By Roldo Bartimole

The other day a TV commercial, or someone making a public service pitch, was asking the public for donations to pay for telephone cards for soldiers in Iraq.

Wait a minute.

We’re spending $225 billion for whatever we’re doing over in Iraq. It’s costing Ohio $8.4 billion, Cleveland $226 million and each American household $2,027 (www.CostOfWar.com). This site has a running account of war costs in Iraq.

The U. S. military budget for next year will be $558 billion (www.WarResisters.org). That’s right - $558 billion.

Please, tell me why are we passing the hat for anything needed by those fighting the war, including telephone cards to call home – holiday or not.

Is this not crazy? Do they think everyone is stupid?

Something is radically wrong here.

I always found it remarkable that United Way would urge people to contribute to fund, for example, the USO, which serves the military. It would actually say that money would be used for washcloths and other toiletry incidentals.

I give to a number of charities because I realize that the money is needed and those needs aren’t going to be met otherwise.

However, I also believe that charities can be used as subversions to real problem solving.

The important thing to remember is that if charities were not around to make it seem as though we are dealing with serious problems, government would likely be held responsible.

Wealth demands charity. Otherwise, people might get the idea that heavier taxes on the rich might be the answer to solving problems.

My best example goes back to 1970 when retired General Horace Shepard spoke to a United Way dinner audience. He was chairman of TRW, Inc. at the time.

Gen. Shepard told the charity leaders they should pressure their employees to give more. The result would allow corporate interests to give less.

“You control their paychecks and jobs and you certainly can help spread the load,” the general said. He admitted that the corporate share of support had slipped from 30 percent to 50 percent of the charity’s donations.

“To some people who complain (about the corporate slippage) I say, fine. Let’s get it down to 25 percent and spread the load,” he said, as reported in the old Cleveland Press.

A little extortion in the name of charity was okay to the general.

At that time, the newspapers used to print names of the larger contributors, all apparently to suggest that the elite really gave huge sums to the chosen community charity.

However, if you compared their gifts to their salaries, which I began to do, the wealthier actually gave less than what was demanded from the ordinary worker.

A check with the charity showed that Gen. Shepard gave nothing. Zero. Zip. Oh, a publicist for charity told me at the time, a foundation set up by the general did give a donation but the amount was a private matter.

The general, however, had already taken tax advantage of the foundation. In other words, he was giving, not his money, but money [on which] he had already taken tax deductions.

At the time, Gen. Shepard was making $212,000 a year. He held $3.7 million in TRW stock. I guess he was saving for his retirement beyond the military.

Ordinary employees, of course, were pressured by their bosses to give .6 of one percent of their earnings. That’s not a small amount for people making little. About that time, the Press (always more open than the Pee Dee) also reported about a part-time worker at another charity was fired because he said he could not afford to give the requested amount. His wife, he said, was ill and he needed what he earned. He was rehired when it became public.

It was always interesting to me that corporate leaders were so evasive about how much they gave, knowing that they were pressuring others to give at the .6 rate.

When E. Mandel DeWindt was chair of a commission to revamp United Way, he appeared at a press conference. I asked him to tell me the amount he gave to United Way and the amount his corporation, Eaton Corp., gave that year.

Why, that‘s personal information, he said, highly indignant.

Similarly, Brock Weir, then bank chair of Ameritrust, was shocked that I would call and ask him what he gave the year he was chairman of the charity drive.

That’s personal, was also his plea to me. However, he had a printout of what each employee gave so that he, as Gen. Shepard advised, could see that his employees gave. He didn’t buy my rationale and refused to tell what he gave.

The problem with charities such as United Way isn’t that they don’t do any good. They do.

Wealth interests use the concept of charity to avoid government action, especially if it is based on progressive taxation. They would then pay the largest share of the burden.

They hate government. It’s a deep ideological, class hatred. That is why they would even like to get rid of Social Security.

Corporate, foundation and charity leaders know this but do not want the public to understand.

Charity – despite all the headlines of great gifts by wealthy individuals -- shifts the burden to ordinary individuals, just as increasingly regressive taxation does.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Roldo Bartimole roldoATadelphia.net (:divend:)