Oprah's Philanthropy in AMERICA. For those who think she only gives to Africans

[KittyWampus]

I don't have time to look up more specifics regarding her philanthropic endeavors. This is from Wiki-

Philanthropy

In 1998, Winfrey began Oprah's Angel Network, a charity aimed at encouraging people around the world to make a difference in the lives of underprivileged others. Accordingly, Oprah's Angel Network supports charitable projects and provides grants to nonprofit organizations around the world that share this vision.

To date, Oprah's Angel Network has raised more than $51,000,000 ($1 million of which was donated by Jon Bon Jovi). Winfrey personally covers all administrative costs associated with the charity, so 100% of all funds raised go to charity programs.<83>

Although Winfrey's show is known for raising money through her public charity and the cars and gifts she gives away on TV are often donated by corporations in exchange for publicity, behind the scenes Winfrey personally donates more of her own money to charity than any other show-business celebrity in America.

In 2005 she became the first black person listed by Business Week as one of America's top 50 most generous philanthropists, having given an estimated $303 million.<84> Winfrey was the 32nd most philanthropic.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Oprah asked her viewers to open their hearts—and they did. As of September 2006, donations to the Oprah Angel Network Katrina registry total more than $11 million. Homes have been built in four states—Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama—before the one year anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.<85> Winfrey also matched her viewers' donations by personally giving $10 million to the cause.<86>

Winfrey has also put 250 African-American men through college<87>

[Kagemusha]

1. It's disturbing that charity to Africans is considered a mark of low moral character.

Guess people shouldn't even try to look outside their own country.

[Bucky]

3. To oppose injustice anywhere is to... um... hate America?

If we had a Democratic president, that subject line would be silly, not ironic.

[Mike Nelson]

2. I am not an Oprah follower....

but am aware of her good deeds. Many like her give little back.

[stillcool]

4. I don't like..."philanthropy"..

ever since I read Ferdinand Lundberg's book .."The Rich and the Super-Rich"..available for free down-load due to it's copyright expiration.
http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0303critic/0303socialcriticism.html
Following is the opening paragraphs to one of my favorite chapters, regarding philanthropy it's benefits.

Ten

PHILANTHROPIC VISTAS:
THE TAX-EXEMPT
FOUNDATIONS

Wealthy men and women today are almost all freely labeled by the public prints as philanthropists. In such mindless parroting the word has acquired the operationally extended meaning of "wealthy person"; and "wealthy person" means, reciprocally, "philanthropist." As hardly anybody in society is more welcome than a philanthropist, it follows that nobody is more welcome in all his beneficence than a wealthy man. By American propagandic decree the wealthy man thus has strangely been transmogrified into the quintessential cream of humanity. Simple people, the majority, accept him without reservation in this guise.

It is, furthermore, extremely rare to find the public prints, particularly the corporate press, labeling anyone other than a wealthy person as a philanthropist. Journalists now appear to make a subtle distinction between philanthropists as merely rich persons and humanitarians as functional benefactors without money: Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, Jacob Riis, Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale.

Oddly at variance with the common perspective of the wealthy person as an overreacher of others in competition for worldly goods and power, the prevalent one is quite in harmony with the Alice-in-Wonderland treatment of contemporary affairs in public prints. As it is practiced on the American scene it is a variant of Orwellian "New-Speak," in which war means peace, peace means war, and liberation means enslavement. For the United States as much as Soviet Russia has its own "New-Speak" in which "defense against Communism" means "invasion of Vietnam" (or the Dominican Republic), Defense means attack. Patriotism means doing physical injury to someone. Inflation means prosperity. Bigness means greatness. And wealth means philanthropy. According to the public prints all is not as one might simple-mindedly suppose in the realm of wealth; contrary to reasonable supposition and statistical fact the wealthy are not endeavoring to increase their wealth but are feverishly endeavoring to give it away for good works.

The basic misinformation sedulously conveyed is this: Whatever the people's government is not taking away from the wealthy in huge tax bites is being given away to the lame, the halt, the blind, the needy, and the worthy with a lavish hand. Therefore, it seems, one should forget about the wealthy; they are not a serious factor of power in the social situation.

Instead of the wealthy, who are measurable and palpable, we are assured by approved savants that what is really involved in the social situation is something elusively unmeasurable and impalpable, discernible only to rarely subtle minds, masters of arcane and delicate methodology. These minds, more and more of late eschewing the troublesome concrete in favor of the pleasantly abstract, limn for us The Power Structure, The Establishment, The Power Brokers, and The Power Elite who face, not the poor, the exploited or the unpropertied, but The Disadvantaged, The Culturally Deprived, The Under-Privileged, The Unfortunate and The Lower Socio-Economic Strata. (All these Disadvantaged may escape their plight by climbing the golden staircase of Upward Mobility.) Taboo entirely in the cleansed new social metaphysics are such coarse and unmannerly terms, worthy only of unwashed boors and churls, as Class and Caste, with their connotations of past and present turbulence. Very much favored is Strata, a cool and cleanly word. People are people, it seems--all pretty much the same according to democratic dogma but found in different Strata, some merely flying by choice or temperament at lower altitudes than others. And in the emerging new social metaphysics or rhetorical whitewash there are few Unemployed. In their place we have the Disemployed, even the Involuntary Leisured. There are, too, Senior Citizens in place of Old People. Persons unable to detect the difference are obviously deficient in understanding--cannot tell the difference between a war and a massive overseas police action.

"Class" is a particularly troublesome word; for one can, unless one is very careful, slip and slide on into "class warfare." But in the elegant variance of the aseptic new terminology one can hardly make the mistake of saying "power-structure warfare," "power-elite warfare" or "lower socio-economic strata warfare." The fashionable new terminology protects against such deplorable gaucheries. Yet the basic phenomena remain in all their harshness.

sure explains how all this happened....

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-thinktank.htm
THE LONG FAQ ON LIBERALISM
Part of the Liberalism Resurgent web site
© Copyright by Steve Kangas, editor
The conservative donors behind think tanks

Think tanks also take advantage of the financial limitations of academia. Economist Paul Krugman writes:

"Despite its centrality to political debate, economic research is a very low-budget affair. The entire annual economics budget at the National Science foundation is less than $20 million. What this means is that even a handful of wealthy cranks can support an impressive-looking array of think tanks, research institutes, foundations, and so on devoted to promoting an economic doctrine they like. (The role of a few key funders, like the Coors and Olin foundations, in building an intellectual facade for late 20th-century conservatism is a story that somebody needs to write.) The economists these institutions can attract are not exactly the best and the brightest. Supply-side troubadour Jude Wanniski has lately been reduced to employing followers of Lyndon LaRouche. But who needs brilliant, or even competent, researchers when you already know all the answers?" (7)

The rapid rise of far-right think tanks has been financed by wealthy conservative businessmen. Five donors especially stand out: the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Koch Family foundations, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Scaife Family foundations and the Adolph Coors Foundation. (William Coors, you may recall, reportedly told a 1984 meeting of African-American businessmen that "one of the best things they did for you is to drag your ancestors over here in chains.") The amount of money they give to funding and promoting think tanks and other conservative academic endeavors is nothing short of astounding. In 1988, the Olin Foundation alone distributed $55 million in grants. The Scaife family has donated more than $200 million over the years. Million dollar annual grants to individual think tanks are routine. (8)

These Foundations have also been instrumental in creating the most famous think tanks. The Heritage Foundation, considered the leading think tank in America, was created in 1973 with $250,000 in seed money from brewery mogul Joseph Coors. The Cato Institute, the nation's leading libertarian think tank, was founded in 1977 by the Koch family foundations. (9)

The foundations are also active in trying to turn back liberalism in academia, donating tens of millions to promote conservative programs in the nation's most elite universities. In fact, Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, is heavily promoted by the Bradley Foundation, which has installed him as a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Thanks to the foundation's support, Murray and Herrnstein were able to bypass the usual process of academic peer review and deliver The Bell Curve directly to the American public in a splendidly organized and financed media campaign. This included a Newsweek cover story that called the science behind the book "overwhelmingly mainstream." The next year, the National Academy of Sciences denounced the scientific basis of The Bell Curve as "fraudulent." (10)

Unfortunately, progressive think tanks find themselves heavily outspent. According to the Center for Policy Alternatives, the major conservative think tanks in Washington had a combined budget of $45.9 million, while the major progressive think tanks had a combined budget of $10.2 million. What this means is that far-right think tanks are better able to publicize their findings, stage more conferences, lobby harder for their policies, and present more and better-packaged information before Congress. (11)

And the far right is reaping the rewards of this blitz. A Nexus search of think tanks mentioned in newspapers, radio and TV transcripts for 1995 found that conservative think tanks were mentioned 7,792 times, compared to 6,361 for centrist ones and 1,152 for progressive ones. (12) An even more significant measure of their success is Congress. Often, studies by conservative think tanks end up in legislation, and become reflected in official policy. Think tanks affect even the executive branch; one of the more dramatic examples of this was the Heritage Foundation's Mandate for Leadership, which became the blueprint for the Reagan Revolution. Reagan adopted two-thirds of its proposals in his first year in office alone.

The far right's effort to create an intellectual conservative movement is truly comprehensive, well-funded and well-organized. They are not only building think tanks at the national level, but the state level as well, since congressional conservatives are trying to devolve power to the states. They are targeting the nation's elite universities, providing funding for conservative academic programs, conservative college newspapers, and conservative scholarships. Financially, liberals fall far behind in all these efforts. (13)