No salvation for the Army
The Friday Letter / No. 469
Sunday: Second Sunday of Advent / Monday: Hanukkah ends at sundown
A really stupid 1960s song popular in the freakisphere went like this: “Salvation Army, Salvation Army, put a nickel on the drum and save another drunken bum.” The Army has come far since then, expanding its ministry to help not just the drunks but down-on-their-luck veterans, children, the homeless, even whole families as well.
As a Christian charity, it must be doing something right, as it has long suffered withering attacks from the radical anti-Christian LGBTQ fanatics. Since its founding in 1865 in London, the Army has served the physical and spiritual needs of the poor, now worldwide, Christian and not, without regard to race or origin.
It runs a tight ship and promotes the image of soldiers who toil for modest pay in their life’s work to help the forgotten. We tried to learn the salary of its CEO, Gen. Brian Peddle, without any luck – not from the SA, not from IRS filings, and certainly not from unreliable Internet sources such as Snopes. (Some Internet sites continue to publish the age-old whopper that the CEO earns only $13,000 a year.)
More reliable sources put SA executive salaries in the range of $65,000 to $82,000. Speculating that Mr. Peddle earns more, we'll further guess that it's nowhere near what United Way Worldwide pays its CEO, reported at
Cause IQ as $1,578,515, or the Alzheimer's Association CEO at $1,252,901. Or the $3,206,088 paid to the Goodwill Industries chief in the Southeastern Wisconsin district.
Not ones to be jealous of people who are paid well because they possess actual marketable skills (people who can do more than yammer in Substack columns), we have to admire high achievers at places like the SA who could be earning a lot more in the business world.
That's why it's so astonishing that a well-oiled, efficient (we're told) machine like the Salvation Army would commit hara kari by joining the thoroughly-discredited, bigoted anti-Christian, white-hating woke crowd and call for its donors to apologize for being white. It joins the corporatist, media, and academic left in pitching the lie that every American is either oppressed or an oppressor.
Mandatory indoctrination of SA officers began last January in a workshop promoting Critical Race Theory called “Let's Talk About Racism,” Carly Newberry reports at Newsweek. In a video, CEO Peddle explains: “It examines racism through the lens of scripture, church and world history and guides gracious discussions about overcoming the damage racism has inflicted upon our world, and yes, on our Salvation Army.”
The astonishing part here is that since its founding the Army has been scrupulously color blind. Its leap onto the woke bigotry bandwagon defies logic.
In the stupidity annals, this rates near the top. “So, fellow warriors, this is working pretty well. Last year we spent $200 million to help people stay in their homes. We provided $225 million for meals, $81 million in utility assistance and $111 million in rent and mortgage assistance. Most of that money came from racist white people. Let's run them off and destroy this operation.”
They are doing remarkably well, though some clarity will surely emerge in coming weeks. On Monday the SA tried to backtrack. It may be too late.
Mike Gallagher, whose syndicated radio program has raised lots of money in past years for the Salvation Army's Red Kettle Christmas campaign, has quit. Instead, he recommends donations to the Prison Fellowship's Angel Tree fund to buy Christmas gifts for the children of imprisoned parents. Others may follow.
In an email response to our inquiry, an associate of Gallagher, Eric Hansen, told The Friday Letter that “Mike loves and appreciates the Salvation Army but was critical of the decision to create the controversial guide.” He added, however, that it was the Salem Radio Network's decision, not Gallagher's personally, to end the relationship. He added that “Mike has sponsored Prison Fellowship at Christmastime for the last two years and wanted to clarify that on-air.”
We asked Ken Chapman, a Salvation Army contact who announced the apology request in the version we received, for comment on why the SA thinks its white donors should apologize for their whiteness and racism. He did not respond.
Accusations that all white people are racist, white supremacists come from Marxist and other leftist organizations that promote Critical Race Theory, the idea that America was founded on racism and slavery. CRT is metastasizing in the nation's public school curricula with the support of corporatist, government, and non-government organizations (NGOs). The Salvation Army's policy, though now rescinded, is straight out of the Democrat Party operations manual.
“. . . CRT is a Trojan horse taking in well-intentioned Christian enterprises that – because they care about justice and oppose oppression – naively promote the most serious threat to biblical Christianity I have seen in 50 years,” Mayberry quotes Christian apologist and radio talk show host Greg Koukl from a Facebook post last month. Koukl said he canceled his monthly Salvation Army donation and will direct it elsewhere.
The Army's attempt to paper over the controversy by saying its “Let's Talk About Racism” guide was just a topic for discussion, not policy, was tepid at best, disingenuous at worst. “No one is being told how to think, period,” the walk-back announcement said.
Walk-backs usually result from intense pressure. While some may forgive the Army for its temporary insanity, we suspect that many of its donors, big and small, will never return.
Short takes on the news
The ultimate smart car. News flash from the Twitter News Team: “Five people dead and more than 40 injured after car drives through parade” . . .
Black Lives Matter launches its Christmas campaign against “white supremacist capitalism” and complains about white people celebrating Thanksgiving “on stolen land” and eating “dry turkey,” Just the News reports. A Marxist organization that promotes violence against the police and white people, BLM calls for the destruction of “existing structures.” . . .
Great moments in equal protection under the law. Unhappy that 12 of Kyle Rittenhouse's peers acquitted him at trial, several student groups at Arizona State University want the university to withdraw “the murderer.” The groups are Students for Socialism, Students for Justice in Palestine, Multicultural Solidarity Coalition, and something called MECHA de ASU. . .
Language scolds at work. A professor at New Haven University and journalism “experts” are warning against using “looting” to describe looting because it is offensive to black people “and urban dwellers.” This came after three days of riotous smash-and-grab store robberies in the Bay area of California. We don't know what the nutbag class wants us to call these activities. Our suggestion is “undocumented retail transfers,” or some such. And wouldn't it have been more considerate of these transfer artists to make a list of the items to which they helped themselves, to make the accountant's job easier in figuring Gross Profit? Just asking. . .
The ignorant leading the ignorant. School board members in Camden, N.J. apparently missed the lesson on Woodrow Wilson when they were students themselves. They voted to rename Woodrow Wilson High School on grounds that our 28th president was a racist. It is true that Wilson re-segregated the armed forces and imprisoned his political enemies, among other things. Don't these school board members know that Wilson was one of their own, a progressive Democrat? . . .
In Illinois, a man who was near death from the CCP coronavirus has fully recovered after a Republican judge in DuPage County, Paul Fullerton, ordered the hospital to administer ivermectin as prescribed by the man's physician, Just the News reports. Before the order, the hospital had refused. . .
Biden's nominee to the FCC, Gigi Sohn, once referred to Fox News as “state-sponsored propaganda, with few if any opposing viewpoints,” with “more negative impact” than Facebook, The Blaze reports. Still, she is endorsed by NewsMax CEO Christopher Ruddy, whose mostly-opinion conservative cable channel has very little straight news reporting. . .
In a visit to the D.C. Jail, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene describes horrid Third World conditions suffered by political prisoners who stormed the Capitol last Jan. 6. Some continue to be held in solitary confinement, without trial or the right of habeas corpus. Elsewhere, Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell's family petitioned the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, demanding her release “without delay” and investigation into her “arbitrary detention and violation of her rights.” Would that ordinary Americans exercising their First Amendment rights had such support.
Quotes for today
“The moralizing of difference – for example, demonizing the mere expression of opinions that run contrary to the leftist line – has made journalistic institutions less valuable as guides to reality, and more important as guides to how left-wing elites think. It's a closed feedback loop.” – Rod Derher, at The American Conservative.
“Countries are emptying out their jails. We're like a dumping ground. . . It's the most embarrassing and humiliating period in the history of our country” – President Trump, to Mark Levin, on Biden's open border policy.
“Kim said 'We have a red button and we'll use it.' I said we have a bigger button than yours and it works.” – President Trump, explaining how he maintained peace with North Korea.
“GOP Salivates Over Stacey Abrams Announcement – Georgia attorney Stacey Abrams announced her second run for governor Wednesday three years into her first imaginary term” – headline and subhed at The Federalist