Bezos has pledged to donate $1 billion to his charity. Although this might seem good at face value, “billionaire philanthropy” itself is created by the problems it purports to solve.
There has been an unprecedented transfer of wealth to billionaires during the pandemic - their fortunes grew to a record high of $10.2 trillion while millions of workers sunk into poverty.
These two phenomena – surging wealth inequality alongside the increased social role of “charitable” handouts from the super-rich – are closely intertwined. Without extreme levels of social inequality, it wouldn’t be necessary to rely on the alms of billionaires “donating” the funds back to society just to meet critical social needs.
Now, some of these billionaires have decided to donate a small fraction of the wealth they gained during the past two years. It’s important to note the sources of this increase in wealth:
The fact that the pandemic has accelerated the process of monopolisation and concentration of capital.
Trillion-dollar corporate bailouts like the CARES Act, which placed vast financial resources at the disposal of the ultra-rich (conversely, the debt this incurred will largely have to be paid off by the working class)
Capitalists refusing to halt non-essential production, sacrificing workers’ health and lives in the pursuit of profits.
It is from this sort of immoral shit that billionaires have accumulated the fortunes from which they now dispense their “moral” donations.
To top it all off: Billionaire philanthropy allows the ultra-rich to exert great influence over non-profit organisations and public policy discussions. Often, so-called philanthropic organisations function as little more than vehicles to promote the interests of their wealthy donors. In any case, they will never challenge their interests. Bezos’s foundation calls for “market-based” solutions to climate change and will fund lobbyists to promote “market reforms” rather than government regulation. Convenient.
Tl;dr In order to combat climate change, fight infectious disease and cure other societal ills, we cannot rely on the scraps donated by the ultra-rich, to be used as the ultra-rich dictate according to their own individual whims and interests. Particularly when this money was obtained by contributing to these problems in the first place + will not be used to challenge such problems on any fundamental level, but instead be used to sustain the status quo that allowed them to become billionaires in the first place.
the thing that bugs me the most about the censoring of the internet to please advertisers is like… tv shows aren’t having less sex and violence in them. movies aren’t having less sex and violence in them. HBO can do eight seasons of graphic murder and nudity and it’s the cultural phenomenon of the decade, but I can’t show a nipple on tumblr or talk about death on tiktok. it’s not that the internet is becoming “safer,” it’s just making these topics a privilege only for very rich people, and putting it behind a paywall for everyone else.
The outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine did not come out of nowhere. Here are the key historical events that produced the crisis, and the declassified documents showing that the U.S. gov’t knew it was playing with fire over the last 30 years.
of NATO’s broken promises
The Clinton administration made many behind-the-scenes promises to Boris Yeltsin, and their deceptions eventually came to a head at their Budapest meeting in 1994.
Declassified documents revealed this misdirection.
U.S. & NATO continue their regime change efforts. Two notable examples of this are NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan which resulted in a 20 yr occupation with hundreds of thousands dead.
NATO’s bombing of Libya (serving as the air force for the rebels) collapses the gov’t.
After a decade of deception, Putin comes to power promising to overcome Russia’s humiliations. He makes clear that NATO expansion to Ukraine is a red line
A doc by William Burns, current CIA Director, shows they knew they were playing with fire
In 2014 the era of Ukrainian neutrality comes to an end with the overthrow of President Victor Yanukovych. This coup was supported and funded by the U.S. and succeeds when far-right paramilitaries storm the presidential palace.
While western powers continue to stoke escalation and war, a diplomatic road out of the current crisis is still possible. Will the U.S. & NATO step back from the brink and negotiate with Russia?
Looking back on it today, the famous U.S. assurance to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev of “Not one inch eastward” rings hollow.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO has added 13 countries… and counting.
Historian Dr. Gerald Horne on the historical and geopolitical implications of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine
r. Gerald Horne, Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, and author of dozens of books, most recently “The Bittersweet Science: Racism, Racketeering, and the Political Economy of Boxing” to discuss Joe Biden imposing sanctions on Russia over the current tensions around Ukraine and how it fits into world politics, the western corporate media’s misrepresentation of the facts and history of the Ukraine situation and [US] complicity in pushing for war with Russia.
by “colonial tax” i think they mean the CFA franc, the colonial french currency used by 14 african nations. france no longer even uses the french franc yet controls the economies of 14 sovereign nations. one of the obligations of the CFA franc agreements is that the countries must “keep 50 percent of their foreign exchange reserves in an operations account held at the French Treasury.” this form of neocolonialism has has had the effect of
and the Iraqi people welcomed the Americans with flowers. I wanted to set a historical event to teach Bush a lesson from the Iraqis, telling him you lied, we did not welcome you with flowers, and instead we are saying goodbye with our shoes.“
Muntaza Al Zaidi, the Iraqi reporter who became known as the guy who threw a shoe at Bush and later ended up in jail for three years because of it.
happy 12 years to bush shoeing incident
Not all heroes wear capes, sometimes they throw shoes.
A post I’ve been thinking about but yall need to realize men are just people. Gender and biological essentialism is still bad even when you apply it to men. Men aren’t inherently evil or bad. Men are taught toxic masculinity and to be misogynistic (just as white people are taught to be racist) but they aren’t inherently this way. This isn’t meant to absolve them either. Men need to take responsibility for unlearning the toxic messages they have been taught. But like, honestly men are just people. They aren’t inherently bad people.
Men are just people, people who also struggle due to the patriarchy.
