We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. – Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Carol”
It’s that time of year again! Despite the efforts of retailers (I’m especially looking at you, Wal-Mart) to move it up as early as possible, today is the traditional start of the Christmas season in the United States. As I wrote in my first Christmas Eve column,
…Christmas displays [now] start going up on November 1st, and many have referred to Thanksgiving as a “forgotten holiday”, overshadowed even by what is vulgarly (and endlessly) referred to as “Black Friday”…now touted as an observance in its own right.
A few years ago I noticed that many email ads now refer to Thanksgiving week as “Black Friday week”, and online merchants created their own pseudo-holiday called “Cyber Monday” (which has also spread to Canada, Europe, the UK and other countries). People have been decrying the increasing commercialism of Christmas at least since the 1950s, but I think some of those early critics would have a stroke if they could see what it’s turned into now. I try to deal with it as little as possible; most of my presents have already been purchased and wrapped, and as soon as we finish decorating our tree today they’re going under it. The few things I still need will be purchased on normal shopping trips, and I’m not going anywhere near a store either today or anytime between December 21st and 28th if I can possibly help it.
Though it may sound sentimental to some of you, I really do believe it’s a greater pleasure to give than to receive, and though I no longer have the kind of surplus cash I did when I was hooking I still make the effort to be especially generous at this time of year. As Christmas approaches I will make up gift boxes full of homemade treats for all the local businesses who regularly trade with us, and I always give what I can to the US Marine Corps Reserve’s Toys for Tots program, my favorite charity. If you’re in the United States please read the linked column and consider donating at least one new toy for an underprivileged child who might otherwise have to do without; if you don’t want to go to a toy store you can even donate money directly on the website via credit card. Furthermore, as I have the past two years, I will make a donation of equal monetary value to Toys for Tots in the name of anyone thoughtful enough to send me a present from my Amazon wishlist anytime from now until Christmas. If you’re outside the US in a country that celebrates Christmas, won’t you please take a few minutes to discover if there are any similar charities where you live? As I’ve said before, being a poor adult at Christmas is bad enough, but children can neither control their situations nor understand economic realities.
There is one Christmas-associated charity which I ask my readers to avoid, however, and that is the Salvation Army. As I explained in “Bell, Hook and Kettle”, the SA was among the earliest promoters of “sex trafficking” hysteria:
…by 1884 Salvationists were composing lurid accounts of “child sex slavery” and soon launched a campaign to raise the age of consent in the UK from 13 to 16. The moral panic they helped to create was the driving force behind most modern anti-prostitution law, especially in the United States. Once these laws were in place the Salvationists’ efforts to persecute whores became much less energetic…but in 2003, the Salvation Army reclaimed its prominent place among crusaders against harlots by establishing its “National Anti-trafficking Council”, one of whose principles is “Prostitution and related activities are not forms of work, are inherently harmful and dehumanizing, and contribute to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons.” It was one of the instigators behind the “Anti-prostitution pledge”…its propaganda calls all prostitution “sexual slavery”, and its name is always found alongside that of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Polaris Project, the Hunt Alternatives Fund, Shared Hope International and other anti-sex worker organizations whenever they agitate for further criminalization…
Though the bell-ringers make it easy to donate and most of the money put into the kettles does indeed go to helping local poor, there is just no way to know how much of it will be diverted to buying anti-whore ads and lobbying governments for increased criminalization. So please, take the time to find a charity worthy of your generosity, especially ones like Toys for Tots or food banks where the distribution is not only local, but the donations are in a form which cannot easily be diverted to promote a political agenda.
Marine Corps TFT program claims to spend less than 3% on fundraising and overhead. That’s pretty amazing. I’m wondering if they are still using mostly active duty Marines to power that organization? I think it’s probably true that they are. I was watching a – think CNN – broadcast last night on AFARTS and they found a bunch of veteran orgs that basically took people’s money and gave NOTHING to the servicemen they claimed to help … MILLIONS. There’s a lot of scams out there in the fundraising world – but the Marine Corps isn’t one of them!
Christmas became a big time for gift giving in Victorian England for several reasons, one, that commercial goods became cheaper due to industrialization, and two, the struggle by workers for decent conditions and pay.
Once the workers had better pay, they could afford a bit of Christmas. So these retailers, including the intensely anti-union Wal-Mart, have unions to thank for the Christmas spending tradition.
Salvation Army is also very anti-GLBT.
You all might enjoy this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foXs9bZq-vg
As for me, I’m moving house this week. Joy joy.
I don’t think anyone at Walmart is “anti” the kind of unions you cite here. What they’re against – is the modern day thuggery of union bosses who do nothing but take their members pay and hand it over to the Democrat party – wether they agree with it or not.
We pretty much eliminated unions here in the South. We couldn’t have done that if the people here actually supported the unions. Union thuggery and abuses led to the people turning against them and that’s why they no longer exist in strength here. It’s also the reason that “right to work” states are doing so much better these days than the union states are.
I don’t think that there’s any doubt that the quality of life of a non-union worker at a car plant in Mississippi is so much better than the quality of life of one who works for the unions in Detroit.
I agree – there was a time and a place for unions – and they were needed. But they’ve become rather ridiculous.
By the way – this story suggests that the WalMart Black Friday protests, organized by unions was simply a disaster for the unions …
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/23/unions-organize-walmart-protests-rest-of-the-nation-goes-shopping.html
WalMart has MILLIONS of employees (1% of total US workforce) – yet it’s estimated that only about 50 of them nationwide actually participated in the “protests”. Note the people involved in some of the organizing of the protests … “Socialists”. Socialism is a fringe political thought in the U.S. as much as the religious right is.
I like WalMart. With my own hands I rebuilt my flooded home after Katrina. Well, I had some help from illegal aliens and I’ll forever stand up for them. I’ll also stand up for WalMart – who opened almost immediately after the winds died down in spite of damage to their own stores. I can’t tell you how impossible it was to get supplies from ANY PLACE other than Walmart.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501598.html
But not to worry – the success that is Walmart WILL be destroyed. This is the United States, where envy and “victimization” trumps all. We’re on a freefall to national suicide and Walmart is fighting an impossible battle against that.
http://rense.com/general37/char.htm
A while back, Maggie gave me a link describing the key characteristics of fascism and I’d like to direct your attention to number 10.
That we’ve grown beyond unions is what the fascists want you to think.
mr. notch,
You might want to take a look at #10 yourself, especially if you realize that the public labor unions and the politically connected unions are augmenting the fascist government’s reach. They surely are not standing against that increased reach.
I thought the chart was flawed, myself. But historically speaking, unions have been opposed to tyrannical government.
Solidarity being the archetypical example as I think you’ve pointed out before. Must’ve been some serious cognitive dissonance in Moscow repressing labor like that. But of course we all know that they were just fascist agents and counter-revolutionaries 😉
Tried to get a present off your amazon wish list for you: but it’s only available from “other sellers”, and your wish list address doesn’t work for them.
Email me. 😉
I’ll be donating a bunch of clothes to Value Village (Savers, for those in the US) sometime this weekend. I’ve long since shrunk out of them and the suit/formal men’s sections at such stores tend to be understocked. Hopefully someone can turn them into a good job interview.
I will actually be posting tomorrow on a list of charities and organizations for people to donate to instead of Salvation Army.
[…] of anti-trafficking*) and they are not any friendlier to the LGBT community. As Maggie McNeill points out, while undoubtedly some of the funds collected will go toward helping out the poor, other funds go […]
Re: 16 Year Old Lap Dance.
I’d remind the young man in two years he needs to make it a life long mission to destroy any and all involved in this. An avalanche of petitions to get folks fired,property liens,vote them out any legal means possible to destroy their lives.
What is this in reply to?
Was the sixteen-year-old giving the lap dance, or receiving it?
Was whatever you are replying to in favor of the sixteen-year-old’s performing/receiving the lap dance, or opposed?
I realize I’m three days late, but I am curious.
This has me puzzled, how did this get posted in the wrong place ?
I some how, put a reply to ,That Was the Week That Was (#47) , here.
Could you have had more than one window open?
Having now read TW3#47, I now understand the ref. Thank you.
The earliest I can remember buying a Christmas present is June. I bought Tracy a sailor suit at A-KON. It was Sunday, just as everything is shutting down, and I got a $64 suit for $30. I gave it to her, all wrapped up in a box, two days before Christmas but pointed out to her that I wouldn’t be able to watch her unwrap it until a few days after the holiday.
She opened it on Christmas morning, tried it on, put it in the closet, and I’ve never seen her in it. She says it fit. I don’t buy her clothes anymore. I give her cash.