#Resist? $Resist!

The bad news is that we're going to be ruled by a mean-spirited, addle-brained despot for the next 4 years.

The good news is that if you're comfortably middle class, you're going to get a huge tax cut.

And fortunately, there are lots of good organizations dedicated to slowing and stopping the disaster unfolding around us! So my suggestion is to take your tax cut and set up some recurring monthly donations to some or, better yet, all of the organizations trying to save American civilization. I recommend using a throwaway email address because once you make a donation they will never, ever leave you alone.

Here are some starter suggestions for organizations that will be working to mitigate the threat in the coming years. I've included the Charity Navigator star ranking, where available.

Refugee support and resettlement
  • American Refugee Committee, 4 CN stars
  • International Rescue Committee, 4 CN stars
  • Church World Service, 3 CN stars
  • World Relief Corporation, 3 CN stars
  • Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, 3 CN stars
Women and Reproductive rights
  • Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 4 CN stars
  • Your local Planned Parenthood chapter or, if your state supports reproductive rights, adopt the Planned Parenthood chapter of a state where reproductive rights are most threatened (Louisiana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas)
  • Abortion access funds around the country and in the most affected states (above). Thanks to @R.R. for this resource page: https://abortionfunds.org/need-abortion/
  • Emily's list, no CN rating
Civil liberties
  • American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, 4 CN stars
  • The ACLU chapter in your state (Montana, New Jersey, and Northern California all have 3 CN stars)
  • Southern Poverty Law Center, 3 CN stars
  • Anti-Defamation League, 2 CN stars
Environmental protection
  • The Nature Conservancy, 3 CN stars
Muslim community organizing
  • Council on American-Islamic Relations, no CN rating
You could contribute $5 to ALL of these organizations each month and it would cost just $60, less than the cost of a really expensive cup of coffee!

Join in with more suggestions!
 
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lochquel

Level 2 Member
Just so everyone knows, the administration/fundraising costs that charities run up really makes one wonder what they are in the business of. Once I found out that a CEO of a charity I used to contribute to made $1 million a year, I started to forgo giving and focus on the mantra 'charity begins at home'.

check out charitynavigator.org for more interesting info.
 

heavenlyjane

Level 2 Member
For those who care about lowering their taxes, not all of the organizations mentioned in the initial post are tax-deductible.
 

Belisarius

Level 2 Member
I can't speak knowledgeably to all of the listed charities above but a couple of them are despicable with respect to fiduciary responsibility and/or the deceptive nature of their stated mission.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is one such example. It's a swindle and its leader Morris Dees can most charitably be described as a wealthy (courtesy of SPLC coffers) amoral opportunist running a fear mongering shakedown racket while espousing noble ideas of protecting the poor and the most vulnerable from hate.

The SPLC lists Maajid Nawaz, a former Muslim extremist radical who had a change of heart and now fights for a secularist Islam and peaceful Koranic interpretation to oppose Wahhabism and ISIS style ideology as an "anti-Muslim extremist."

Similarly, Ayaan Hirsi Ali - a Muslim woman who suffered clitorectomy as a child and still has multiple fatwas ordering her death (she had to live under Dutch police protection for years) when she began to speak out publicly about feminism and atheism also finds herself on the SPLC's "anti-Muslim extremist" list.

In those instances - and many others - The SPLC's identity politics pandering (directed by their benefactors) trump basic principles that I think many of us support. Free speech. Freedom of religion and religious choice. Due process of law over summary executions ordered by clerics. The premise that women aren't cattle. Extremist stuff.

I'd recommend doing your due diligence on any charity and not accept anything they claim to fight for at face value. You may find you're materially supporting something even more insidious than a narcissistic populist.
 

heavenlyjane

Level 2 Member
I can't speak knowledgeably to all of the listed charities above but a couple of them are despicable with respect to fiduciary responsibility and/or the deceptive nature of their stated mission.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is one such example. It's a swindle and its leader Morris Dees can most charitably be described as a wealthy (courtesy of SPLC coffers) amoral opportunist running a fear mongering shakedown racket while espousing noble ideas of protecting the poor and the most vulnerable from hate.

The SPLC lists Maajid Nawaz, a former Muslim extremist radical who had a change of heart and now fights for a secularist Islam and peaceful Koranic interpretation to oppose Wahhabism and ISIS style ideology as an "anti-Muslim extremist."

Similarly, Ayaan Hirsi Ali - a Muslim woman who suffered clitorectomy as a child and still has multiple fatwas ordering her death (she had to live under Dutch police protection for years) when she began to speak out publicly about feminism and atheism also finds herself on the SPLC's "anti-Muslim extremist" list.

In those instances - and many others - The SPLC's identity politics pandering (directed by their benefactors) trump basic principles that I think many of us support. Free speech. Freedom of religion and religious choice. Due process of law over summary executions ordered by clerics. The premise that women aren't cattle. Extremist stuff.

I'd recommend doing your due diligence on any charity and not accept anything they claim to fight for at face value. You may find you're materially supporting something even more insidious than a narcissistic populist.
I think we would be wary of making assertions that do not include citing reliable sources. Here is the SPLC's explanation for including these two people on their list of anti-Muslim extremists: www.splcenter.org/20161025/journalists-manual-field-guide-anti-muslim-extremists.
 
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Belisarius

Level 2 Member
I think we would be wary of making assertions that do not include citing reliable sources. Here is the SPLC's explanation for including these two people on their list of anti-Muslim extremists: www.splcenter.org/20161025/journalists-manual-field-guide-anti-muslim-extremists.
I think we should be wary of citing the SPLC as that reliable source given their propensity for poor context, willful omission and misrepresentation. Those write-ups are a pretty cynical exercise if you have any familiarity with either individual or their life experiences and have any comprehension of the actual physical peril that they and their loved ones live under each day.

Placing already threatened individuals on a de facto Enemies List to silence and discredit them for exercising free speech, their right to choose or interpret their religion, or for outlining the threats and degradation that they personally experienced at the hands of any group isn't really my thing. Doesn't seem very tolerant or liberal. Or charitable.

A small sliver of context in a much bigger story: Theo Van Gough, Ali's Dutch artistic collaborator who helped her protest the treatment of women in her part of the world, was shot and then nearly decapitated on the streets of Amsterdam; a knife stuck into his chest with a five page note addressed directly to her, promising that she was next. Now, that's hate speech. She spent years in protective custody, assailed by death threats, abandoned by family and community, and those threats continue today. So let's be crystal clear about what real persecution is and who suffered it. Google the translation of the five page note addressed to her that was stuck into Theo Van Gogh's chest. That's a direct source.

Look, context ain't their racket. They need uncomplicated bogeymen to menace their donors with. The SPLC is a "non-profit" with over 300 million dollars in endowment. An endowment comprised of excess fund raising revenue over the past 45 years that the SPLC just couldn't quite find worthy causes to spend it on despite their broad mandate and marketing materials that promise ever perpetual threats. Their aggressive fund-raising carries on, the endowment bloats, admin fees and fundraising expenditures spike, Morris Dees is filthy rich and their six story office building in Montgomery, AL earns the locally derisive nickname....the Poverty Palace.

For the SPLC, non-profit is more about a useful tax status than an actual belief system. But hey, Poverty is in their title.
 
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R.R.

Level 2 Member
Reproductive rights
  • Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 4 CN stars
  • Your local Planned Parenthood chapter or, if your state supports reproductive rights, adopt the Planned Parenthood chapter of a state where reproductive rights are most threatened (Louisiana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas)
To expand on the Reproductive Rights section:

There are many local and national funds that try to address the class/ poverty barrier that exists in regard to access: https:// abortionfunds .org/need-abortion/ (scroll down for map and list)

For example, in the Pacific NW, the local fund CAIR Project is small, all-volunteer, and devotes its donations to direct funding for poor women, along with paying for its phone (hotline) and internet services.

EDIT: Here is an article that describes the work of these funds in more depth:
http:// www.refinery29 .com/2017/01/138436/texas-abortion-travel-agent-stories
 
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Matt

Administrator
Staff member
I appreciate the intelligent discussion folks. There's nothing wrong with challenging positions and drilling deeper into things like this, and glad to see it is possible without invoking FT. :)
 

MickiSue

Level 2 Member
There are also excellent programs for Mexican Americans, if anyone is leaning that way. He's zoning in on the Muslims, at the moment. But it was Mexicans he called rapists.
 

knick1959

Level 2 Member
The American population is made up of men and women. They are doctors, lawyers and blue-collar workers. They are housewives and career women, some of them are unemployed.

This doesn't call all Americans lawyers. Or doctors, or housewives or even employed. Unless you want it to. And it doesn't paint us ALL unemployed. I could have added "criminals" as a group ... we have some.

I am not a huge gung-ho Trump supporter, but I am, by profession (Software Developer), trained to understand strict logic and to parse things exactly as provided. And to see when other people are filling in logic that isn't there.

Unless someone can tell me that, absolutely, without any doubt what-so-ever, no one crossing the border was a criminal or rapist, then I have to agree that the media has harped on this for way too long. And willing Americans are so quick to try and be PC that they've rushed to adopt this view.

I have more observations of inaccuracies if anyone wants to suggest other widely-held beliefs. I'll be happy to explain the inaccuracies I see. Or agree if I don't see any with a particular claim.

Are we discussing politics now? Probably not a good idea, but I'll just continue to give to the American Red Cross (blood and money) and let them figure out where to send it.

Fortunately, we don't have to deal with a two-faced lying career politician for the next 4 years and some of the damage done over the last 8 can be undone. There wasn't a good choice either way last November as far as I'm concerned. Given the result, I'm both excited and extremely nervous to see how things shake out. And shake out it looks like they will.
 

knick1959

Level 2 Member
W-w-w-wait. Muslims. He picked 7 countries that I would not be interested in traveling to at the moment ... including many past years and probably future ones. Iran is/was of interest. Sure, he's pretty much ruined the possibility. I HAVE to see Jordan one day, and perhaps that's ruined for awhile too. But banning Muslims? Not.

A Google search says there are 1.6 BILLION Muslims in the world. See this:
Code:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/31/worlds-muslim-population-more-widespread-than-you-might-think/
His travel ban affects (according to this article) 12% of Muslims. The numbers I remember from the news would make this percentage smaller, but we'll go with this.

Anyone? Is there not some flaws in the logic of the label that's been put on this?

And yes, there ARE flaws in the logic of this "ban" that HAVE been correctly reported. Like ... why not Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? Well, the latter is about money and oil IMO. The WH answer to this seemed to make some sense. Paraphrasing ... "it's a first pass, we can adjust as we go". And it's temporary ... perhaps once they enhance screening techniques, they'll relax it.

Personally, the whole terror idea is constantly overkilled by the media. Sure, it's a terrible thing for an idiot to kill dozens of people here, or there, or anywhere. But for the media to broadcast that an entire country is trembling in fear? First, I don't believe that is true ... that one incident is going to affect a huge population. But to feed the terrorist trolls by embellishing the reaction? Shameful.

Huh. I didn't mean to get all involved like this. I'll try not to spend too much time with the replies. Because, true, I'm not really interested in hearing falsehoods simply repeated without thought. If someone wants to trade real angles with me, I'm all for it. Logic is logic, whether it's what you want to hear or not.
 

knick1959

Level 2 Member
Yup, there's my suggestion. The American Red Cross. They get 3/4 starts on the referenced website and seem to score pretty high, percentage-wise. I've always just assumed they had a good cause and never bothered to check. Now I have and I feel better.
 
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