The Angry Exile: Fake Charities

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Thursday 24 February 2011

Fake Charities - UPDATED

I've been meaning to mention that the Devil has fakecharities.org up and running again, and having been prompted by this over at JuliaM's I've been over for a look. Nice look and easy to find the submission page, improved from the last version of Fake Charities by allowing the submission of genuine charities.* Perhaps the Devil is planning a Wall of Heroes to show the occupants of the Rogue's Gallery how it should be done. Anyway, having downloaded their last couple of reports for a comment at Julia's I decided to submit The Save The Children Fund, the particular not-quite-a-charity-really that Julia was writing about, to Fake Charities. £170.9m income in the 9 months to Dec 31st 2009, £90.9 of which came from institutional grants made up from both private and government sources. The lion's share - about £75m - is government though, with the two largest sums coming from the UK government and the EU. The UK's grants of just over £19 million (nearly all from the Department for International Development**) are more than 10% of the "charity's" income on their own, but when you consider that the UK contributes significantly to the UN's funding and the less said about its EU contributions the better, and also that many UK councils give grants as well, the British taxpayer is actually being taken for almost certainly in excess of £20 million. The previous couple of year's financial activities show that this isn't a one off so I submitted them to fakecharities.org in the fake category.

And if anyone from Save The Children or who supports them, or who even just happens to be a fan of Princess Anne, wanders past and reads this, and gets angry about me submitting them as a fake charity because they do very good work you know, Exile, you curmudgeonly cunt, I'll say this: yes, but that's not the point. They may do outstanding work but what makes them a fake charity isn't their work but that a large chunk of their income comes out of the involuntary contributions of taxpayers. I'd go so far as to say that they are particularly fake since they receive money taken by governments all over the world from their taxpayers, not just Britain's. If they in fact do good work then it is sadder still that they're doing this because when people become aware of it genuinely voluntary donations may be affected. I for one will not give them a cent in future because while this continues as far as I'm concerned I've already donated, and not by choice (yes, the Australian government is a contributor of grant money too).

Does a "charity" in receipt of tax money paid reluctantly under threat of violence deserve further voluntary donation from whatever a government chooses to leave in the pockets of the poor bastards who worked for it? I would say no, and so the message to anyone calling here collecting on behalf of such a "charity" is a simple one:

Same gate you came in, now sod off and tell the higher ups that I'll start giving again when they stop getting governments to take it by force.

UPDATE - I was going to include this recent pithy comment on the subject but I couldn't remember the source off the top of my head and it was late. After a little googling just now I see that it was Guido.

A charity that relies in the main part on taxes is no more a charity than a prostitute is your girlfriend.

That could go on tee shirts.

* At least I don't recall it being there before but I may be mistaken.
** Recently I read Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo in which she tears apart the thinking that results in things like the DfID and proposes ways in which poor nations can develop themselves. Highly recommended reading if you haven't already.