Power Elite Foundation Funding Of Left Media/Think Tanks In 1990-2007 Era Revisited: (Conclusion)
"U.S. power elite’s foundations were able to promote `fragmentation of protest' on...U.S. Left by using...grants to create...`a universe of overlapping and competing social change organizations'."
In her 2003-published Foundations and Public Policy book’s chapter on "Social Change Organizations," Joan Roelofs indicated the various ways that the funding of U.S. left NGO groups, historically, by the U.S. power elite’s foundations appeared to have exercised a special influence over the political direction of the U.S. left during the 1990 to 2007 U.S. historical era.
Foundation grants to one left NGO group rather than another enabled the militaristic U.S. power elite’s liberal foundations to steer the U.S. left's agenda so that "threatening alternatives" didn’t appear on the serious political agenda.
More militant U.S. left political groups which the U.S. power elite’s foundation boards or program managers regarded as "irresponsible" or "unrealistic" were not funded: and, as a result, were more easily excluded from U.S. left political discourse than were the U.S. left NGO groups favored with U.S. power elite foundation grants.
U.S. power elite foundations were able to influence previously unfunded U.S. left groups to change the design of their projects and structure in accordance with a foundation board's special agenda, in order to qualify for grants from a particular foundation.
U.S. power elite foundations were able to influence a U.S. left NGO groups' choice of leaders by only giving tax-exempt “charitable” grants to U.S. left groups whose leaders they regarded as politically unthreatening.
And the militaristic U.S. power elite’s foundations were able to promote "the fragmentation of protest" on the U.S. Left by using their grants to create and sustain "a universe of overlapping and competing social change organizations" and discourage the unification of U.S. left dissident political groups. As Roelofs noted in her 2003-published Foundations and Public Policy book:
"It is to the elite's advantage to be countered by a `mass movement' consisting of fragmented, segmented, local, and nonideological bureaucracies doing good works and, furthermore, being dependent on foundations for support. Diverse organizations emphasize differences among the disadvantaged: ethnic, racial, sexual, rural-urban, or age, and they discourage a broad left recognizing common interests."
In an early 21st-century article, titled "`Alternative' media paymasters: Carlyle, ALCOA, Xerox, Coca Cola…?", Brian Salter made a strong case against the historical reliance by authentically left media and think tanks on liberal Establishment foundation funding of their activity. After exposing and examining the U.S. power elite, corporate and political party connections of some of the folks who then sat, historically, on the boards of foundations like the Ford Foundation, Salter concluded:
"The big establishment foundations are likely to seek out `alternative' media that is more bark than bite, which they can rely on to ignore and dismiss sensitive topics…as `irrational distractions' or `conspiracy theory.' Recipients of funding will always protest that they are not swayed by any conflicts of interest and don't allow the sources of funding to affect their decisions, but whether or not these claims are actually true is already somewhat of a red herring. The more important question is, what sort of `alternative' journalism garners the goodwill of the Ford Foundation's corporate rogues' gallery in the first place? Or the Rockefeller Foundation? Or Carnegie, Soros and Schumann?
"Judging by the journalism being offered (and not offered) by Nation magazine, FAIR, Pacifica, Progressive magazine, IPA, Mother Jones, AlterNet, and other recipients of their funding, the big establishment foundations are successfully sponsoring the kind of `opposition' that the U.S. ruling elite can tolerate and live with."
Or to put it in an even more concise way: “The People United, will never be defeated!”— But a Movement of Grant-Hustlers will continue to be defeated by a militaristic U.S. power elite, when the power elite’s foundation money is allowed to manipulate the political agenda of the Movement and the People.
All Power To The People--Not The U.S. Power Elite’s Foundations!
The U.S. Left Movement belongs to the People--Not The U.S. Power Elite’s Foundations!
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