Fraud

The current scandal involving Lance Armstrong reveals an ugly side to the non-profit world. Armstrong's Live Strong organization, patterned after the AIDS organizations of the late 1980s, has an annual budget of approximately $30 million. The organization claims it spends nearly $2 million per year on administration. That can be $2 million for first-class airline tickets, exotic vacations, disguised as conferences, and a generally grand lifestyle for the administrators. Not a bad gig for what some consider saintly work.

 

Ghost Bike

Now we hear that Armstrong himself has been accused of being an international drug kingpin. Nice. Is this a big surprise coming from someone who exploited a disease into an advertising empire for sportswear and beer?

 

As a person living with cancer and AIDS, I have been heartened by the removal of the shield of immunity which Armstrong has enjoyed for all too long. Once exposed to light, lies of this magnitude tend to be revealed in spasms of disgusting details.

 

The fault for this system of charity-for-profit, posing as personal largess, not only lies with those who exploit it. It lies in the capitalist system we now see adored and enshrined as unassailable in Western media. This capitalist system is based in selfish materialism motivated by greed. A brief glimpse of shows like The Kardashians makes this obvious to anyone whose values are neither materialistic nor selfish.

 

Churches, mosques and temples have been infected with the disease of exploitation for centuries. Manipulative and greedy power brokers have exploited their positions in religious communities to rise to political and economic power. This is obvious today across the world.

 

I am a humanist. This means that my own humanity dictates that I do well by my neighbors and the planet. My humanity dictates that I simply do this as part of my daily living. I believe that a secular government has a responsibility to tend to many of the needs that are now designated as the territory of non-profits. I believe that properly educated citizens in a democracy are capable of deciding what those needs are.

The problem in the U.S. at present is the lack of proper public education. Part of this is due to the fraudulent nature of media advertising, the driving engine of a capitalist, corporate media. Another part is due to lack of proper taxation of the population to pay for general public education and the corporations which have wrested control of government. Armstrong's fraudulent exploitation of the heartstrings of the world is not unusual. Pink ribbons, red ribbons and yellow ribbons can all be hung in a hall of advertising gimmickry with hollow promises.