Wait a minute!

I have to say that it has been a darn "minute" since I wrote. Here in the bay that means a while. It's not that things have stopped happening, indeed they've been going full speed ahead in exactly the season that is about slowing down, going inward, reflecting and resting. It's been a tug of war between the pressures to move faster and produce/consume more and just wanting to sleep.
I've had some rest and some play time and here I am with the sun shining out over the ocean here in San Francisco, taking a moment of reflection.

While I was on my adventure this last summer I picked up a copy of a book I'd heard so much about, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (imagine that is underlined as proper titles are usually). It is Edited by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence and published by South End Press, Cambridge MA. ISBN: 978-0-89608-766-8. This compilation of authors who presented at the same named conference in 2004 took me 3 months to read, little by little. It's the kind of book that is like a oxy-acetylene cutting torch in a world of candles. I had always been troubled by the contradictions of working in the non-profit field and taking money from mainstream organization who's shadow side worked to destroy the gains made by it's seemingly benevolent foundation side. Little did I know the usefulness of the non-profit organizational tax structure in containing and redirecting the frustrations of those for which the economic and class system are not benefiting. I've often brainstormed different programs to be offered and always compared what seemed needed with what was "fundable." More personally, I think we all picture the way we'd like to spend our time and then do what we needed to in order to make rent or mortgage "payable." There is always some force seemingly far away and on high that decided who gets rewarded financially and who doesn't. That's just the way things are structured. Our system has a logic of it's own and it is geared for it's own survival. I had no idea that the whole non-profit setup was developed and promoted to contain the successes of previous social movements in the US during the 1960's while giving corporations not only a huge tax break, but an opportunity to advocate for their own future interests in a manner beyond any kind of public accountability. Imagine if corporations paid the same taxes as most folks- 25-30% of income, (nevermind that I'd like to see a different tax structure that taxes things that we don't want like pollution....another topic for later). That money would go the government where theoretically we as voters could advocate for the way it was spent via our elected officials. Instead, corporations get to give away 20% to a foundation instead of pay it out to the IRS. That foundation gets to invest and grow it's assets and is only required to give out 5% of it's total worth. That includes grants as well as paying staff, rent and phone/internet, ect. Foundations have no public accountability in terms of who doles out the money and the can specify whatever conditions they'd like to for how the money will be spent.
That means that the foundation can do the bidding of the corporation and fertilize the soil or minds of masses in order to enrich exploitation opportunities for the corporation. And this extended beyond the realm of just private business....

"In 1976, a select committee appointed to investigate US intelligence activities reported on the CIA's penetration of the foundation field by the mid-1960s: during 1963-6, of the 700 grants over $10,000 given by 164 foundations, at least 108 involved partial or complete CIA funding. More importantly, CIA funding was involved in nearly half the grants made by these 164 foundations in the filed of international activities during the same period. " p.88

In other words, foundations were used to implement change beneficial to US Corporate interests both overseas and at home. An effective compliment to covert military operations. And what did the people in those countries want for themselves?

There's a lot more in the book that is informative and brilliant. I hope you are able to pick up a copy and read it.