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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
 "The Soundtrackers Group" 
"Invalid Item"
"Blogging Circle of Friends "
"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
"JAFBG"
"Take up Your Cross Blog Forum"
Thanks for stopping by! 
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Prompt #28: If you could create a charitable foundation with billions of dollars in resources, what causes would you try to tackle?
If I were answering this question a couple of years ago, I probably would have said that I would fully invest an entire fortune in championing education. It's something that my wife and I really believe in, and it's been so disappointingly underfunded for years. The availability of public education is one of the greatest things that this country has ever done, and it's a shame how underfunded and under-prioritized it's been for years if not decades. The conditions is some of the schools are horrendous, and it's unacceptable that so many educators are paid so little and have to invest so much of their own resources into their classrooms. Even if my current vision of a charitable foundation weren't entirely focused on the field of education, I think I would definitely have some form of program or initiative that addressed that. Most likely a subsidy for teachers to help with their classroom expenses, or for families whose kids need extra support (tutoring, after school care, etc.) but can't afford it. Future generations are too important to just abandon and hope they figure it out for themselves.
That said, in recent years I've been doing a lot of reading about a lot of different problems in the world, and have been really discouraged by the lack of progress that's being made on pretty much every front. It seems like there's always some established enterprise that has a vested interest in making sure things stay the same. As a human race (and particularly as Americans), the progress — if you could call it that — we've made on things like climate change, income inequality, poverty, pollution, gun violence, corruption, etc. have been abysmal. And I'd be really hard pressed to identify a specific issue or couple of issues that I'd want to invest in, because so much of it seems so awful right now.
It's no secret that I'm fairly progressive in my politics. And I don't mean that strictly in the sense that I'm on the "radical left" side of the political spectrum or that I don't hold moderate views on a number of topics; the actual definition of progressivism is just the belief that the human condition is most likely to be advanced through social reform. And I am the kind of person who thinks that things can be better, and that we should try to make things better. There are very few areas of society where I think we've just absolutely nailed it, can't possibly improve, and where it's therefore not worth trying to improve things.
I think a lot of that change can potentially come from our current system of government, if we can fix two things about that current system. The first is the sheer amount of money that's in politics right now, and the second is the "team" nature of our two-party system that prioritizes party loyalty over all else. It may sound strange to fight that problem by throwing more money into the system, but I have a feeling it's one of those "you have play the game before you can change the rules" kind of situations. It's actually relatively cheap to invest in local-level politics (as opposed to national-level politics), so I'd probably want to start a foundation that supports other organizations like Run For Something (which is focused on recruiting and supporting young progressive candidates who want to run for down-ballot offices), to encourage candidates to enter politics who aren't part of the current system and who believe in actually serving their constituents and effecting change. I'd want to use that model to show that it can work on a local level, in order to then make the case to voters that the same thing on a national level would be good for people's interests. Over the years — and especially in recent years — I've come to realize that we have a lot of elected representatives who care more about the power and wealth that comes with their position than they care about the constituents they represent. I really want to see more elected leaders who take seriously their oath to represent the People.
It would most likely be a very long-term project, and maybe even one that isn't realized in my lifetime, but if you could recruit a new generation of elected officials who don't feel as beholden to national parties or monied interests (and I fully acknowledge that would require my organization to be clear that there's no strings or expectations attached to the financial support we would give), and who would vote for reasonable legislation that would prevent things like political gerrymandering, campaign finance reform, etc., we could get Congress back to being an institution that represents the People first and foremost, and which sees the job as public service more than personal enrichment. Which I think would, by extension, then have a dramatic downstream effect on the kinds of people who get put on the judiciary and appointed in the executive branch.
It's hard to convince people that government is useful when all three branches are unpopular. And Congress' approval rating hasn't been above 50% since June 2003. Which means that it's been 22 years since the People have had a positive opinion of the branch of government that represents them. That needs to change, and if I had billions of dollars to pour into a charitable foundation, electing people who are committed to getting that approval rating back up would be a worthy cause to fight for. Because it's what all the other changes in the world I'd like to see could potentially stem from.
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