Queen Elizabeth has spoken in her traditional Christmas message, all surrounded with video clips, musical interludes and a glimpse or two into one or another of her royal residences in which choirs and chamber orchestras entertain her/us at her behest. She trumpets her sixty years on the throne and the efforts of the brigades of volunteers who allowed the staging of celebrations for her diamond jubilee, as well as the hosting of the summer olympic games and then launches into a homily about the arrival of Christ in the manger and how we should have a thought for those who suffer at this time of year from the loss of loved ones or who heed the call of duty to provide service to queen and country and are thus unable to spend the holidays with their loved ones. Pope Benedict takes a minute to comment on the plight of those in Syria and other conflict spots and much the same drivel popes have spouted for centuries about the need for piety and charity. Stephen Harper tells us he’s working for jobs and prosperity for all of us, though his twisted definition of prosperity for most of us may not coincide with what we might have had in mind. Does anyone else find it ironic and somewhat galling to have people who wield relatively vast power and wealth lecture the rest of us on the need to give? It seems clear that charity is the key to more charity: charity has become an industry, and an industry that supports hierarchies of people who shouldn’t be at the top of the list as beneficiaries. It seems, for instance, that Galen Weston has managed to direct a significant portion of donations to President’s Choice charities into management and further fund-raising, rather than to those in need. Likewise, Corus Radio, patrons of the Children’s Charity Fund, benefited from the charity to the tune of nearly a million dollars, and this in an economic climate where the numbers of children living in poverty is increasing (this information was from documents posted at Norm Farrell’s Northern Insights blog). While the pontifications on charity and goodwill ring out, these same folks are either directly responsible for, or complicit in, the ongoing pillaging of the African continent, a considerable portion of the chafing in the Middle East, heightened tensions in Asia and a plethora of nasty undertakings in Latin America.

Perhaps the following is not directly connected to the Christmas blather, but it certainly is another piece of the same puzzle picture: we’ve been bombarded recently with a series of ads sponsored by the Catholic Church in which lapsed Catholics are exhorted to “come home”. They probably hope to snare the odd other otherwise committed religionist with tales about how they are the largest charitable organization in the world, that they have educated more children than any other organization in the world … exactly the sort of half-truths that pervade the world of commercial promotion, coyly eliminating mention of the abuses suffered in parochial schools, both residential and otherwise, the phenomena of meddling in politics at all levels, the Inquisition and, perhaps more than anything else, the idea that these clowns have been around for two millennia and have still failed to resolve any substantive questions of poverty, war, disease, inequity and the unsustainability of our current economic paradigm. It’s difficult for people who exercise a bit of reason to take the lead from an organization that has, for centuries, impeded social progress, rejected equality for more than half of the world’s population, stifled initiatives to better the condition of much of humanity and actively supported régimes around the world and through history that have stood for none of the basic tenets of Christianity. We can say similar things about religious and political hierarchies all around the world, but these ads speak of a brazen and wanton disregard for history and current affairs in a most shocking way.

In contrast, there are groups like Strike Debt that are trying to do real good, albeit using what might be termed market solutions:

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/seasons-greetings-strike-debt-youre-n

While this can be only a stopgap at best, it’s proof that there are people working creatively to build a more constructive approach to social and economic interaction. The end we should seek is not the forgiveness of distressed debt, but the redress of the circumstances that generated the debt in the first place. As long as we substitute charity for opportunity and bow down before the rich and powerful, there will be little in the way of a better world in this life, even if the Pope tells us that we will be better off in the next life. Personally, I’m unwilling to take that on faith, or to wait idly for the promised paradise. How we get to that society of opportunity and mutual support is a very large discussion, one that is happening in various places, and which is well understood by a minority, but it will take a considerable effort to overcome the inertia of current institutions and some courage, particularly on the part of the segments of the population that continue to live in relative comfort.

So the Pope has wants to ally himself with the leaders of other religions to combat gay marriage. Isn’t it just sad that this crew are such bad stewards of what they call creation that they can’t think of anything better to address than who sleeps with who. It’s particularly galling when one of humanity’s greatest challenges comes from overpopulation and the Catholic Church has stood steadfastly on the side of exacerbating the problem, preventing birth control wherever possible and ensuring that women’s health initiatives that would lead to smaller families and poverty reduction are thwarted at every turn. In a world of violence, both casual and institutional, inequity, corruption and depravity, Rome remains fixated on whether homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals. RESH; seems to be about all a body can do.

I left this as a comment at Northern Insights:

http://northerninsights.blogspot.ca/2012/12/fraying-of-social-safety-nets.html

Long ago, it dawned on me that charity was a way for people who had taken too much to organize the rest of society into giving time, goods and money to fill the gaps left by their own accumulations of wealth and power. This became particularly and painfully evident in some of the early rounds of trashing the contracts of health workers at the dawn of the BC Liberals new economic paradigm for BC, where the Salvation Army became a contractor taking over various services with stripped contracts, while at the same time holding onto large reserves of cash and property. In a sign of the irony of charities engaging in business, it was about this time that the SA became a listed entity on the NASDAQ: I’ll leave the religious niceties to others, but it was emblematic of the whole charity industry, where many good people work their hearts out in the service of outsourcing the principal business of society: making life livable for all, but whose efforts ultimately serve the desires of a small, greedy and uncaring minority. The rise of food banks in the early ’80s seemed like a lovely gesture, but the fact that they have become such a fixture and are so burdened with a constant stream of new clientèle and a reduced donor base speaks volumes for the direction that governance has taken at all levels of society. The sad part is that it is very difficult find productive outlets for effort and money to address the root causes of poverty and inequality because politics and the judiciary have been compromised and the public in general is held in thrall to a game of governance where there is no ethical choice: our collective ignorance perpetuates a fear-based participation in a vicious cycle of limited choices and no clear path to true social investment. The whole of an economy based on growth and consumption produces a soul-stealing inequality where those who “have” are driven to accumulate for fear of becoming one of those who “have not”, this dispossessed and disenfranchised whose designated image is that of social discard. I know people who are sponges, welfare bums and leeches, but they are few in relation to the overall ranks of strugglers, who, like most of us, need only a realistic opportunity to make a contribution to become constructive members of a larger community. Even one who writes very bad poetry or makes very bad music is less of a drain on society and the environment than someone who plies the same trade in aid of advertising campaigns to encourage further consumption, yet the Madison Avenue copywriters and jingle composers are well remunerated while we scrape to help look after those deprived of opportunity and a decent living. This rather long-winded diatribe hardly scratches the surface, and doesn’t deal with the pillage of resources outside out borders, thinking of Fantino’s recent pronouncements about how Canadian aid overseas should work, but even without looking outside our own house, there is enough of a pall to incite us to some form of constructive action beyond supporting charities of any stripe.

I saw this over at Libération this morning (not available to non-subscribers and not really accessible to those who don’t read French): the title says most of what we need to know and most of us can fill in the blanks. Pardon the substandard translations (I haven’t read a cereal box for decades)

«Respectés, les gens veulent s’en sortir»

When people are respected, they want to get back in the game.

Prix imbattables contre suivi individuel. L’épicerie sociale de Saint-Flour, dans le Cantal, cherche à rompre avec la «politique du don».

Unbeatable prices versus individual attention. The social grocery of Saint-Flour, in the Cantal, looks to break from the “policy of donations”.

For subscribers to Libération, the URL is:

http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2012/12/09/respectes-les-gens-veulent-s-en-sortir_866365

And, for interest’s sake, here is a perspective piece from Rafe Mair’s site:

http://thecanadian.org/item/1840-the-surrender-of-an-ecowarrior

My mother died an activist, as did my father ( some time earlier: he missed the last decade of accelerating devastation both in the ecosphere and the sociosphere). I hope I have the cussedness to do the same.