the fucking Salvation Army had the nerve to send us a piece of paper mail asking for donations
so we figure it's time for our annual reminder to please not donate to the Salvation Army because their mission and their services are explicitly hostile to queer people.
@ireneista
ok, but those are no fediverse instances ;)
(also, pretty sure I regularly used fuck when I still used twitter years ago, never got any complaints, though it's possible that THE ALGORITHM punished me)
@ireneista
related to the old thing about enforcing politeness as means of oppression, instead of *actually* protecting anyone.
(in the case of twitter etc, the aforementioned Discord server is a generally friendly place)
@Doomed_Daniel the ends do not justify the means, because the means become the ends.
if the tool that's used is requiring people to be polite, at some point after doing it enough, politeness starts to be a goal in itself; any original goal (such as safety or justice) gets forgotten.
@ireneista
ok, I never was very visible and am not really part of a targeted minority, so it makes sense that I never got into trouble (apart from maybe becoming even less visible thanks to their algorithm, who knows)
I see the freedom that a custom instance gives, but I'm too lazy (and as far as I can tell the administrators of my instance are ok - but of course like on Twitter I'm in a privileged position and not very visible)
@Doomed_Daniel oh that is totally fair. we're not advocating that everyone should run their own, we realize it's a lot of work (in fact we just spent a few minutes in the middle of this conversation fixing something we broke while upgrading it...)
but it's work that makes us happy, so we do it :)
@snaeqe @Doomed_Daniel we would, because we have experience in this topic, but it's upsetting. the one we were shocked to learn about during the Dragonfly escalation[1] was air quality.
[1] https://archive.thinkprogress.org/google-dragonfly-china-censorship-human-rights-fe1fe1ddf55a/
When I discovered that, I was just stunned about the depth.. Search engines, news sites etc; I'd expect those to be censored, prohibited from displaying.. "unpleasant" content to chinese residents; I was perplexed though that this would even cover messages in the subordinate chat function of a mobile game, even when neither sender nor receiver were located in China..
I remember when they used to go to all the pubs and beg for money ... And I would say "the treatment of the LGBT people is why I will never donate, bye. I said bye!"
Hugz & xXx
@ireneista
The Salvation Army Major showed up looking for signatures against the homosexual law reform petition ... he left.
The greek god flatmate was washing a car in the front yard wearing a pair of shorts one size two small. The Salvation Army Major was seen staring with his tongue hanging out.
Shortly thereafter the Salvation Army Major was sent all the way down the line ... something about the very gay public toilets down the road.
@ireneista If you're in the US or Canada, and they included a Business Reply Mail envelope, it may interest you to know that such an envelope should also function as a prepaid mailing label were it to be attached to a big heavy box.
Everyone could use a cinder block every now and then. They make great paperweights — the ultimate practical gift!
@ireneista also because their high level management scrapes maximal personal profit off the top. And many times employees are treated poorly.
My mother worked for the salvation army and her manager scammed her out of $20000.
@ireneista The season has come once again for me to share this over 100 year old verse about how shitty the Salvation Army is.
🎶 And the Starvation Army, they play
And they sing and they clap and they pray
Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they tell you when you're on the bum:
You will eat, bye and bye
In that glorious land above the sky
Work and pray, live on hay
You'll get pie in the sky when you die 🎶
@ireneista @inthehands I got a fairly expensive fundraising packet recently from a Catholic-Church-affiliated boarding school that is currently being sued for enabling numerous sexual assaults.
I do not know how they thought this was something remotely acceptable to do.
@RolandOfGilead this is our personal testimony based on numerous conversations over the years with people we know well who've been directly affected. if someone wants to volunteer an article from a reputable news organization, we'll let you know; we don't have one to hand.
we recognize that that is probably a will-not-reshare for you, and we think that's a completely reasonable decision on your part.
@ireneista I *really* hate how "bellringing" for them ends up being a default/fallback option for high school community service. Good job, school system, making kids contribute to their own/their friends' oppression through required, unpaid child labour!
(IIRC they knew it was terrible but there weren't really any other options. I don't blame the kids.)
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