Posted on 07/26/2007 9:50:28 AM PDT by rhema
“It began as a favor to a friend, and ended as a labor of love.”
So said public television host and veteran journalist Llewellyn King about reading the novel "Point of Entry," by author Peter Schecter, whom King knew and liked very much. King began the novel (about political intrigue between Columbia and the U.S. in the near future) as a favor to his friend and completed it as an true fan.
That’s about where I am after reading "Foundations of Betrayal: How the Super-Rich Undermine America," by Phil Kent. A veteran public relations man and former editor of the Augusta (GA) Chronicle, Kent has also been a personal friend of mine for nearly 15 years. For me, then, reading "Foundations" began as a favor to a friend.
But very quickly, as each page of this eyebrow-raising work turned faster than the previous one, my reading of Kent’s provocative book became a labor of love. Meshing a rich cornucopia of facts, figures, and history (including the now-forgotten-but-still revealing congressional probe of foundations in the early 1950’s chaired by Tennessee Rep. B. Carroll Reece), the author vividly explains something that has, for generations, bewildered observers of business and major foundations they spawned: why they bankroll organizations ranging from the militantly environmentalist Greenpeace to the American Civil Liberties Union -- groups whose common denominator is sheer hatred of what is stood for by those writing the six-figure checks to them.
Why, the question screams, do “we often give our enemies the means of our own destruction,” to quote the fable writer Aesop.
“Good public relations,” answers Kent, and his study found, “donating to radical groups to protect themselves against future waves of costly, image-shattering litigation.” Here the author cites the example of Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, which came under fire in 2002 for “soliciting tax-deductible contributions from corporations against whom he promised to ‘campaign’ on alleged unemployment diversity issues.” A natural analogy, notes Kent, is that “[m]any radical environmental groups take the same approach to corporate blackmail.” He then goes to illustrate how -- and what stunning and never-anticipated dividends are received by those who write the big checks.
The Defenders of Wildlife, for example, was founded in 1947 and is ostensibly a conservation group. Among its backers are the David and Lucille Packard Foundation ( a creation of the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard). The DOW also opposes the U.S. war on terrorism and has been relentless in its opposition to any measure to thwart illegal immigration.
This is not an uncommon avenue for environmentalists to take, as Betrayal shows us. In 1998, the DOW, Audobon Society, and Sierra Club sued the Immigration and Naturalization Service to stop construction of fences and lighting along the Arizona border on the grounds that this would have stopped :”cross-border movement by jaguars, ocelots, and a host of other border species.” (Not surprisingly, Betrayal notes, the open borders Turner Foundation has given more than $1 million to DOW since 1997.)
Pew Charitable Trusts was once a reliable underwriter of conservative and pro-free market causes but is now under the management of a new (and liberal) generation. From 1991-2002, Pew gave $11 million to the National Resources Defense Council, which in the 1980’s launched a nationwide consumer panic about the preservative Alar in apples. Under the guidance of the far-left Fenton Communications public relations maestros, NRDC claimed that Alar in apples was a cause of cancer. A study by the EPA ended the panic, concluding “an individual would have to eat 50,000 Alar-tested apples a day over the course of a lifetime” to get cancer.
But NRDC thrives to this day, Betrayal notes, “with a shameful record of attacking and shaking down corporate America and a gullible public.”
Kent’s book also illustrates the increasingly provocative case of the latest target for seduction for big liberal dollars: religious organizations. That’s right: fueled by six-figure donations from the William and Flora Hewitt Foundation and similar sources, the National Council of Evangelicals now makes the case for global warming as much a cause as, say, the teaching of divine creationism as an alternative to evolution.
Since 1993, Betrayal concludes, “more evangelical converts have been singing from the foundation-funded ‘eco-justice’ hymnal.” Directed at 67,000 congregations of more than 100 million churchgoers and beginning with the National Council of Churches, Jewish Life, and the U.S. Catholic Conference (“wolves in clerical garb taking their 30 pieces of silver from foundation and their shills,” according to Kent), more than $5 million has been deployed in the last 14 years to make the environment part of their daily religious lives.
Shocking? Stunning? You bet it is. A recent Capital Research Center analysis of charitable donations showed that donations by the left to the Fortune 500 foundations totaled $59 million, compared to $4 million to the right. That’s a ratio of 14.5-to-1. There are very similar, lopsided ratios in terms of liberal v. conservative donations to the “527” political groups we heard so much about last year.
Foundations of Betrayal explains why -- and in no uncertain terms.
Well, we knew it was bad. God save the Republic now (and I do not say that tongue in cheek) if that 14.5 to 1 ratio is true; these are very dangerous forces. With funding like this and an agreeable government in the place, we will see the United States cripple into totalitarianism in our lifetimes. People need to stop worrying about Lindsey Lohan’s dope, sports, and primetime. This IS the endgame, and it is for keeps...
This is very discouraging.
Billions (probably) to extreme left-wing organizations.
I suppose they think that under socialism they will have a subservient, guaranteed labor force, cheap.
The only way this is effective is a combination of media and activist judges to aid them.
Yup. It is 450 A.D. and we are watching the fall of a great civilization.
Why do we refer to him as "Rev."? He did not get a divinity degree, he's never had his own congregation, nor has he ever had his own church. I think it's a travesty to those who did earn such a degree.
BTW, the same is true for Al Sharpton. He not only didn't earn a divinity degree, he never attended college. He was "ordained" by a preacher in Washington, DC, at age 10! He has no right to be called "Rev." by anyone.
Agree.
And ironically, or not so ironically, right thinking middle-class Americans are the most generous to charities that actually help the poor and environment.
Ping.
Lovely.
What is stunning, is that so much of what I KNOW is absolute shullbit, is repeated over and over as if it were gospel, and the cash to promote this sort of nonsense continues to keep flowing to these evangelists of deceit.
Sure, the superrich protect THEMSELVES from the direct attacks of the verminous shills for “social justice”, through contributions made to foundations set up to insulate them from scrutiny by the public, but nowhere are there any interests of the individual or society being protected. Only “causes”, which turn out to be instruments to further consolidate and concentrate power in the hands of the few “elite” who are so infinitely much smarter than the vast majority of “proletarians” or “plebians”.
Change for the sake of change. Seductive, but laden with grave and unexpected dangers. The Law of Unintended Consequences has its own agenda.
For the SuperRich, the Constitution is not needed. they enjoy world citizenship status, neither they nor their families require the US Constitutional protections to prosper. For the rest of us, the umbrella of the US Constitution, is a refuge from the predation that characterizes existence elsewhere, and provides opportunity unparalelled for those born with nothing more than their minds and bodies.
Corporations and multinationals - no individual is responsible for any decisions taken. They are bureaucracies that rival the USSR.
“In every bureaucratic system, the shifting of responsibilities is a matter of daily routine, and if one wishes to define bureaucracy in terms of political science, that is as a form of government - the rule of office as contrasted to the rule of men of one man or of the few, or of the many - bureaucracy unhappily is the rule of nobody and for this reason is for this reason perhaps the least human and most cruel form of rulership”.
- Hannh Arendt (Re: Eichmann and his role in the holocaust) -
As much as I dislike Washington, D.C., that seems a bit unlikely. On the other hand, a novel about intrigue between the United States and Colombia might be a wee bit more plausible.
Unfortunately, this is all too true.
Class warfare? On FR?
On one of the financial shows a few weeks ago they were talking about how the business world was losing the support of the right in America.
Simply stated, the right is all for business but not this conscience free business as it’s being conducted today.
Indeed. There’s nothing wrong with seeking a profit, as long as one doesn’t destroy or harm innocents in the process. No one can believe that the free trade-supporting, illegal alien-hiring, outsourcing, multi-national businesses of today believe or practice that.
Unfortunately the GOP is happily whistling past the graveyard hoping to keep the big money lobbyists coming into their offices.
They lose the support of the people and they lose power and the lobbyists won’t be there any more.
Very interesting...if that 14.5:1 ratio is accurate, it certainly paints big business as the mortal enemy of conservatism, not as its political bedfellow.
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