[News] Oxfam sex abuse scandal

[The Clamp]

Unless I have missed something, I am surprised that there has been no thread on the charity sex scandal involving 120 aid workers from Britain being accused of sexual abuse in the last year.
Additionally the revelations that Oxfam workers paid locals for taking part in organised sex parties in Haiti is surely worth a comment or two from the worthies of NSC, especially after all the moral judgements made against the 'President's Club' nasty rich men for touching up and trying to kiss scantily clad hostesses.
Just goes to show, those wonderfully moral high ground charity workers are just as bad, or even worse than the 'over privileged nobs'.
Come on you Lefties, rise up in anger and have a pop at the do gooders doing bad, or stand ready to be accused of hypocrisy!

Wow. That's how you addres the issue of sexual abuse? As a vehicle for your hatred of "the left". What a sorrry, sorry state of affairs. Shame on you.

 

[LlcoolJ]

I would guess that his reasoning for this is the accusation/abuse from many lefties/liberals that the Tories are the selfish party and out for themselves. Therefore, it’s not exactly rocket science to assume that those who are involved on the charity sector are not Tories (based on the first point).

This then allows the critique of the charity workers as not being that different to the Presidents Club. It just proves that some men, from all political persuasions, will take, or try to take, advantage of women for sexual purposes.

It’s not really that complicated to make that leap. People, when they get into positions of power/influence can often get corrupted and do things which benefit themselves.

Sorry mate, that's complete bollocks. Anyone who knows anything about how charities work understands that they have nothing to do with left wing/right wing Tory/Labour politics.

Most public schools are charities.

It was just an incorrect cheap shot at anyone who disagrees with birds being touched up by rich blokes. Oh! That must make you a "lefty" and a Corbyn supporter too. Really poor.

 

[dingodan]

Indeed. I have always considered charity to be a right wing device to 'look after' the less fortunate elements of society. A left wing system would include provisions for those parts of society and charity would be less necessary. The NHS is a good example of this.

I just noticed your signature. You know, Robin Hood didn't really steal from the rich to give to the poor. He stole from the tax extorting state (the king and his tax collector) to give the people back the money which was stolen from them in the first place.

Robin Hood was a conservative, not a socialist.

 

[Buzzer]

Sorry mate, that's complete bollocks. Anyone who knows anything about how charities work understands that they have nothing to do with left wing/right wing Tory/Labour politics.

Most public schools are charities.

It was just an incorrect cheap shot at anyone who disagrees with birds being touched up by rich blokes. Oh! That must make you a "lefty" and a Corbyn supporter too. Really poor.

Just my opinion but I think that one charity in particular that is very left-wing, War On Want, is giving the rest a bad name by association. For years I assumed it was another relief agency like Oxfam, ActionAid et al. probably because of the name and its 'fighting poverty' tagline. I can't be the only one who wrongly made the connection.

 

[larus]

Sorry mate, that's complete bollocks. Anyone who knows anything about how charities work understands that they have nothing to do with left wing/right wing Tory/Labour politics.

Most public schools are charities.

It was just an incorrect cheap shot at anyone who disagrees with birds being touched up by rich blokes. Oh! That must make you a "lefty" and a Corbyn supporter too. Really poor.

I don’t think anyone in their right mind would try to link a “charity” like a public school to a charity like Oxfam. So with respect, I think you’re talking bollocks. The charity sector would be viewed as altruistic and therefore more in-tune with the left/liberals rather than Tories. If you can’t see that, then you’re just blinkered.

 

[beorhthelm]

Whilst absolutely abhorrent, this actually happened in 2012. It is being reported now because Jacob Rees Mogg is calling for foreign aid to be reduced.

A billionaire advocating taking money from the world's poorest. The media need to report on aidworkers when they are terrible but the timing is strange

it might be strange if it were not part of long standing campaign to have DFID funding overhauled for many years. it migth also be worth considering the reductions being called for are not the sort of work Oxfam engages in, but where the programmes are questionable value or in wealthy countries such as Brazil, India or Suadi Arabia

 

[beorhthelm]

I don’t think anyone in their right mind would try to link a “charity” like a public school to a charity like Oxfam. So with respect, I think you’re talking bollocks. The charity sector would be viewed as altruistic and therefore more in-tune with the left/liberals rather than Tories. If you can’t see that, then you’re just blinkered.

Only the left wing can be altruistic? you're pretty blinkered yourself. charity has always been a liberal/right concept, people doing things for themselves rather than the state. its foundation of Cameron's "big society" that was dismissed by the left. thats not to say that a particular charity, or managment and supports arent left wing, but charity suppoters and volunteers come from across a political spectrum,

 

[larus]

Only the left wing can be altruistic? you're pretty blinkered yourself. charity has always been a liberal/right concept, people doing things for themselves rather than the state. its foundation of Cameron's "big society" that was dismissed by the left. thats not to say that a particular charity, or managment and supports arent left wing, but charity suppoters and volunteers come from across a political spectrum,

I accept that. But the point being made was that the opinion stated by most lefties on here is that the Tories are the selfish/nasty party. That view doesn’t square with charities, as, by implication they will be getting a lot of time/money support from non-selfish people and that couldn’t possibly be Tory voters as there are selfish.

Hence my first post on this subject.

And with that I’m out of this. Early start and all that

 

[cunning fergus]

I think this could be a good thing all round. I say that only because Theresa May has said that the aid budget will not be reduced so it's up to the NGOs to get their houses in order - and most of them have. Whilst there's a lot of cynicism from outside, I honestly don't think the same is true for those in the government who work with these NGOs. There's a lot of mutual trust, respect and goodwill between the two.



This is one of those rare occasions when I'm going to disagree with you. The figure is specific at 0.7% because this is what was agreed upon by the UN as the target for the richest nations. I'm all for tearing down the charade of the UN but if we're to do that then we need to make sure our own house is in order in that respect. The 0.7% is also never a fixed amount but contingent on UK GDP growth or decline. As we get richer, the pot gets bigger and contrawise if we go into recession the pot gets smaller.

These charities are by and large the most effective way of sharing out this pot because they have the experts who are the very best at what they do, they have decades of experience and they don't have political baggage (or shouldn't). They often can gain access to places and people that governments or UN bodies can't. Taking it away from these bodies and trying to deal with it within government would in my opinion cost us a lot more and would be a lot less effective.

Where I hope you and I would agree is that JRM would be better focused in this instance questioning the funding of those that aren't spending it how they promised they would (Camila Batmanghelidjh, Oxfam) and those that are spending money we gave them on campaigns criticising us (Oxfam again).

Well, so be it Buzzer, but I think you maybe missing my point. I understand JRM is primarily concerned with the fact that this commitment is now enshrined in law, which commits all future Govts to spend 0.7% GDP. There is no other Gov spending commitment that is enshrined in law in this way.

Frankly no spending commitment should be set this way because that places a stick in the spokes of our our democratic process. If a political party wants to spend billions of pounds of taxpayers money on foreign aid, then let them say so in their election manifesto, similarly if a party says that it is not for the UN to make commitments on U.K. taxpayers and we will spend what we can afford once the NHS is not in crisis, then that is fine too.

What enshrining foreign aid spending into law because the UN says so represents the same kind of dynamic we get with the EU that restrict national political sovereignty on matters such as the freedom of movement.

If these are the “rules”then I am happy say f*ck the rules of the EU and UN, it’s the U.K. electorate that should decide how taxpayers money is spent or how we manage our labour market.

What we know is that if a U.K. political party actually fully advocated these kinds of political policies they would be a political irrelevance.........which is exactly what the Liberal Democrats are.

 

[dingodan]

I don’t think anyone in their right mind would try to link a “charity” like a public school to a charity like Oxfam. So with respect, I think you’re talking bollocks. The charity sector would be viewed as altruistic and therefore more in-tune with the left/liberals rather than Tories. If you can’t see that, then you’re just blinkered.

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Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.

Arthur Brooks, the author of the a book on donors to charity, "Who Really Cares", cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals...Other research has reached similar conclusions...

"When I started doing research on charity," Mr.Brooks wrote, "I expected to find that political liberals - who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did - would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings lef me to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views."
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html

Liberals are very generous, although it tends to be with other peoples money.

 

[LlcoolJ]

I don’t think anyone in their right mind would try to link a “charity” like a public school to a charity like Oxfam. So with respect, I think you’re talking bollocks. The charity sector would be viewed as altruistic and therefore more in-tune with the left/liberals rather than Tories. If you can’t see that, then you’re just blinkered.

With respect. You're a myopic fool.

 

[larus]

With respect. You're a myopic fool.

Coming from a bell-end like you that’s good to know. There’s something off about you as you are clearly blinkered and closed.

 

[BadFish]

I just noticed your signature. You know, Robin Hood didn't really steal from the rich to give to the poor. He stole from the tax extorting state (the king and his tax collector) to give the people back the money which was stolen from them in the first place.

Robin Hood was a conservative, not a socialist.

Interesting notion. I can't say I am an expert in the mythology of Robin Hood so you may be right. Without doing some research (as you have't really included any real evidence) I can't say if there is any truth in your comment or not. Although it seems to me like one of those notions bandied about on right wing publications designed to divide and inflame.

My signature is a Housemartin's lyrics that I liked for reasons other than admiration for Robin Hood.

 

[SeagullRic]

Indeed. I have always considered charity to be a right wing device to 'look after' the less fortunate elements of society. A left wing system would include provisions for those parts of society and charity would be less necessary. The NHS is a good example of this.

I have pretty much exactly the same opinion.

Whilst I don't agree with everything he says, Slavoj Zizek is very interesting and for me, in this instance, on point on Charity as a concept. This animated sketch YouTube video is well worth a watch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I’m not a cheer leader for Mogg, but on the matter of foreign aid he has a point. The allocation of foreign aid and the percentage of GDP to be spent was recently written into law. No other Gov department has this status with regard to spending. This is absurd as it means any Gov is obligated by law to spend billions of pounds taxpayers money on foreign aid.

At a time when the UK Gov is borrowing billions of pounds to maintain its spending plans under crushing austerity, it is odd that there is a fixed position on this single area of spending.

Those that rail against the Government for not spending enough on the NHS or whatever, are pissing in the wind with a significant constituency of the British public that believe that charity begins at home.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

View attachment 94095

Bloody hell. That's shocking. All the huff and puff about overseas aid and the EU budget bleeding the hard earned cash out of 'hard working men and women' - all utter bollocks.

 

[BadFish]

I have pretty much exactly the same opinion.

Whilst I don't agree with everything he says, Slavoj Zizek is very interesting and for me, in this instance, on point on Charity as a concept. This animated sketch YouTube video is well worth a watch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g

Thanks, I will have a look later.

 

[LlcoolJ]

Coming from a bell-end like you that’s good to know. There’s something off about you as you are clearly blinkered and closed.

Nice.

 

[cunning fergus]

View attachment 94095

Thanks for proving my point, the fifth biggest expenditure U.K. taxpayers money is spent on is servicing the £1.7trn Govt debt (approx £47bn p.a.) which means we should be cutting our cloth accordingly.

Lumbering U.K. taxpayers with more debt so that borrowed money is spent in foreign countries makes no sense to me........

 

[cunning fergus]

Bloody hell. That's shocking. All the huff and puff about overseas aid and the EU budget bleeding the hard earned cash out of 'hard working men and women' - all utter bollocks.

Of course, let’s borrow more money.........were only servicing a couple of trillion or there-a-bouts.

I mean it, let the political parties who want to borrow billions to spend in countries like China, India, Pakistan et al justify it, don’t hide behind UN Rules. We can have exercise our vote in the next election.