Saturday, December 12, 2009

My thanks to a very generous contributor

I want to publicly thank George Saltzman for his very generous gift to the Gaza Freedom March. His words are inspiring too. Here is the e-mail he sent.


Fred

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Oaxaca, Mexico, Friday 11 December 2009
Dear Fred,
     
It was good talking Wednesday evening and learning that you will be a member of the MECR delegation traveling to Egypt and (hopefully) Gaza later this month. And to hear that the thirteen from MECR will be part of over a thousand Americans making up the total delegation. I hope a great deal of information about the desperate situation of the Gazans is widely publicized as a result.

 As for naming me, as I said, I would prefer not to be anonymous. The reason is that I think the example of someone without very much wealth going beyond so-called "charitable contributions" might inspire other privileged people to consider giving up their material advantage (or at least a good part of it) in order to really participate in closing the great gap that separates us, the world's privileged, from its overwhelming majority of pillaged. Although my donation may be large compared to the others, it is less than the money each of the thousand-odd delegates is spending to make the trip and be a participant. My point is simply that we who collectively have legal control over much of the world's disposable wealth ought to consider whether, for example, an expensive trip we contemplate making is justified in terms of the social good it provides. I think that this huge delegation to Palestine meets that criterion, and of course I want you all to be very successful as political activists.

All the best, George

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