The power of your pennies.

Posted by Pointman on April 22, 2022 · 10 Comments 

Over the past few years we’ve all had too many of those “Oh for God’s sake” moments where you’re watching and enjoying something and then suddenly a political message is brutalised into your leisure time. Obscenely overpaid and pampered athletes taking the knee and disrespecting the national anthem, watching a racially re-balanced production of Macbeth where white people appear to have been in the minority in a medieval Scotland, hitherto innocuous charities suddenly and inexplicably wielding the sword of the social justice warrior or listening to the brainless lectures of some brainless actor or equally brainless actress on a chat show you used to quite enjoy.

At end of day, all those pastimes come under the heading of what’s called discretionary spending. You’re not obliged to buy a ticket for that match, you don’t have to buy a subscription to that channel and you certainly don’t have to give any charity a donation. That’s why when organisations who’re the beneficiaries of your disposable income disrespect you or your values, it’s easy to turn off the flow of money from your pocket to them. Since they’ve ruined your enjoyment of what used to have been a pleasant pastime, you’ll find other ways of squandering your spare cash – perhaps even saving it.

I do keep a track of things happening in the financial world and on nearly a daily basis I read of the results of that simple process. The blood splashes are all over the company reports. The once mighty CNN has dropped behind a children’s channel in the ratings, the NYT circulation numbers are in freefall, viewing figures of all sports that went woke are in the toilet, all last year’s Hollywood woke blockbusters were a financial dumpster fire for their investors and the recently ended winter Olympic games in China were a catastrophe for the China appeasers who’d paid vast sums of money for the privilege of sticking their tongues up China’s butt hole just to get the broadcasting rights.

What’s commonly referred to as the genocide games wasn’t helped by the defection of several born and bred American athletes who decided to compete for China and did win some gold for them. I’d guess the gold around their necks wasn’t the only gold they got. Betraying your country can be very profitable these days.

Twice a year I do this personal financial review which mainly involves updating a domestic budget spreadsheet. We’re talking very modest numbers here, not even the GDP of Lichtenstein. It’s a chore but I know that unless you manage your money, it’ll start to manage you. Part of it is small donations to charities I’m fond of who automatically get money every year via a standing order. One I always gave money to was the Salvation Army or the Sally Army as we used to call it. I always associated it with Christmas, snow, a ringing handbell, carols and hymns sung by smartly uniformed men and women with someone out in front rattling a collection can vigorously.

Beyond that rather nostalgic view of them I’d seen the basic help they’d provided to otherwise abandoned individuals who were on their last legs. As the usual badly lapsed Catholic, as Brendan Behan ambiguously termed it, I always admired their Christian fortitude in the face of the scorn of more enlightened whelps who’d never actually seen a hungry day in their life. I’d cancelled my donation to them upon their publication of a missive titled “Let’s talk about .. Racism”. It actually said that their white supporters should make sincere apologies for their race and the past sins of the church.

I won’t exhaustively enumerate how many of my sensibilities it offended but making judgements about people based purely on the colour of their skin and joining in the fashionable woke lynch mob of Christianity would be somewhere near the top of the list. However, they appear to have seen the light. Alleluia brothers and sisters. They are withdrawing the guide for review with what is a very mealy-mouthed statement.

It’s full of PR bollocks like “By openly discussing these issues, we always hope to encourage the development of a more thoughtful organization that is better positioned to support those in need” and preachy “We have done our best to provide accurate information, but unfortunately, some have chosen to ignore those efforts. At the same time, International Headquarters realized that certain aspects of the guide may need to be clarified. Consequently, for both reasons, the International Social Justice Commission has now withdrawn the guide for appropriate review”.

What that climb down actually means is that too many people like me have simply decided they don’t like the latter day enlightened version of the Sally Army and donations have just dried up. They can do all the “appropriate reviewing” the want, but until they give a full and unreserved apology for ever issuing such a for once genuinely racist document in the first place, they can take their bell and shove it up their ass.

That’s the power of all those little pennies swinging into action. Never hesitate to use it.

©Pointman

Related articles by Pointman:

Blowback? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Click for a list of other articles.

Filed under Article · Tagged with Charities, Olympics, Salvation Army