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Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,928,903 times
Reputation: 4561
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
We should be careful not to play into the hands of sensationalistic journalism such as what the Daily Mail regularly traffics in. Unfortunately, such innuendo and insinuation is all we may get because AME churches are, literally, episcopal, and therefore not answerable to the membership, and may use their protected status to hide where the money actually goes.
What is noticeably missing from the discussion, though, is discussion about what was said about the donations when they were made. That matters more than anything else. I'm wracking my brain but I don't remember what we told our congregants when we shared our collection plate with the church. I'm pretty sure we didn't say, "This is all going to the families of the victims," which we would have said if we were donating, specifically, to a victims fund. I recall comments about "standing in solidarity", which clearly would indicate that some of the money we donated was to go for fostering the church's mission and not just providing financial relief to the victims' families.
Attack the source of the news rather than the contents? A typical deflection tactic.
Here are some more news reports on the subject:
Altanta Black Star excerpt and source:
Reports from the Post and Courier also say the church created four funding categories that the $3.4 million in donations will go toward, which include the Mother Emanuel Fund, to be used for building improvements; a Memorial Fund, which will finance a physical tribute to the victims and their families; the Mother Emanuel/Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney Endowment Fund, which will provide money for scholarships and community outreach projects; and the Mother Emanuel Nine Fund, which will divide the $280,000 among the estates of the nine victims.
Same information, plus additional details. Now tell us exactly why the original story link was not valid? It is disgusting what this church did; under the guise of raising money for the victim families, money is going to go to their building fund???? Deceitful and oh so Christian it appears is just fine in today's USA. Where did they THINK unsolicited money was suppose to go to that all of a sudden came from Montreal, Dusseldorf or Tokyo? Right after the shootings.
Don't even TRY and excuse this deceit, because that is what it is.
Yeah but that's my point. If a 25 year old father was killed in the shooting then his family loses some 40 years of working income based on his normal life expectancy and expected retirement age. If you are really going to compensate those families for that loss then you need a substantial sum of money to do it. Sure, anyone reading this would be thrilled to be handed a million bucks, but you need that much in the bank just to retire and live modestly off the interest these days.
Well, sure. We don't know how much these people made, or what their ceiling may have been though. They could have been making $20,000 a year, in which case $1.5 would be plenty compensation. On the other hand, they could have been making $100k a year, at which point $1.5 would not be nearly enough. If I remember correctly, there was only 1 victim that was under about 40, and he did not have children. Now $1.5 spread over 9 families would certainly not be very much.
I was just making a point that $1.5 million is nothing to sneeze at, which is how it came off to me in your post. Maybe that isn't what you meant, but that is what it sounded like to me (see below). Give me $1.5 and I could live comfortably with my wife and son until I die.
Note: When posting on this thread, I had just had an encounter with a very well off sales rep for my company who was complaining about not getting to go to his hunting camp in Kansas, because he had to have $3,000 worth of work done to his big *** fishing boat that he tows with his $60,000 truck.......... Most of the people I work with could not afford either, so that may have colored my opinion on the $1.5mil. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My only real criticism is the lack of detailed transparency ABOUT what they do with the money
That criticism is effectively a criticism of their congregational polity. Sure, they could be episcopal and transparent, but the point of being non-democratic is to give the leaders the power to make decisions without members having a say, and the nature of politics, even in churches, is that if members know about something then they can be such an extreme nuisance about it that effectively it gives them power.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cupper3
Attack the source of the news rather than the contents? A typical deflection tactic.
Except it wasn't a deflection at all. Thanks for trying, though. I know you were just dying to throw some mud around today. Sorry it didn't work out for you.
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,928,903 times
Reputation: 4561
Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
That criticism is effectively a criticism of their congregational polity. Sure, they could be episcopal and transparent, but the point of being non-democratic is to give the leaders the power to make decisions without members having a say, and the nature of politics, even in churches, is that if members know about something then they can be such an extreme nuisance about it that effectively it gives them power.
Except it wasn't a deflection at all. Thanks for trying, though. I know you were just dying to throw some mud around today. Sorry it didn't work out for you.
Did you even READ the other links I provided? That church is as scummy as it gets; they deceived both the donors and the victims families.
I'm pretty sure these kind of things are the just desserts of ignorance, ignorance by the government, ignorance by donors, ignorance by greedy churches not willing to give everything they have to the poor.
No. The childish rejoinder you had at the end of your comment dissuaded me from considering your comments as legitimate enough to warrant such effort on my part.
Regardless, it doesn't matter if that church is "scummy". That wasn't what we were talking about. We were talking about the legitimacy of the division of this specific set of donations, and the secrecy regarding how that division was arrived at.
No. The childish rejoinder you had at the end of your comment dissuaded me from considering your comments as legitimate enough to warrant such effort on my part.
Regardless, it doesn't matter if that church is "scummy". That wasn't what we were talking about. We were talking about the legitimacy of the division of this specific set of donations, and the secrecy regarding how that division was arrived at.
In other words...
"No, I didn't read the other links, because you're a big meanie!!!"
I guess some people would rather stay ignorant and talk about things they didn't actually read....
"No, I didn't read the other links, because you're a big meanie!!!"
I didn't say he was a meanie. I said he was discourteous.
Quote:
Originally Posted by southernbored
I guess some people would rather stay ignorant and talk about things they didn't actually read....
You're assuming that his links had information in them that I actually don't know. That's ridiculous. However, even more importantly, I said explicitly that it didn't matter if the church was "scummy", so why in God's name (pardon the pun) would you think I would waste my time "learning" whether the church was "scummy"?
Why? Just to waste my time because someone doesn't like what I wrote, doesn't have a legitimate rebuttal to the point I'm making, and wants to punish me with pointless reading as vengeance? Really?
Face it people: Not everyone cares about the same things you care about, at the same times, in the same measures. It isn't because they don't know, it is because they believe what you are fixating on is petty and missing the point.
I didn't say he was a meanie. I said he was discourteous.
You're assuming that his links had information in them that I actually don't know. That's ridiculous. However, even more importantly, I said explicitly that it didn't matter if the church was "scummy", so why in God's name (pardon the pun) would you think I would waste my time "learning" whether the church was "scummy"?
Why? Just to waste my time because someone doesn't like what I wrote, doesn't have a legitimate rebuttal to the point I'm making, and wants to punish me with pointless reading as vengeance? Really?
Face it people: Not everyone cares about the same things you care about, at the same times, in the same measures. It isn't because they don't know, it is because they believe what you are fixating on is petty and missing the point.
In your first post here, you said, "We should be careful not to play into the hands of sensationalistic journalism such as what the Daily Mail regularly traffics in," then ignored when non "sensationalistic journalism" was presented. Why bring it up if it doesn't matter?
Anyways, I have said already that unless the church told them it was going to victims families, then they can do whatever they want with it, so I think you are arguing about something I never said.
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whether the church was "scummy"?
