Posted on 08/07/2002 8:37:18 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Conservatives' Billions Fuel Leftist Establishment
The "liberal establishment” did not just appear out of thin air, says Neal B. Freeman, founder and CEO of the Blackwell Corp., a television production company with a broad range of client services. Just as the left is better than conservatives at gut-fighting street-smarts politics, so too is it more adept at maneuvering to control the vast fortunes left by industrialists whose ingenuity built this country’s wealth and left us with a standard of living envied around the world. "An enormous [generational] shift in wealth is currently taking place,” Freeman pointed out. Presenting a list of the top 10 left-wing foundations sitting on combined assets of nearly $90 billion in tax-free assets, he said the time for conservatives to strike was now.
The goal: Save the next generation of foundations, funded by entrepreneurs whose wealth was sparked in large part by the Reagan revolution.
Otherwise, "What we’re in for,” he said at a breakfast meeting of the Leadership Institute, "is that the entrepreneurs may wind up a generation hence funding posthumously attacks on the system that they built.” "What you have, if you look at this list, you have the great fortunes of modern capitalism now turning to the service of anti-market initiatives. You have the great names of the American century now funding the centrifugal forces of multiculturalism. You have the great names and fruits of technological genius funding corrosive" campaigns or causes.
Freeman cited case histories to illustrate the problem.
Johnson Foundation Attacks the Parent Company
The Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, a product of Johnson & Johnson – familiar to virtually every household for Band-Aids, pharmaceuticals and surgical supplies – funded the principle studies for Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated health care plan in 1994. Irony of ironies: "At the same time, the Johnson & Johnson company was sending waves of lobbyists up to Capitol Hill to try and defeat that plan.
"So here you had the wealth from the company quite literally attacking the company through the foundation endowed by the company….” Or take the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, spawned by the "father of Silicon Valley."
"Packard dies in 1996. His entire life was dedicated to the proposition that technology [affects people’s] lives for the better ... that it liberates people so they have more time with their families, more time for their intellectual pursuits, more time for their church, more time for the worthwhile things in life ....”
'Guilt-Stricken Relatives'
The Packard Foundation, dominated by "guilt-stricken relatives, resentful lawyers and activist liberals, now has become the largest funder outside of Beijing of the sustainable development” movement, which dictates land-use planning often not favored by the local people. "This is how Al Gore became Al Gore in the Rio Conference” of the early 1990s leading up to his vice presidential candidacy, followed by then-President Bill Clinton’s sustainable-development conference at the White House. Other Packard Foundation adventures include "restrictions on the movement of private wealth, population control by birth license, the resettlement of urban populations to rural areas, and restraints by government on the development of new technology.” Would you believe the exploits of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, namesake of "our great tax-cutting hero,” along with other 20th-century tax cutters such as John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan? The foundation was a major backer of opposition to cutting the estate tax. "You hear the body revolving in the grave.” Pee-yoo Or the Pew Foundation, whose money has been used to support programs advanced by "aggressive environmental groups that attacked the resource extraction industry.” Freeman labels this "the perfect vicious circle,” whereby "Sun Oil Company funds the Pew Foundation, which funds the groups which attack the oil industry.” Perhaps the "signature grant” in all of philanthropy is "the MacArthur Genius Grant.” Every year, Freeman explained, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation calls between 10 and 20 people and says: "Congratulations! You’ve just won a MacArthur Genius Grant, and I’m putting in the mail to you today a check for $500,000.”
Baby Geniuses
The decision is made by "a secret board that identifies MacArthur Genius.” What do you have to do to merit that? Nothing, really. Nothing other than being a left-wing activist who has attracted the favorable attention of the MacArthur inner sanctum. Among the winners listed by Freeman were a vice president of Audubon Society (environmental activism); the executive director of Institute for Sustainable Development (land-use planning); a scientist who specializes in "climate change” (the theory of "global warming”); a "behavior economist”; a commentator on "race in America” (pitting groups of people against each other); a lobbyist for Council of La Raza (which brands as "racist” anyone who questions the invasion of illegal aliens). "Now, let’s assume they’re all geniuses,” the Blackwood CEO told his audience, "a rather large assumption, but let’s assume it. What do these people have in common? "Every one of them would have offended John MacArthur,” who bestowed his billions "in the innocent assumption these people would extend his values and his bidding down through the decades.” But in reality, "he won’t be known as John MacArthur, the great entrepreneur. He will be known as John MacArthur, the author of those daffy genius grants.”
Ford 'Divorce'
The Ford Foundation a few years ago "had a divorce from the Ford family.” Henry Ford, second—the last member of the Ford auto fortune family still associated with the foundation’s board of trustees, declared:
"The foundation exists and thrives on the fruits of our economic system. The dividends of our competitive enterprise make it all possible. It is hard for me to discern recognition of this fact in anything the foundation does.” How do so many billionaire foundations wander so far off the path desired by their founders? "The initial board is named by the donor. After that, it becomes self-perpetuating. When a vacancy occurs, the residual donors pick the candidate to fill it.
"The mistake comes when the original donor picks the board. Almost always, he has in his mind the corporate paradigm. What you want in a corporate board is 360-degree experience to protect your flanks. You want technocratic advice from lawyers and engineers and accountants and so on.
'Values of the Patron'
"You don’t want that in a foundation. You want no variety at all. You want a debate from A to A-minus. The only debate you want is how to most faithfully implement the values of the patron or the donor.” NewsMax.com reminded Freeman that the one and only known congressional investigation of the huge amounts of money and awesome power of the tax-exempt foundations took place back in the 1950s, the last time the Republicans controlled the House before going into a 40-year minority status that finally ended when they won the 1994 elections.
The chairman was Rep. B. Carroll Reece, R-Tenn. The ranking Democrat on the panel, Rep. Wayne Hayes, D-Ohio, constantly disrupted the hearings with vociferous objections to the proceedings and the direction they took. The stormy sessions were entertaining. But whatever came of them?
Very little, because "foundations become so self-indulgent only because there’s no challenge …. The only person who can sue a foundation, unless it’s a family member who personally agrees, is the attorney general of the state in which the foundation is domiciled.
"And if you’re a politically ambitious attorney general with the idea of going up against a billion-dollar foundation with squads of lawyers from the best firms in the state, it’s not what you’re eager to do.”
What to Do
So how to prevent new fortunes from lending their weight to new and ever more powerful left-wing foundations in the future, against the will of their founders? Here’s Feeman’s formula:
The Big 10
Here is Freeman’s list of the top 10 foundations "sitting atop the pyramid of 78 foundations and their assets of the latest filing:
Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
WASHINGTON – Huge left-wing foundations, created with the money provided by pioneering conservative entrepreneurs, are driving the agenda in the U.S., and by extension, through much of the world. And a CEO who has studied the problem says it is time to act.
Thursday, Aug. 8, 2002
The Communist/Socialists infiltrated the judicial system and flooded our country with Anti-American lawyers. These lawyers got themselves entangled in the "charitable" organizations founded by wealthy capitalists. Upon the death of these capitalists they managed to direct the funds to Socialist-interests under the guise of charity, all while continuing to use capitalist funds to perpetuate the system.
Excellent article.
Almost makes you wonder if the real elistits aren't on the Left side of the aisle, what?
You're just a jealous, MARXIST shill, is all. LOL
As far as staying on topic is concerned, my typos, which yes, I do miss a lot of , aren't the topic of this thread. Does that make YOU a DRUNK , for going off topic, to bait, flame, and personally attack me ? It must, since that is one of your criteria, for saying such things.
I have very good reading comprehgension skills; unlike you, dear. :-)
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