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Monday, March 16, 2020

Noblesse oblige

Oh look Gayle is helping.
New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson will be donating $1 million to create the Gayle Benson Community Assistance Fund in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the teams announced in a joint statement on Monday afternoon.

In addition to the $1 million, Benson is also starting the Arena Assistance Fund for those impacted by the NBA season's suspension. All wages for Pelicans' employees who work on gamedays will be guaranteed for all the remaining postponed games, the statement read.

Gayle was shamed into action with regard to Arena employees after a 19 year old basketball player who works for her made headlines by pledging to cover their salaries for a month. Her $1 million donation to the "community assistance fund" is, frankly, nothing.



It is, of course, meant to seed a larger amount to be collected and managed by the Greater New Orleans Foundation. And the gatekeepers of our city's philanthropy networks will have specific preferences as to how the money is distributed.
The beneficiaries of this fund will be nonprofits working to support those in the service and hospitality industry, among other nonprofit groups.
None of this is sufficient to meet the crisis at hand.  All this does is prop up the failed state of oligarchs and unaccountable non-profits that have subsumed the remnants of our privatized social safety net. All of that is going to have to be upended in favor of much more drastic wholesale action to reorient the entire world economy.

Or we could continue to do the bare minimum where our choices are bounded by the limits of what keeps the rich in power. Probably it will be that. 
WASHINGTON — President Trump told a group of governors on Monday morning that they should not wait for the federal government to fill the growing demand for respirators needed to treat people with coronavirus.

“Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves,” Mr. Trump told the governors during the conference call, a recording of which was shared with The New York Times. “We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.”
As long as we reward Gayle Benson's noblesse oblige with fawning praise, that is the best we can hope for.

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