SPAM

SPAM

by Marco M. Pardi

“Propaganda, n. Their lies.

Public Information, n. Our lies.”

Edward S. Herman

“Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.” Eric Hoffer

All comments are welcome and will receive a response.

“His attack dog sitting close by, Tonio used his folding opener to open a can of C ration ‘meat’. As usual, the upper part of the can seemed to be pure grease. ‘You want some?’ he asked his K-9 partner. Curled back lips and bright teeth appeared. ‘I’ll take that as a No.’ On assignment deep into scrub country, he also had rations for his K-9. But he had also seen enough snakes to last him for the duration. He didn’t mind snake meat at all, almost no fat and very chewy. The problem would be smoke from the cooking fire. He had decided that if it came to it, he could slip a C ration can into a sock and use it to smack an opponent. Or, he could offer it to him and subdue him while he lay on the ground wretching. Tonio did not know that, as he considered this, thousands of miles away Americans were sitting down for a dinner of a product very similar.”

The American presidential election season is rapidly heating up. In fact, as I typed this I took a robo-call from the Republican syndicate during which Donald Trump himself shouted at me about how much he cared for me and wanted my vote. Well, it was his voice, anyway. I also get what has come to be called “spam”. Mass emails.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I just don’t understand the utility of spam. The titles of most of them automatically relegate them to the spam folder on my email service and on this site. “Dearly beloved in Christ…” Anyone who knows me knows that won’t get opened. “Increase penis size by 4 inches!” Is that all you got? “Farm animals waiting to meet you”. If I could I would buy those farm animals and provide a long and happy life in a sanctuary. But that’s another story.

This site you are currently looking at receives over 300 spam emails daily. Most of these originate on a Russian server. Many are in Cyrillic and, though my Russian is dated the contents are logical. Others are in English but are so illogical it’s as if someone flipped through medical journals randomly extracting sentences and phrases and cobbling them together. In both cases the lengthy entries are sprinkled with links to various products. I’m betting a click on one of those links would result in a ransomware attack, the download of a keystroke logger, and/or the download of a bot which would convert my computer into a silent “slave” to be used in a Denial of Service attack on some U.S. government agency or major industry. That is done continually.

I find it hard to imagine how someone could actually open an obvious SPAM email, or click on a link, or download an attachment “just for you”, or send money to a Nigerian Prince. In fact, part of me snorts that they get what they deserve. But for me the downside of the daily spam load is that, when I first started this site some people tried to comment and their comments went to SPAM. Fortunately, the load was light and I routinely scanned that folder before deleting the contents. Now, it is simply impossible to scan 300+ emails to see if there is a genuine comment in there; I have to hit delete and sit back while the computer throws up.

Are the Russians interested in my site? My software enables me to see in which countries the site is read and how many times. It does not identify a specific reader. I’ve often seen hits in Russia. So, could it be that Putin’s minions have discovered a site hostile to the fascist American regime they spent so much money and time bringing to power? Dear Russians: пошел ты (Poshel ty).

But the Russians and their fake news, smears, and questionable links are not the only threat to our upcoming election. The “Useful Idiot” they installed in our White House has also asked China and Ukraine to interfere in the democratic process. And, as I was writing this, news broke that The Great Pumpkin had fired his Acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph McGuire, and replaced him with another Acting Director, Richard Grenell. Since 9/11 every DNI has been a career Intelligence Officer and/or Military Officer with extensive Intelligence experience and expertise. Mr. Grenell has neither the Intelligence background or the military background, but he does have a long background as a Republican and lately an acolyte in the Cult of The Great Pumpkin. He also was an undisclosed consultant to Vladimir Plahotmiuc, a Moldovan oligarch who is a fugitive and is barred from entering the United States. Grenell did not register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Principal Deputy DNI Andrew Hallman is also leaving his position.

Why the sudden changes? The Congressional Intelligence Committees are required to attend and receive Intelligence briefings which present the collated findings of all the Intelligence Agencies and are provided to the Committees by officials in the Office of the DNI. The most recent such briefing provided a consensus finding that the Russians are currently involved again in meddling in the upcoming Presidential elections in order to support their favorite, Donald J. Trump, aka, Useful Idiot, The Great Pumpkin, etc. Many media pundits say Trump cannot tolerate the implication that his election is less than valid, as if it were simply an ego thing. I, on the other hand, think he is upset that his greatest assets and handlers have been exposed before congress and now the American people. In any case, more resignations in the Intelligence Community and State Department are coming. The Great Pumpkin has ordered his political appointees to ferret out any and all career employees who are “disloyal” to him.

The House Democrats have introduced and passed several Bills which would help safeguard our next elections. But the Senate leader, “Moscow Mitch” McConnell, who proudly calls himself The Grim Reaper when it comes to considering anything from Democrats, has blocked every single one. So, we can expect to see Russian, Chinese, and Iranian disinformation planted throughout social media as “news” stories and throughout mass emails we should consider SPAM. This has proven to be more than a simple nuisance, such as me having to wait while my computer scrubs the crap off this site. It has already resulted in violent armed assault. Remember the story that Hillary Clinton was running a child sexual exploitation ring in the basement of a pizza shop? There was no basement in that shop, much less an exploitation ring, but that didn’t stop an irate social media fool from charging into the shop with an AR-15.

In the coming weeks and months we will be subjected to an avalanche of fake news, spam, and misdirection. Of course, we have experienced this for years, especially with the advent of FOX NEWS, an outlet of the Ministry of Truth which should go ahead and admit its true name is Правда (Pravda, or Truth). As I’ve stated several times before, I have grave doubts about the ability of the average American to sort fact from fiction. I remember a survey done in the early 1970’s in which randomly selected Americans were asked to read and comment upon the Bill of Rights. A majority said, some quite forcefully, it was a communist manifesto. I very much doubt there has been much improvement since.

Do you believe the Great Pumpkin will rise out of the pumpkin patch (Washington, D.C.) and fly through the air bringing bringing peace, prosperity, affordable medical care, clean and cheap energy, safe water to drink and clean air to breathe, better schools and affordable higher education, and stronger and more durable safeguards for the less well off? If so you are welcome to join Linus in his yearly Fall vigil. In all your Halloweens, the trick is on you.

Others of us will be busy. Carl Sandburg once said, “Rest is not a word for free peoples – Rest is a monarchial word.”

Some of you who have made it this far may have concluded this column is spam. I will never dispute your right to be mistaken; I will dispute the basis for your mistakes.