Some US billionaires have pledged to give at least half their fortunes to charity. What a nice way to balance out The American Dream for the millions whose wage labor created wealth for a few hundred billionaires. Charity! Billionaires block the US from providing its citizens with the Human Rights that are provided elsewhere in accord with the UN Declaration of Human Rights signed by all, but replaced with charity here.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6733F520100804U.S. Billionaires Pledge Fortunes to
Charity by Michelle Nichols,
Reuters, 8/4/10, NEW YORK,
"Dozens of U.S.
billionaires pledged on Wednesday to give at least half their fortunes
to charity as part of a philanthropic campaign by two of the world's
richest men -- Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. ..."
What a wonderful way to balance out The American Dream for
the millions whose wage labor created the wealth of these few hundred
billionaires. Charity!
The massive Majority at the bottom sharing in The American Dream by receiving CHARITY from the Billionaires at the top.
"The
campaign asks U.S. billionaires to give away at least half their wealth
during their lifetime or after their death, and to publicly state their
intention with a letter explaining their decision... asks billionaires
to make a moral commitment to give their fortunes to charity." What
an Intelligent way for the billionaires to help the people they have
used. Seem almost biblical.
The clever shall help the less clever.
The
cleverness of billionaires is by and large beyond the comprehension of
the less clever. Over a year ago headlines reported that Warren Buffett
had signed over 99% of his wealth to the Bill and Linda Gates
Foundation. But Buffett continues to be listed as the second most
wealthiest man in the world, even though we ordinary minds might not
understand how he could have given 99% away and remain just as wealthy
as before.
The
clever gang of Americans, who, from the beginning, have been co-opting
land and natural resources through tricky legislation, thieving banks
and the use of police and national guard against unions and war
protesters, have always had a few among them capable of seeking
redemption for a bad conscience.
Andrew Carnegie, having made
his mega fortune by taking advantage of our ignorance, built libraries
that we might learn to protect ourselves from others like him (to
little avail, for the clever stay one step ahead of us less clever).
"TAX BREAK NOT A MOTIVATIONBuffett
said none of the members of The Giving Pledge were driven by tax
breaks. ... "Anybody who is entitled to take a tax deduction takes it
but I think the motivation goes far, far beyond taxes.""Sure!
Wouldn't want to give anyone the idea (or us the awareness) that the
"giving' (back) was in these billionaires own self-interest - that
would spoil the impression of purity meant to be made on us. But
earlier in the article one such motivation was pointed out:
"Bloomberg, who is worth $18 billion, told reporters. "Your kids get more benefit out of your philanthropy than your will.""Shrewd
thinking. The billionaire's kids will rise in importance over the rest
of us, be considered worthy of great trust and prestige. "More
benefit," to be sure, for their future activities in accumulating
capital than having all the money itself. Good for the kids'
self-esteem and conscience, as well as public image. (Might even lead
to the presidency of the nation that daddy seems to have missed out on
so far.)
We, the less clever, might have said that we wanted
our kids to love people and therefore care for the poor, the destitute,
the hungry, and the sick, as natural, and not for any personal
"benefit."
"The pair [Buffett and Gates] also are due to meet with some of the wealthiest people in China in September and India in March."Perhaps
fertile ground for recruiting billionaires to share their loot in these
two nations of gigantic populations. China is increasingly having wage
laborer unrest with some homicidal violence. One third of the starving
on the planet live in India, where two million children under the age
of five die annually of starvation and malnutrition annually.
Now
make no mistake (if we might borrow an emphatic phrase often invoked by
the Harvard graduate who is currently the top representative and
defender of the what he calls the
"capitalism system") this idea of the
equitable fairness of charity as a social net is dominant wherever wild
American style private-investment-banking is in full control of a
political economy.
The
unnatural, enormous amount of charity needed just to keep Majority
Humanity alive is the result of the primacy of investment bankers led
by those of the U.S.
(Equally unnatural is the investment of
the bankers in an inexpressible almost cosmic amount of life-on-earth
threatening nuclear and non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction - some
constantly in use.)
Since the United States financial empire
still maintains world hegemony (its military muscle frequently brought
to bear), it can vigorously enforce this international regimen of
billionaires and charity along with trillions of bombs.
There are, from time to time exceptions - nations escaping U.S. pressure:
Germany
and Cuba have universal right to free education right up through Ph.D.
And so did Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein. Not as charity, but
as a right. Just pass the exams.
Cuba has free health care that
can even include heart transplant and sex change. (Cubans enjoy the
highest longevity and the lowest infant mortality rate in the Western
Hemisphere.) Germany has the world's oldest universal health care
system.
China
did have free health care during the Cultural
Revolution. (Some scholars attribute the spectacular growth that continues in China
today, under joint venture capitalism, to the Cultural Revolution having built a foundation in health, science, technology, free education
and thousands of schools in the countryside.
The Soviet Union
under Stalin had free health care and education (during which Life
expectancy increased by more than twenty years).
And many many
nations sustain varying degrees of conformance to the United Nations
Declaration of Human Rights of which all the UN member nations are
signatories.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United
Nations, 12/10/48 Article
25: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the
health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food,
clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and
the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness,
disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in
circumstances beyond his control."
U.S. billionaires in 'pledging' to charity, make it appear they are humanely making up for
the Human Rights that have been stolen from us. The U.S. government was
devious in signing on to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the power
elite having no intention at all to work toward compliance. America is run by the rich, who, when they feel forced to, here and there, pass laws passed to provide some selective citizen assistance. But basically,
the Human Rights detailed in the
United Nations Universal Declaration
signed on continue to be ignored, substituted for with one tiny 'right,' that does not even include the Right to Live. 'America the brave'
offers its own citizens only the 'right' to apply for charity
And
this is the one 'right' the U.S. offers to the whole corporate
"investmentized' globe, along with the more highly profiled American dream and 'right' to be clever and attempt to become a billionaire. A
billionaire, who bases his right to be a billionaire on the depravation
of the Human Rights of all of us. This allows the billionaires and
millionaires as a group to use their cleverness to hire us, commodify
us, commercialize us, conscript us and imprison us during their mad
materialist insanity.
The
Giving Pledge campaign among
billionaires is the direct opposite of pledging to support this nation
providing its citizens with the Human Rights it became legally bound to
provide in signing the
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The
billionaire club's
Giving Pledge campaign touted in conglomerate owned
and monopolized U.S. media as something so marvelous and kind, is
actually billionaires shoring up their business and laughing charmingly
at the
UN Declaration of Human Rights - and us.
In
most places, the billionaire dream is still being sold to fool enough
of the people enough of the time. The clever still ride herd
over us, challenged successfully only by a small minority of Mankind
struggling to overcome desperate and brutal opposition from the
billionaires' New World Order (somewhat more dangerous than the old
world order that did not have America as the dictating single
superpower).
This minority is strong and healthy and happier
for being supremely aware that the cleverness that dooms children all
over the face of the Earth is a form of insanity. Albert
Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr. were not clever, not mentally
unbalanced in egotism and fear of society. Their hearts, where their
wisdom lay, were not disconnected from their brains.
.
Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India, in Germany & Sweden Einartysken,and in the US by Dissident Voice; Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents; Minority Perspective, UK,and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong's Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign, and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign, which contains a history of US crimes in 19 nations. Dissident Voice supports this website with link at the end of each issue of its newsletter.