Open Letter to Amex: What more can I say?

Dear American Express (and other Bill Collectors Worldwide),

So I just got off the phone with you, and after 25 minutes of back and forth, I have one thing to ask: What more can I say to make you understand?

You know, there is something about hitting the rock bottom of powerlessness, a place where you are under no illusions about the fact that you have not the slightest, merest shred of control, that things are completely out of your hands, that you are not capable of complying with a request, no matter how reasonable, not able to make good on a debt that you owe, period. A place where shame and fear give way to boldness and baldness, like digging straight down into the earth, through the darkeness of shame, into the hot, burning, purifying core, and emerging on the other side of the world naked and uncovered, no hiding truth. That's who I am right now. That's where I am right now.

Now, as a corporation and not an individual, I know that I will not be heard. But when you hire people to call me, over and over, trained to coax/warn/threaten me into paying, you offer me a human interface to communicate with the company. Frequently, cyclically, I am telling my story to a new voice over the phone, each one completely unfamiliar with my case but for the brief preparation summary screen that their automated call center ticket system software gives (Oh, I know all about how a call center works, having worked one myself). Over and over, I confront the powerlessness not only of myself, but of the caller. Each and every one tells me that they lack the power to negotiate with me, to work with me. How dare you send them to me so un-empowered, so ill-equipped, so desensitized to humanness? What's the point? I can't be browbeaten into paying you if there is no money, and none on the way. I can't make something from nothing, and if I could force someone to hire me, we wouldn't be talking on the phone. You force me to shame myself over and over with no result, morphing my measured explanations into begging. It's impossible to forgive, and there's no place to direct my anger but an open letter that I'm sure you're not even reading.

I'd love to work together to preserve my good name. You've no right to trash it under these circumstances! Reporting to the credit agencies, selling debt to collections, and suing me are all tantamount to harassment and torture when I am completely incapable of settling even the portion of the debt you originally asked for, let alone the exhorbitant king's ransom produced by the total amount due + fees and penalties. Why single me out among the many that are suffering in today's economic crisis? As a customer in good standing for all those years, why throw away a wonderful, once healthy relationship for circumstances out of my control? Why not negotiate? Take my small, good faith offerings, and give me a responsive interface encouraging me to continue chipping away at the debt until it is all paid. That is what I'm asking for. We both want the same thing, and only you have the power to make it happen for both of us. Help me help you help me! I know with the credit crunch and the wall street instability you're probably just passing the buck, but could you at least have passed it to someone with hands? You're beating a dead horse with me. I have basic math and several physical laws, including the law of conservation of matter, on my side. I can't make 350$/mth total earnings = 450$/mth payment to Amex. If you find a way to make it work, let me know though. Until then, don't call me, I'll call you. What more can I say?

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Open Letter to Fox News: Enough is Enough

Dear Fox News,
On behalf of myself and all the other thinking people in the world that are aware of what you are doing, enough is enough. Your super-biased "news coverage" is an affront to the size of our cerebral cortices. The sting of your condescension and the magnitude of your insults cannot be exaggerated. It is a simple fact, and by constant repetition is made into law: Fox news is not news at all and cannot be counted on to provide a factual account or objective commentary on anything.

Time and time again, you have failed in your solemn charge as a member of the fourth estate. Instead of policing our leaders, you are bought and paid for -- the drooling, mindless minions of rich men with despicable agendas. For the unaware, Fox may just seem a bit cheeky and make a lot of "errors" for which it inevitably fails to apologize, but I am not one of the unaware. Like many, I have had enough of Fox and I'm making it my personal mission to challenge every single one of your patrons and viewers to wake and up and demand better.

How much lower can you sink? I'm not going to tally every single one of your outrageous lies, slipshod reports, or racist statements, but I will talk about the one that pushed me over the edge. For the duration of this election, Fox news has insisted on painting Barack Obama as Osama bin Laden, a despicable, racist mud-slinging tactic. But wait! Crawling around in the muck and mire is not enough, and so you get on your belly and slither. Obama/Biden = Osama bin Laden?! What are you implying? That Osama has a way of possessing certain senators' parents and forcing their hands in the signing of their birth certificates, the choosing of names? That with this time-traveling evil plan he has fixed decades of elections and votes, and will now infiltrate our country and somehow perpetrate his jihad without our notice? In what universe is this supposed to be possible? These wild, astrological conjectures and conspiracy theories are pathetic, and unworthy of any American. Even implanting these ideas, like a faux-Shakespearian Iago, is a crime.

Which brings me to my conclusion. I am fighting you, Fox news, with everything that I have. I am challenging every person I know to do the same. Far from being a mere complaint, this has become another theater for the great battle of right vs. wrong, good vs. evil. What I'm trying to say, what I've said over and over again, is: Enough is Enough!

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