Guest Opinion: Don't let the wealthy use money to whitewash their history

Paul Fermo (April 17) has a good heart, and I agree with his stance on Ukraine. A no-fly zone is an active military operation where American pilots would shoot down Russian pilots and American would take air superiority. Although I personally have doubts about Russia’s nuclear arsenal even being operational based on the war so far, I am not one who would want to risk WWIII with Vladimir Putin.

But his take on the Newtown Athletic Club’s Ukraine fundraiser is flawed.

We cannot allow for people who, in my opinion, have damaged democracy to buy their way out with some small good acts. Jim Worthington in his lawsuit against the presumptive Democratic 1st District congressional nominee Ashley Ehasz admitted to sending a “bus group [that] consisted of nearly 200 individuals” [pg.10] to Washington. This one act, combined with others, encouraged those who planned to commit violent acts against the democracy and the peaceful transfer of power. The number of people created a herd mentality that emboldened violent tendencies.

I will take him at his word that no one with him walked down to the Capitol on that day, but those who did saw the number of people that were there at the rally on the Ellipse and made them feel empowered. Again, I will accept his answer that it was not his intent to fund or instigate what happened on that day, but I believe just the act of sending people there did and we do not erase history.

So where does that leave us? An Ukrainian fundraiser at this man’s place of business, originally agreed to be attended by the chairman of the Democratic Party and Brian Fitzpatrick, one of the enablers of Donald Trump. Rep. Fitzpatrick voted against the first impeachment of Trump — an impeachment that was specifically about Trump blackmailing Ukraine. If Brian is so concerned about Ukraine, why would he vote against impeaching a man who would have withheld aid to that country in 2019?

A high-ranking Democratic insider that I spoke to recently defended Cordisco and Worthington in many different aspects of this story, but the one I want to focus on is this. This insider said to me John and Jim can raise more funds than Ashley could even dream of raising [paraphrased]. And that’s the point. We allow the wealthy in this country to whitewash their legacy with money.

I was speaking to my brothers recently and they brought up Bill Gates being a great billionaire. They brought up a lot of his foundation’s good works around the world. Bill Gates in the 1990s was an absolutely ruthless businessman, whose Microsoft was accused by the Department of Justice of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Other billionaires like the Kochs, whose Koch Industries Inc. paid a $30 million civil penalty over hundreds of oil spills from its pipelines and oil facilities, are often heralded by the right as philanthropists with their arts, education, and medical research. Those are great things. But when paired with awful acts, they're not enough to whitewash the history.

There have been countless other examples but this is what I wish to add.

The wealthy buying their way into charity hurts our community more than it helps. This is exacerbated on the local level when one man is able to gain so much influence that the head of the Democratic party goes to fundraisers with partisans like Fitzpatrick. Buying influence leaves the regular people out of the conversation. What does that say in the Democratic Party that the chairman is doing more with the opposition rather than his own party’s presumptive nominee.

Bipartisanship in my opinion is dead. It was stabbed by Newt Gingrich in the '90s, and then put in the ground by Mitch McConnell in the 2000s, using the Tea Party as a triggering point. Its passing removes distinctive choice for the people to decide how democracy should operate but rather leaves it to the hands of a few monied elite.

Eric M. Bruno lives in Middletown Township.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Don't let the wealthy use money to whitewash their history