rent and cable bill and I might think about donating.
greatauntoftriplets
(175,735 posts)PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)Unless you're a lobbyist, natch.
greatauntoftriplets
(175,735 posts)but now that I'm retired the income just isn't there to give what I did two years ago.
I'm getting them from Al Franken as well, despite the fact that Dick Durbin is up for re-election here.
panader0
(25,816 posts)steve2470
(37,457 posts)I'm unsubbing as fast as my fingers can move.
NV Whino
(20,886 posts)To which I never subscribed in the first place, and I never answer the phone unless I know the number. Fuck 'em. they want money they had better start representing my interests.
daredtowork
(3,732 posts)When I'm at the end of my rope, I write everywhere for help. Usually I don't reach out until I need serious help: like legal help help. Like shelter. Like a place to go for resources. Like a way to protect fundamental human rights.
People just can't get this help anymore. I guess friends and communities and churches used to be the place to get it, but not anymore. Now what you get when you reach out is a subscription to an email list and a barrage of emails asking for money.
Your ostensible "political representatives" are by far the worst offenders. They won't respond to an email, or give you phone time with an assistant of an assistant, much less give you actual appointment time, unless you are VIP contributor. If you're on welfare, you might as well not exist to them.
I admit the Internet is a bad place to respond with help. What I usually see is a good person making an offer to help (often to the wrong person), and then a bunch of scammers rush in to try to reproduce the circumstances and soak up all the available loose change, so the people who really need help still can't get it. I remember when I posted my welfare diaries on Daily Kos: I wasn't asking for anything, though I could have used help in various ways. But I gave people ideas. Within the hour, there was a "Suddenly Homeless" scammer dominating the rec list and using the community as a fund raising platform. The same thing had happened a couple years earlier when I had asked for (non-financial) help sourcing medical specialists for particular problems while I was uninsured: people who were still living in middle class circumstances rushed in making big drama, singing praises of the "community" as they raised money to see "specialists" for their yuppie diseases. Basically rushing in to exploit a door I had opened, but effectively shutting it for people who might have desperately needed financial help.
So...the Internet sucks as a means of directing charity for the same reasons as "faith-based" volunteerism is: it's fragmented, distorted, and scarily easy to manipulate. And people with means suffer from "compassion fatigue" far before the line gets to the fairly timid people who actually need their compassion.
But, in lieu of anyone bothering to set up mediating local social infrastructure that actually helps people with their problems, what to do?
My thought, ust from writing this, is to stop spending so much money on abstract online stuff. But do recognize the CAUSE of all the begging and step outside your door. The legit people zinging around the Internet begging for stuff are doing so because they don't know what else to do: there are no local resources. There is no recourse. Is there a way to put money in local government, in those dreaded "parcel taxes", so you can demand and see results? Could you help create local jobs? Could you help make sure no one in your community was starving? Could you make your city a model of civilization? If that makes your city so desirable that it drives rents sky-high, would you take the initiative in subsidizing housing for people working in the nonprofit sector? Or for elderly people living on fixed incomes?
It's fine to Just Say No to all these Internet shakedowns, but the right thing to do is address their cause from the other side and reduce desperation at the local level.
Gothmog
(145,231 posts)BainsBane
(53,032 posts)and I have for months. I get them for every single race in my state and some for other states. It pisses me off because it posits money as a proxy for political engagement. I will make phone calls or knock on doors, but I am not giving any money.
It also pisses me off that they try to stir up doom and gloom with polls for local races as a way of raising money. The whole thing really bothers me.
daredtowork
(3,732 posts)It opened with something like "Are you sick and tired of being asked for money".
I read on to nod my head and wonder if a day would come when it would occur to someone to toss some over to me, the person who gets no direct cash income at all.
Guess what: by the third paragraph, the post was a shakedown for money, and for a meh cause, too. Now that's a cheap PR trick.
spanone
(135,831 posts)it pisses me off.