Giving Everyday - Giving to good causes

Today is called by some Giving Tuesday, a counter to the consumerism, and just a reminder to invest in bettering the world around you. There are many places you can give money. Or time. Or moral support.

One such choice is the Salvation Army, a Christian organization. They spread out earlier and earlier each year. Ringing bells. Giving you expectant looks. And they do some good work. They can and do help people. And, people out there ringing away, are people that get hired for the season for a small wage.

But they are also not friendly to gay people. It's part of their religious tenets. Workers have been turned away for being gay. And there are stories of gay people being refused shelter. It isn't a representation of the whole group. But there are question marks in their policy. They say they are trying to do better, but how much is yet to be seen.

They have also run into other issues. Past treatment of union families. A large number of child abuse cases in Australia. And questions of mismanagement in some areas.

And, as it is, I would prefer to give to organizations that will not be funding religious efforts or antigay efforts. I like to find groups that are apart from that messiness.

So, as an alternative, let me suggest some of the numerous organizations out there that are more secularly focused, and not limiting where or how they aid.

Groups to support:

• Amnesty International - They campaign for the human rights of people around the world.
• Direct Relief - This organization works to improve health and lives of people affected by poverty, or emergency situations.
• Doctors Without Borders - Made up primarily of health care facilitators, they operate in 60 countries, helping people dealing with disasters and violence. 
• Engineers Without Borders - Support local efforts to work on development projects.They work on projects including, drinking water access, sanitation, and roads.
• Feed America - The organization works to help feed those in need of food. They do this with food banks. (And with the cuts to SNAP, they are in desperate need.)
• Goodwill - This organization works to give job training, employment, and other services for the disabled.
• Humanist Charities - Tied to the American Humanist Association, it offers aid in matters of health and welfare via a humanist approach.
• Madre - An international women's human rights group that addresses the wide range of issues affecting women in local communities.
• Planned Parenthood - Health care providers, educators, and advocates for health care access and knowledge. They work to guarantee a right to make one's own informed reproductive decisions. Also, to ensure those in poverty to have access to support. They also are at work on a global level.
• Red Cross - A well known organization, it does good work on disaster relief, producing almost half of the United States' blood supply, and offering training on health.
• UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund - They focus on children's interest around the globe. They work in many areas, including immunization, education, and emergency relief.

Not as direct, but important, the fighters for free speech and privacy.

More groups:

• American Civil Liberties Union - The organization works to preserve First Amendment rights.
• Electronic Frontiers Foundation - An organization that works to preserve digital rights. Among it's focuses are privacy, free speech, and consumer rights.
• Comic Book Legal Defense Fund - An organization focused on preserving First Amendment rights in the comic field, for artists to produce and readers to access.

113th Congress. Like the 112th needed a sequel. *UPDATED*

So we now enter the 113th Congress...

As we go into the mess that this may be, let's remember a couple of things (amidst the huge load that never got addressed, thanks to the GOP majority in the House) that the GOP House never let get resolved.

Source

The Violence Against Women Act reauthorization
In the reauthorization of this Act, the Democrats in the Senate added protections were added to help native women, LGBT, and undocumented women. And Eric Cantor worked hard to keep the reauthorization came about. And here we are, the Act lapsed. And women across the country are left at greater risk.

Of course what didn't help was how the media mostly ignored the looming end of the act. So there is shame to go around. But the GOP has taken great effort to not act on many subjects. And this one cannot be forgotten.


Hurricane Sandy Relief funding
Since the last Congress, the House has sat on acting to get funds and support to those hit by the hurricane in November. The Senate finished up, but the House has sat and sat on it. And, as the 112th came to a close, even Republicans from New Jersey and New York were chasing Speaker Boehner around the Capitol. They were trying to get him to just get the damn bill to the floor and voted on. But he refused, and was pretty testy about it. And now, in the 113th, they put forward a small portion of the funds, promising in the month to come to get to more of it. They are, again, penny pinching emergency aid. And, worse, they are slow walking it, weeks after it was first needed.

How can the GOP be seen as acting in the interests of the country?

But what did Boehner and the GOP race to do today, as they open Congress?

Okay. They did do partial funding of Sandy Relief. But they've only done it partially, and plan to be a pain about the rest. So they're racing to be dicks on the subject.

What else? First bill out, Michelle Bachmann's (Yeah, her.) bill to end "Obamacare." Brilliant. A dead end bill. What a good use of the session. Can't help but see this as a sign of how the session will likely go on.

And they also set the rules. And, buried in that, they've included funding to continue the fight to keep the Defense of Marriage Act (the federal anti-gay marriage law) in place. Guess there isn't always money to help people left homeless after a hurricane. But there's always money to go after gay people, and preserve intolerance and inequality in the law. Way to set an example GOP.


This is all just patently ridiculous. The last Congress was ground to a halt by refusals to act by the GOP, or just the damn incompetence of John Boehner to govern, administer, and legislate. ...And the GOP have reelected him Speaker again. I'd think he kept the post through political know how, but I think, rather, no one else really wants to be stuck with the job this session. They plan to screw this country a lot in the next four years.

I would repaint Boehner as a clown, but life's done that already.

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ADDENDUM:

So! What have the Republicans done in the days since to right this sad image I have of them?

Marcia Blackburn (R-Tennessee) has put forward a bill to cut all funding to Planned Parenthood. ...For fuck sake. This! This is what they are doing with the People's times? Where's the bill to defund PBS? Where's the ban on rock music?

Why is the GOP so eager to be a cliched villain of our day?

STOP BEING THE APPENDIX OF POLITICS, REPUBLICANS!