By Jay Taber
Mar 17, 2013
Mar 16
20130
Foundations, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Whiteness & Aversive Racism
Imperialism Jared Diamond neoliberalism Social Sciences West Papua
By Jay Taber
Feb 4, 2013
Jan 22
20135
Amnesty International, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, The War on Libya - There Was No Evidence, Whiteness & Aversive Racism
Amnesty International Hegemony Iraq Israel NATO neoliberalism Palestine PEN America Suzanne Nossel UN Human Rights Council
Suzanne Nossel
Continuity – A Public Good Project Initiative
Jan 21, 2013
By Jay Taber
Jan 14
20130
CIDA | Canadian International Development Agency, Foundations, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, The Occupation of Haiti, Whiteness & Aversive Racism
Canada CIDA Haiti Harper Imperialism Mining neoliberalism Occupation
January 13, 2013
Yves Engler: Strategic objectives of Canadian aid are to strengthen a pro-elite police and advance Canadian commercial interests.
Watch full multipart The Ugly Canadian
Jan 13
20130
Non-Profit Industrial Complex, USAID
ALBA Capitalism El Salvador Millennium Challenge Corporation neoliberalism Partnership for Growth Agreement privatization Unions USAID
As much of Latin America braces itself for the possibility of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s death, observers around the world would do well to note the stark contrasts that exist within the region. On the one hand, there are the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas) countries, united by Chavez in their rejection of US imperialism and neoliberal capitalism. On the other hand, there are those countries which are still very much living under the hegemony of the United States. In El Salvador, this means subservience to Washington and international investors who seek nothing less than total control of that nation’s economic destiny. This attempt at economic monopolization can be summed up with one word: privatization. It is precisely this strategy with all the union-busting, wage gouging, and propaganda disinformation that it entails, that is rearing its ugly head in El Salvador. →
11/27/2012
An Against the Grain Interview with Prof. Jay Arena
In this Against the Grain interview, about 50 minutes, Jay Arena outlines the process of destroying public housing in New Orleans and more broadly across the country, with particular attention to the roles played by not for profit organizations and black elites carrying out the neoliberal agenda of gentrification.
This interview was broadcast recently on KPFA Berkeley, and can be found online, with hundreds more like it at Against the Grain Radio, http://againstthegrain.org.
Listen to the interview here.
Nov 22
20120
Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Whiteness & Aversive Racism
ALF | Animal Liberation Front Biotechnology Capitalism Corporate Media Culture Ecological Crisis neoliberalism Pacifism Pacifism as Pathology Resistance Speciesism
WKOG: An excellent lecture by Dr Steven Best. Not to be missed.
“The desire for a nonviolent and cooperative world is the healthiest of all psychological manifestations. This is the overarching principle of liberation and revolution. Undoubtedly, it seems the highest order of contradiction that, in order to achieve nonviolence, we must first break with it in overcoming its root causes. Therein lies our only hope.” — Ward Churchill, Pacifism as Pathology
Conference: “The Paralysis of Pacifism: In Defense of Militant Direct Action and “Violence” for Animal Liberation” held by Prof. Steve Best in ex slaughterhouse of Aprilia – Italy – 06 September 2012.
Prof. Steve Best is a writer, speaker, public intellectual, and activist. Steven Best engages animal rights, species extinction, ecological crisis, biotechnology, liberation politics, terrorism, mass media and culture, globalization, and capitalist domination. He is Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas, El Paso.
This conference has been organized by “Per Animalia Veritas” which is an organization that promotes antispecism as a radical revolution for a renewed cruelty-free and vegan society through militant activism.
To subscribe to Steve Best’s blog visit: http://drstevebest.wordpress.com/
Nov 19
20122
Foundations, Neo-Liberalism and the Defanging of Feminism, Whiteness & Aversive Racism
CIA CSR First Nations First Peoples Worldwide Ford Foundation Gloria Steinem Indigenous Peoples neoliberalism Soros UN World Bank
“Despite millions of dollars being funneled to Indigenous Peoples over recent decades, our communities still lack cultural and economic self-determination,” says FPW Founder and President Rebecca Adamson. “Small-grants programs tailored specifically to the needs of Indigenous communities, including the need for modern property rights to correspond with traditional land use, will contribute greatly to Indigenous empowerment.”
[For more information about such “modern property rights” read “Harper Launches Major First Nations Termination Plan: As Negotiating Tables Legitimize Canada’s Colonialism]
FPW Board member Jim Brumm in February 2012 with San peoples in Molapo Village, Botswana. (photo credit: Jim Brumm)
November 18, 2012
First Peoples Worldwide, an NGO funded by foundations, corporations and multilaterals, uses all the heartwarming neoliberal nomenclature well. So well, I suspect, that many innocent indigenous peoples are led to believe it is the answer to their prayers. But, as with all things that seem too good to be true, the first thing to check on is where they get their money. Sweet talk is one thing; who they actually work for is another.
FPW’s IRS form 990 does not name the source of its half million dollars in annual revenue, but it’s a safe bet it’s dirty money. I don’t know if their employee Nick Pelosi is related to the former US Speaker of the House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (he’s not one of her children), but it wouldn’t surprise me. His article about Indians harnessing the economic potential of oil field and refinery development fits well with the Corporate Social Responsibility theme neoliberals love so well.
Looking at the FPW blog, the buzz about Corporate Social Responsibility touted on the home page is reinforced by this post on FPW promoting World Bank and UN co-optation of indigenous peoples through their fraudulent gatherings aimed at undermining the indigenous movement. Something Intercontinental Cry magazine has covered extensively.
A cursory review of the First Peoples Worldwide website reveals one of their Board of Directors to be Gloria Steinem, renowned feminist publisher and CIA operative, currently working to promote humanitarian warfare by the US and NATO, allegedly to “liberate women” in Arab Spring countries. As a recipient of Soros Open Society and Ford Foundation funding (no friends of indigenous peoples), Steinem’s organizations help legitimize foreign coups by the US State Department.
September 06, 2012
Skookum – *An online journal of the American psyche in transition*
by Jay Taber
So what it comes down to is either civil society mobilizes against Indigenous genocide, as it did against slavery and apartheid, or Indigenous peoples will perish. The neoliberal options of becoming either a caricature or a corpse, of course, are not an accident, but rather a logical consequence of EU, US, and UN policies against collective ownership. With the accelerated theft of Indigenous properties, instigated by the IMF and World Bank, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is becoming a tragic farce. Were it not so, we could expect UN peacekeepers to defend Indigenous communities, rather than stand aside while organized violence by NATO, police, and paramilitaries wipe them out.By mobilize I mean both resources and the networks that need resources to function. People often mistakenly think mobilizing means organizing large demonstrations or spectacular events, but in my experience effectiveness depends more on strategic use of resources and networks of committed individuals engaged in research, education and communication–much as we’ve done at Public Good Project. As people shed the illusion of institutional protection through philanthropic foundations and large NGOs — that largely consist of public relations marketing and little else — they might come to realize that contributing regular donations to networks is a better way. When they begin doing that in large enough numbers, researchers, analysts, activists and independent journalists will have the means to sustain the human rights movement, including that of Indigenous peoples.
It’s mostly a learning curve for well-meaning people who’ve never personally experienced organized conflict firsthand. What most have experienced is secondhand participation in public diplomacy—mostly through writing checks or letters to the editor or marching in some parade. What some have cynically referred to as “whining their way to power.”
Since global conflicts between Indigenous societies and institutions that do the bidding of markets are life and death struggles — not good faith negotiations — those who approach these conflicts for what they are are more likely to succeed. While pressuring institutions to enforce and live by international humanitarian law is good, it is far from enough, given the zero sum game of the Fourth World war.
Our networks and efforts are no secret, but as long as liberals are politically illiterate and organizationally infantile, they will continue doing what the philanthropic sector and other institutions (like most unions) tell them to. As liberals see their privileges and security crumble, they might start looking for answers elsewhere. When they do, networks like ours are ready to educate them so they can organize more effectively.
One hopeful sign is independent media like Real News and Intercontinental Cry, as is popularly accessible analysis as exemplified by Wrong Kind of Green, where the non-profit industrial complex is rightly and roundly criticized.
The Fourth World solidarity required of First World civil society comprises first and foremost a commitment to democratizing states. As we saw in Northern Ireland and South Africa, this involves research, education, organizing and action of civil society networks in the form of both political parties and self-defense.
First World affinities of the Fourth World liberation movement, in North America especially, would contribute more to the cause of social justice by democratizing First World elections and governance than they could ever accomplish by simply protesting or waving signs. That involves a lot more work, of course, but it’s what needs to be done if they want to pay more than lip service to Indigenous solidarity.
The Research Group on Socialism and Democracy
Review by Author Johnny E. Williams
Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003).
Joan Roelofs’s Foundations and Public Policy brings much needed attention to private foundations and their direct and indirect role in protecting and promoting capitalism. According to Roelofs these foundations use their monies to maintain capitalism through “civil society” (i.e., nonprofit organizations), which constructs societal consent without resorting to force. To this end the principal objectives of foundations are to 1) quash disruptive activism during economic decline, 2) provide goods and services for unprofitable markets (e.g., the arts, public television, museums, etc.) and maintain control over grantees’ program content, 3) provide employment for the unemployed and discontented who are dissident and potentially dangerous, 4) fragment dissent through multiculturalism (i.e., identity politics), and 5) promote political change that diverts systemic challenges. Each point is explored using Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony to demonstrate how foundations circuitously exert an excessive amount of influence over intellectuals and institutions shaping culture and governmental policies.Roelofs does a commendable job of contextualizing the historical origins of foundations and their mission. Her analysis, like Stuart Ewen’s (1996) socio-historical examination of public relations, suggests that at the turn of the 20th century corporations seized the opportunity to transform intellectuals’ “disruptive” notions of class struggle and social classes “into ‘social problems’ and tasks for social scientists” (28). Particular attention is given to documenting how social science intellectuals are channeled into collaboration with foundations advancing the idea that poverty and other social ills are individual problems requiring the intervention of trained professionals. Roelofs contends that this process is facilitated by foundation-sponsored professional organizations (e.g., the Social Science Research Council), which serve as conduits for socializing intellectuals into accepting foundations’ socioeconomic ideologies, directing them to pursue “research supportive of foundations and their source of funds-millionaires and corporations” (33). She convincingly demonstrates this point with a detailed analysis of political science’s transformation into a narrowly behavioral orientation (e.g., measuring attitudes, voting, lobbying, coalition building, and other observable activities). In her synopsis, Roelofs illustrates how this discipline’s rigid adherence to the value-free doctrine diverts scholars’ attention away from exploring how capitalism constructs structures of inequality. Her discussion of this doctrine, however, leaves the reader wanting a more detailed account of its effect on research and social change. As it is, the reader gets only a 3-page snippet of value neutrality’s complex intellectual steering. →