My mother forwards emails.
Most people became cynical of the typical email forwards back around the time Prodigy was on it's way out, and AOL was the only way for dial up internet.
But she forwards emails like it's 1997.
Chain emails falling under any category listed below will get forwarded:
• Anything containing a hundred-times told joke about the differences between men and women.
• Anything containing a picture of a baby
• Anything to warn people about some new danger. (ie. the latest way to get abducted in the parking lot of a supermarket.)
• Anything to warn people about the dangerous and costly 'hidden' phone number prefix that the phone company will bill you at $100/per minute if you dial it
• Anything containing cute holiday-centric pictures of odd Christmas trees, naughty pumpkin carvings, and animals in costumes
• Anything commemorating the victims and Firefighters of 9/11
• Any cartoon depicting either babies, or elderly people naively referencing something 'naughty' (ie. old people mishearing the diagnosis of having Acute Angina...I'm sure you can draw a comic situation in your head around that punchline.)
Most of these are pretty benign to those who know better.
But then there are the most recent variety that seem to actually make society worse. Keep in mind that her distribution list of people she includes in these emails are business associates, old friends, family, cousins, family doctors, ex-family doctors, the dentist...etc.
But the emails I speak of that make society worse are the ones that typically contain the phrase THIS IS AMERICA!!!!
Email forwards veiled as patriotism, that really only amount to misinformation and racism.
THIS IS AMERICA!!!!Most of them contain an animated gif of a waving American flag, and usually speak out against foreigners ruining the country but trying to make Spanish the national lanquage of the US (when was this actually on a ballot for the nation?), or illegal immigrants coming into the country and stealing jobs away from the US citizens, or foriegners stealing US jobs by building warehouses overseas to take business from the US, or how foriegners are trying to take God out of the Constitution. (Do they even know how hard it is to ammend the Constitution, let alone rewrite it?)
THIS IS AMERICA!!!!The forwards smell slightly like patriotism and Christian idealism, but underneath I realize that my mother's spreading around a potently vile hatred. My brother and I both agreed that we needed to say something to her. He was the first to speak up, but I sent her the following explanation. I'm not posting this because I'm proud to rail against my own mother, I'm posting it because the Up-with-America propaganda is usually just a cleverly disguised ugly directive and it actually makes me upset to think about. This email was a response to a forward saying how illegal aliens are getting government assisted grants to pay for all of their college, while Americans have to pay for it themselves, and then the immigrants move on to take the jobs of US citizens, or move overseas with their shiny new degree to run the factories that took the jobs from US citizens.
THIS IS AMERICA!!!!:
Dear Precious Mother,
There was a lot of misinformation in that email, and I think that immigrants are filling a void in the US that is being created by the Paris Hilton/Beverly Hills/Bratz Doll culture we’ve created. While large corporations are sending their factories overseas because it’s cheaper, that’s not the fault of immigrants in this country. It’s the greedy CEO/CFO positions who determine they can reduce company overhead by paying foreign employees less.
And which U.S. Jobs have immigrants taken? Fast food? Sure. But High School kids are too cool to work in fast food nowadays. (your daughter's boyfriend being the exception) It’s rare to see a high school kid working at a McDonalds anymore. Immigrants will do hard labor jobs too (roofing, paving, landscape), but are they really taking the jobs from the Americans who are more and more looking for an easy way out with false worker’s comp claims and early retirement or faked disability? Americans don’t want to work.
You never hear of the Mexican guy who lived off of a false disability claim for 40 years milking the system so he could spend his days hunting and watching football. But I personally know husbands of teachers at our local High School who do just that.
Anyway, that email isn’t entirely either left-wing (anti-CEO) or right-wing propaganda (anti-immigration), which pretty much just makes it racist in nature.
That’s all.
We just think you should consider what you’re sending around.
Also, I did the research and you must be a U.S. Citizen to receive a federal grant for education from the U.S. Government. This includes the PELL Grant. The only exception listed to that rule is if you’re a refugee. Meaning, if you’re living in the U.S. For salvation from a war or political uprising in your home country.
We love you.
Your sons
