Wounded Warrior Project Executives Were Reportedly Using Money from Donations for Fun — How’s that for our Greed-Based Cultural System at Work?

© 2016 Peter Free

 

11 March 2016

 

 

Soulless

 

Here is another “splendid” example of how our society too frequently treats its wounded veterans — even when it comes to not spending charitably donated money on them:

 

 

Americans donate hundreds of millions of dollars each year to the charity, expecting their money will help some of the 52,000 wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

But CBS News found Wounded Warrior Project spends 40 to 50 percent on overhead, including extravagant parties. Other veterans charities have overhead costs of 10 to 15 percent.

 

Wounded Warrior Project's Chief Executive Officer, Steven Nardizzi, and Chief Operating Officer, Al Giordano, were fired after a meeting Thursday afternoon in New York.

 

By appealing to America's generosity, Wounded Warrior Project raised more than a billion dollars in donations since 2003 -- $300 million in 2014 alone.

But while the money was pouring in, it was also flowing out on lavish employee conferences -- $26 million in 2014.

 

"It was extremely extravagant. Dinners and alcohol and and, just total excess," one [former employee] said. "I mean, it's what the military calls fraud waste and abuse."

 

© 2016 Chip Reid and Jennifer Janisch, Wounded Warrior Project execs fired, CBS News (10 March 2016)

 

 

Notice that . . .

 

Wounded veteran charities would not be necessary, if American Government were actually doing its job.

 

If we were we not starting and conducting so many stupid and self-destructive wars for Military Industrial Complex profit, we would not have proportionately noticeable numbers of wounded troops.

 

Second, if we actually honored our alleged moral commitments to the wounded, charitable endeavors in their name would not be necessary.

 

Third, if the American commitment to the “greed is good” concept were not so deep, reprehensible blood-suckers like Steven Nardizzi and Al Giordano would have less room to operate.

 

This is the totality of increasingly brutishly exercised American capitalism for you.

 

There is nothing so sacred that we will not rape it to death and then charge the victim for the privilege having been violated.

 

 

 

The moral? — Selfish duplicity is, more often than not, today’s American way

 

Government diarrhea flows downhill. Presidential primaries candidate Donald Trump, for all his fascistic bombast, has a point. America is not great in too many areas. Most of us would like it to be, in some meaningful ways. We could start by treating our wounded with the costly care they deserve.