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this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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The Salvation Army is the shit tier of "charities". Not only are they anti-LGBTQ but they have a long history of anti-union action and supporting strikebreakers. Ever wonder why so many US Labor Movement songs are to the tune of hymns? It's not because of their familiar tune. It's because the Salvation Army would send their band to labor actions and play as loud as possible to try to drown out organizers and make attendees uncomfortable.
I try to be more positive on this platform but with these scumbags, I cannot. They're in the company of the Pinkertons and other murderers and thugs for hire.
Thank you for making this effort, by the way. The community on Lemmy versus the other platform we all know about is night and day because of people like you.
And I absolutely agree. I went to read a bit about the Salvation Army and I had no idea about their stance. I'm glad I came across this post. Truly appalling.
Thank you too for that bit of positivity. I found myself being negatively impacted, psychologically and emotionally on corporate social media. Life is just too short to engage in that sort of unhealthy behavior. And I know that I'm not the only one who has experienced such - it's pretty well established in research data.
So, while it certainly makes me feel a bit better, more important to me is the fact that engaging positively with people and encouraging them gives them more opportunities to feel better about themselves (we all need that sometimes, some more than others), grow, and, I hope, be more inclined to spread it about (and make quality shitposts and *nix porn). The world is fucked up enough as it is; lashing out, belittling, and the like only contributes the the problem.
I've been through a lot in life so far and close to those which been through even more and know first-hand how dark the depths of despair can get. If I can manage to put even the idea of a smile into the mind of someone that needs one I've won more than is possible in getting someone to rage-quit a "debate" thread that's 50 comments deep.
Damn it, it's so hard to find reputable good charities. So many of them are are either religious freaks or straight up scams.
Can we share lists of actual good charities?
I usually give to doctors without borders... Fingers crossed somone doesn't reply to me they kill puppies or something....
There's always Charity Navigator, they rate charities based on financial health and accountability, at least. I've not heard any controversy with it, for what it's worth
Another great charity evaluator is https://www.givewell.org/. Their mission is to find charities that save or improve lives the most per dollar spent, and their findings are research-backed and evidence-based. 100% of your donation goes to the charity you support. They also evaluate the lowest cost to save a human life, which is currently about $3k-$5k. Their top rated charities are involved in malaria prevention:
When charities are written in law as a way to get tax discounts, it's no wonder the majority becomes scams. Charities are also a great example of the govt failing to do it's own damn job
Child's Play is my go-to. They provide video games and consoles to hospitalized and often terminally ill children who literally can't go out and play. It was founded by the creators of Penny Arcade back in the early 2000s and so far to my knowledge hasn't had a single controversy or hint of anything nefarious. It's just nerds helping other, young, sick nerds/would-be-nerds get their nerd on.
I mean Doctors Without Borders definitely does more important work on the balance, but giving pediatric terminal cancer patients countless hours of joy isn't a trivial thing either.
That's my go-to, personally. MSF (Doctors Without Borders) could nearly get away with puppy murder and still be "good". The amount of risk that they take on to help those in need is remarkable.
In college I had support to do something very similar to engineers without borders just under a different name but in conjunction with the program. They required a certain donation level to ensure that the work we did had the needed materials paid for and could compensate the local workers involved. That's what I was told. I wasn't auditing anything but it seemed above board. I was able to engage with doctors without borders members while there. All were committed to the cause. Many were from the same part of the world if not "state/province" and giving back after they were able to make more money elsewhere. Just about all were hardcore. We have 5000 to treat in 7 days type of hardcore. Bedside manner wasn't what you'd expect in the US, but it was about helping as many people as you could as effectively as you could. Truly eye opening though. I can't say anything about the organization, but the people who were first hand there either gathered the donations or donated themselves and went there to make a difference. I respect the hell out of those people.
They are also the shit tier of thrift stores. They're over-priced and their stuff isn't as good. If you're in King County, WA, Value Village is king. I've found so many great deals at Value Village. 90% of the stuff in my house is from VV.
I miss Value Village. I got so many things there for super cheap when I was a kid.
Value village is Walmart.
They don't come any shittier than that company wise.
So, I'm not trying to be the "ackshually" guy.
Value Village isn't owned by Walmart.
Buuuut, you're still right. They're absolutely a shit company. I was an assistant supervisor at Value Village a couple of decades ago. First, they're 100% for profit but advertise in such a way that consumers believe they're a charity. What they do is buy donations from charities by the pound. Any donations accepted at the store on behalf of a charity are paid at a drastically reduced rate, so of course they push HARD for customers to bring donations directly to the store.
The shit cherry on top was the stores lying to charities about the quality of received goods to avoid paying. If clothes, for example, were soiled, they'd refuse to pay for the entire batch. Stores would find a few dirty shirts, claim the entire cart was crap, claw the money back, and sell the rest of the cart.
The company makes a HUGE profit but pays their employees peanuts. Our head cashier had worked for the company for eight years and capped out at $7.25/hour in 2003, about $14 today. One year, they announced no raises, no reason given. My then girlfriend and I discovered the owners had purchased a cabin in Northern California for use by the c-suite douches. The store manager was pulling in $60k a year, plus bonus, in a very low cost of living area. Me? $8.25 per hour.
What else? They incentivize under staffing by making a supervisor's paltry bonuses tied to their staffing budget. Staying at budget meant no bonus. They had to come in under budget for any bonus, and the more "savings" the higher the bonus. I got chewed out when I first started scheduling because I used all the hours allotted in the budget. The store went from a shit hole to being fairly respectable but it would eat into my boss's bonus. Her maximum annual bonus? $2.5k.
So they may not be owned by Walmart, but they're the Walmart of thrift stores. Fuck those guys.
Yikes! I've never thought they were a charity. It's always been pretty clear to me that they're a for-profit business, but I wasn't aware of all those shitty policies. As a shopper, they have a lot of great stuff for dirt cheap. I got a $1000 amp there once for $45. Similar deals all over my house. Oh, we got a $4500 high quality 6 person dining table for 40 bucks, and four chairs worth $600 each for 12 bucks a pop.
That's great, I'm glad you got some deals!
The thing about them is their low wages and reluctance to train their employees meant high-end goods were often priced very low. Levi's jeans were $10-15 a pair while designer jeans were priced at $5. I recall someone donating a batch of Hermés scarves. None of the pricers knew the brand, so they put them out for $1 each. I bought them all for 50% off (employee discount!) and hit eBay. This kind of thing happened weekly so the employees were always looking for things we could resell. We made less than $20k/year, that's how we scraped by!
I'm not sure how other stores are, but mine was a great example of being a penny wise and a pound foolish.
Oh I forgot all about that. My wife got a Hermes leather wallet that cost $2,600 for like $5. It's awesome when the employees don't know what they're pricing. Haha. We used to sell stuff from yard sales on eBay back when the 08 crash happened, and after we moved here we both noted how we could have been doing really well for ourselves if we had access to VV back then. We lived in a city where the thrift store was basically just a garbage dump though, so that didn't happen.
It's unfortunate that they have such shitty employee policies, because we really love what the store itself has to offer. Heck, it's so good that Macklemore wrote a hit song about it!
Thanks for straightening that up, my bad.
No no, you really weren't off base. Even if they were owned by Walmart, I doubt they could do worse.
Denisoff, R. S. (1970). The Religious Roots of the American Song of Persuasion. Western Folklore, 29(3), 175. doi:10.2307/1498356
Not OP, but I found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Preacher_and_the_Slave
Of course any article can be biased, but this one has cited sources, at least. It would take further digging to determine if those sources are credible.
https://libcom.org/article/starvation-army-twelve-reasons-reject-salvation-army
In my opinion and based on my past reading on the subject, the simple fact that it’s a religious organization is enough to dissuade me from giving them anything. It is no small statistic that religious organizations are corrupt, hypocritical, expect obedience over tolerance, anti-union, anti-LGBTQ, ultra-conservative, and generally support the notion that people must be submissive to their authority.
I’ll continue to donate to secular organizations that do genuine good.
Off the top of my head, I can only think of primary sources. Would need to dive into some academic tools to find sufficient sources for Wikipedia's requirements. I'll make a note to do so, when I get the time to do so.
The individuals who work with us are amazing ppl, it absolutely sucks that the group as a whole is pisswater
Yeah. It feels like bad actors at the top use the needy as human shields to deflect from their horrible behavior.
Ah the starvation army.
Are you familiar with that old tune?
Oh the starvation army they pray / they sing and they clap and they play/'till they get all your coin on the drum / then they'll tell you that you're on the bum.
Only Seeger’s version but it rings in my head every time they come up
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Oh the starvation army they pray / they sing and they clap and they play/'till they get all your coin on the drum / then they'll tell you that you're on the bum.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Here in Australian even, tried to donate stuff, and was loading things up, then was told they only accepted clothing that weekend. So had to reload it all back into my car.
Then they said they didn't want my pots and such.
At least here in Australia, they don't care about any donations unless they can sell it (they don't seem to care about actually giving anything less sellable to the poor for free).
They're not even selling the stuff for cheap either (so its bad for the poor too)
Started giving away a lot of it on Facebook for free.. Was extremely painless. And the savers nearby also had no issues accepting a lot of it too.
Never going back there. They suck for donations, for buying they're too expensive too.
Oh the starvation army they pray / they sing and they clap and they play/'till they get all your coin on the drum / then they'll tell you that you're on the bum.
Good as that is, I gotta endorse the Utah Philips version. It comes with context and a story, and also he's hilarious.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
the Utah Philips version
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Utah Philips is fantastic, thanks for reminding me this exists!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Oh the starvation army they pray / they sing and they clap and they play/'till they get all your coin on the drum / then they'll tell you that you're on the bum.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.