Aggressive charity ads

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Sput
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Lorns wrote:I have several charities i donate to the main being Help for Heroes and the poppy appeal. And for 4 weeks of every year i remove all other charity boxes for the poppy appeal.
I believe charity begins at home and the first area of national debt i would make cuts would be international aid.
PLEASE NOTE The following is just me playing devil's advocate, I'm not suggesting I agree with the line of thought:

What if the "heroes" have fucked up the quality of life of civilians in the pursuit of british foreign policy, and destroyed so much infrastructure in that country that the civilians will die without foreign aid? Who'd you choose to donate to: the civlian who WILL die without help, or the solider who will be broadly okay by virtue of being from a rich country like ours?

On a more sincere note: given how much Britain has taken from, for example, African nations, should we not try and make things right by helping them out?
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Ronnie Rowlands
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I agree with Sput's line of thought.
Ronnie is victorious, vivacious in victory like a venomous dog. Vile Republicans cease living while the religious retort with rueful rhetoric. These rank thugs resort to violence and swear revenge.

But Ronnie can punch through steel so they lose anyway.
cwathen
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On a similar note, apart from the agressive TV ads, I'm getting absolutely fed up with the fact that you can't walk down the street without being mobbed by a charity worker - who will often get quite rude and agressive if you try to avoid them.

The big issue seller, the poppy appeal, the salvation army guy selling 'The War Cry', fine. Someone with a collection box and some stickers standing in a shop entrance, fine. But it's just not on when you get teams of agressive students (who are usually paid for their attendance) 'working' confined spaces (the outside of Drake Circus shopping centre in Plymouth being a good example) and acting as if you've shat on their mother because you don't want to talk to them.

It's not that I question their cause, but the manner in which they do it is wholely unacceptable. And if it wasn't that they 'are just doing charity work', they'd surely be forced to stop.
Chie
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Sput wrote:What if the "heroes" have fucked up the quality of life of civilians in the pursuit of british foreign policy, and destroyed so much infrastructure in that country that the civilians will die without foreign aid? Who'd you choose to donate to: the civlian who WILL die without help, or the solider who will be broadly okay by virtue of being from a rich country like ours?
Isn't it the Taliban that's still fucking up the lives of civilians?

I wouldn't donate to the civilian, because I don't believe in giving money to people thousands of miles away when there are people who need it here in my society. I think it's insulting to them.
Sput wrote:On a more sincere note: given how much Britain has taken from, for example, African nations, should we not try and make things right by helping them out?
What did we take from African nations exactly?
timgraham
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Chie wrote:
Sput wrote:On a more sincere note: given how much Britain has taken from, for example, African nations, should we not try and make things right by helping them out?
What did we take from African nations exactly?
Did..did you miss the few hundred years of history when the British were annexing bits of territory all around the world? The few thousand who lost their lives to diseases introduced by white settlers, or those sold as slaves, or those whose dignity suffered from being treated as a savage (for starters) may have something to say about that!

You only need to look at the recent history of countries such as my own to see the impact that colonisation had on countries around the world. I'll readily acknowledge that some places it has worked out better than others, but nobody's naive enough to think it was all hugs, kisses and roses.
Chie
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Well no, they wouldn't have anything to say about that. They're dead.

Assuming you're referring to compensation, why should modern-day Africans gain financially from the suffering of their 200-year-old ancestors?
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Gavin Scott
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Chie wrote:Well no, they wouldn't have anything to say about that. They're dead.

Assuming you're referring to compensation, why should modern-day Africans gain financially from the suffering of their 200-year-old ancestors?
In the same way that valuable property stolen during the war is returned to the descendants of the owners.

Restitution cannot hope to put wrongs right, but as an act of contrition it goes a long way.

How do you feel about it chie?
timgraham
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Chie wrote:Well no, they wouldn't have anything to say about that. They're dead.

Assuming you're referring to compensation, why should modern-day Africans gain financially from the suffering of their 200-year-old ancestors?
Because the suffering went on until a lot more recently than 200 years ago. You could look at Rwanda as an example of that, albeit not on the party of the British, but certainly a direct consequence of European colonisation in Africa.

Closer to home, for instance, were the stolen generations here - aboriginal children were taken away from their parents and put under the care of state governments in order to eliminate any traces of their culture or heritage. This was still happening as recently as the 1970s. Were it not for colonialism and an entrenched sense of racial superiority, that wouldn't have happened. I have no doubt that similar things would have taken place in other colonies.

I don't really have anything to say about financial obligations but you would think that given our part in causing a lot of the problems there now with things like absurd borders, there would be some degree of moral obligation to put it vaguely right?
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Sput
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We've also got a vested interest in improving the quality of life in developing nations. The reason our birth rate is stable (even decreasing) is because we're developed and we don't have parents essentially playing the odds, which in turns lessens their dependence on resources. I guess having a better standard of living in these countries also makes them a bit more stable politically, again benefitting us in the long run. As a result I think there's more to the developmental aid goals set by the UN than simple reparations, although I'm philosophically okay with that too. By my admittedly limited in scope count, there aren't many screwed up countries that don't owe their state to meddling/colonisation by the West.
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Alexia
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cwathen wrote:I'm getting absolutely fed up with the fact that you can't walk down the street without being mobbed by a charity worker - who will often get quite rude and agressive if you try to avoid them.

It's not that I question their cause, but the manner in which they do it is wholely unacceptable. And if it wasn't that they 'are just doing charity work', they'd surely be forced to stop.
They're called chuggers - a portmanteau of charity and mugger. More often than not they are not employed by the charity themselves, but by an agency and/or other company who sell their services to the charity. As such by stopping and promising £10 a month to rebuild a mud hut in Cambodia, you fulfil a quota and that agency gets more money from the charity. Just do what I do, say "I've already been bugged by your colleague down the street" or "I need to catch my bus".
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Sput
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I find a cheery, if insincere, "nah! have a nice day" works when they ask if they can talk to you. No need to lie about donating, or being rude. I tried that for a while but got tired of feeling like a grumpy old fogie. That's yet to come.
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