20th Anniversary of U.S. Invasion of Panama

December 20, 2009 marked the 20th Anniversary of the 1989 invasion of Panama by 24,000 Pentagon troops.

In The U.S. Invasion of Panama: The Truth Behind Operation `Just Cause,’ an Independent Commission of Inquiry described what happened in Panama during the Pentagon’s 1989 invasion:

“Thousands of Panamanians were killed and wounded during the invasion. The bulk of these casualties were civilians. Estimates of the numbers killed range from over 1,000 to as many as 4,000. A precise figure is hard to arrive at because the U.S. government has carried out a deliberate and systematic cover-up of the numbers killed…

“During the invasion U.S. troops carried out the destruction of the offices of almost every political organization and newspaper known to oppose U.S. policy. The U.S. invasion force destroyed Panama’s National Radio and another radio station, Sistema Radial De Onda Popular. Two television stations, Channel 2 and 5, were also taken over by U.S. troops. The newspaper La Republica, which reported on the extensive death and destruction caused by the invasion, was ransacked and looted by U.S. troops. La Republica publisher Escolastico `Fuelela’ Calvo was arrested and taken by U.S. troops to Fort Clayton…”

The Independent Commission of Inquiry project directors, Gavriella Gemma and Teresa Gutierrez, also noted that as of 1991 there was “not one hearing or congressional investigation into this monstrous event, even though it violated…the U.S. Constitution” and described the role the Big Media played in manipulating U.S. public opinion to support the Pentagon’s invasion of Panama in 1989:

“The media, every television station, every major newspaper participated in a virtual orgy of applause while covering up what was really taking place in Panama. One less experienced anchorman attempting an analysis was summarily shut up while on the air…”

(Downtown 12/21/94)

25 Years Since Bhopal, India Disaster

The "Poison In The Air" protest folk song was written shortly after the late 1984 disaster at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, 25 years ago". Since that time, Union Carbide was purchased by Dow Chemical in 2001; and in the 21st-century there’s an International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal which is still fighting for justice for the victims of U.S. corporate greed in India. Coincidentally, a member of the Dow board of directors in recent years, Jacqueline Barton, apparently also used to sit on the board of trustees of Barnard College (whose board of trustees currently includes Columbia University President and Washington Post Company/Newsweek media conglomerate board member Lee Bollinger).

Poison In The Air

There’s poison in the air
Right near the factory!”
And children start to die
And mothers start to scream
And fathers start to weep
And workers start to shout:
“The Union Carbide plant—
Its gas is pouring out!”

It came to India
To use the cheap labor
And thousands it did kill
When its poison gas did pour
“Safety, it costs too much”
The bankers all did say
And the silent spring of death
Won’t affect the USA.

The pesticide for insects
Murdered people now instead
The methyl isocyanate
From the storage tank it fled
Morgan Guaranty Director Brown
And Chase Manhattan Director Ferguson
Directed Union Carbide
To use the cheapest gas.

Each day another horror
Or a new atrocity
There is no regulation
As they destroy the air we breathe
Today they poisoned India
Tomorrow it may be your city
A monument to profit
A tribute to corporate greed.

To listen to some other protest folk songs, you can check out the “Columbia Songs for a Democratic Society” music site at the following link:

http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music

Black Youth Jobless Rate Jumps to 49.4 Percent Under Obama

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for African-American youth between 16 and 19 years of age under the Democratic Obama Regime jumped from 41.3 to 49.4 percent between October and November 2009; while the unemployment rate for African-American male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 16.9 percent in November 2009, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for African-American female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 11.7 percent in November 2009, while the unemployment rate for all African-American workers—male, female and youth—was still 15.6 percent..

In November 2009, the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Hispanic or Latino male workers over 20 years of age was still 11.6 percent. For all Hispanic or Latino workers over 16 years of age (which takes into account the 34.7 percent “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youth and the 10.6 rate for Latino female workers over 20 years of age), the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate was still 12.7 percent in November 2009.

For white male workers in the United States over 20 years of age, the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate was still 9.8 percent in November 2009, while the rate for white female workers over 20 years of age remained at 7.4 percent. The official unemployment rate for white youth between 16 and 19 years of age was still 23 percent in November 2009.

The “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Asian-American workers was 7.3 percent in November 2009. But the official “seasonally adjusted” national jobless rate for all U.S. workers was still 10 percent in November 2009.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ December 4, 2009 press release:

“…In November, employment fell in construction, manufacturing and information…

“…The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) rose by 293,000 to 5.9 million. The percentage of unemployed persons jobless for 27 weeks or more increased by 2.7 percentage points to 38.3 percent…

“The number of people working part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in November at 9.2 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job…

“About 2.3 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in November, an increase of 376,000 from a year earlier…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey…

“Among the marginally attached, there were 861,000 discouraged workers in November, up from 608,000 a year earlier…Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“Construction employment declined by 27,000 over the month…In November, construction job losses were concentrated among nonresidential specialty trade contractors…

“Manufacturing employment fell by 41,000 in November…

“Employment in the information industry fell by 17,000 in November. About half of the job loss occurred in its telecommunications component (-9,000)…”

Is Obama-Bush War In Afghanistan Illegal?

Most people in the United States, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Europe and in the rest of the world want all U.S. military forces to be quickly withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2010. Yet the Democratic Obama Administration recently announced that it was sending over 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

But, according to the 2004 book Afghanistan: The Mirage of Peace by Chris Johnson and Jolyon Leslie, when the Pentagon began to bomb Afghanistan under the Republican Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Powell-Condoleezza Rice Administation in October 2001, "there was no explicit agreement under international law for the USA to go to war."

The same book also recalled:

"The US air attack on Afghanistan began on 7 October 2001, with an initial focus on targets in the major cities...Some 400 civilians were killed in the first week of bombing, and this toll increased tenfold over the following three months of the campaign...

"By the end of October 2001...there was a switch in strategy to carpet-bombing of frontlines...Sub-atomic bombs were dropped on Taliban frontlines in the Shamali plains north of Kabul...In addition, a quarter of a million deadly bomblets were scattered from the cluster bombs that the USA dropped throughout the country...

"...Afghanistan potentially offered advantages over all the alternative pipeline routes..."

Ironically, when President Obama was an undergraduate student at Columbia College in the early 1980s, he apparently was a student of a Columbia University professor named Zbigniew Brzezinski--who later became one of his foreign policy advisers when President Obama was campaigning for his White House job in 2008.

Coincidentally, former Columbia University Professor and former Carter White House National Security Adviser Brzezinski confessed in an interview that appeared in the January 15, 1998 issue of the French newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur:

"According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujaheddin began...after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan...But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul."

Judge Sack's Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher/Bush White House Connection?

If you check out the May 1, 2009 financial disclosure form that Columbia Law School faculty member Robert D. Sack filed for 2008 (which is posted on the Judicial Watchdog website at ( http://www.judicialwatch.org/judge/sack-robert-d ), you’ll notice that the federal appellate court judge who wrote the recent unjust legal decision in the Lynne Stewart Case was paid $7,500 by Columbia Law School in 2008. In addition, Judge Sack apparently also received $72,000 in 2008 from the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP Retirement Plan—at the same time he was employed as both a federal court judge and a lecturer at Columbia Law School.

Coincidentally, the lawyer who served as the principal legal advisor to the National Security Council in the Bush White House, Michael Edney, now works in the Washington, D.C. office of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP firm whose “retirement plan” apparently paid Judge Sack $72,000 in 2008. As a press release, titled “Former White House Legal Advisor Returns to Gibson Dunn in D.C.,” that was posted on the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP website on May 13, 2009 revealed:

“Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP welcomes back Michael J. Edney to its Washington, D.C. office after four years of high-level Executive Branch experience in the White House and the Department of Justice. Edney rejoins the approximately 125-lawyer litigation practice group in the Washington, D.C. office, including more than a dozen former Department of Justice attorneys….From 2007 to 2009, Edney served as a principal legal advisor to the National Security Council in the White House. In that position, he participated in crafting and implementing the Administration’s response to national security legal matters in the courts, before Congress, and in the public….

“Edney resumes his litigation practice at Gibson Dunn after a four-year absence…He joined the Office of Legal Counsel in the United States Department of Justice in 2005, where he provided legal advice on the most difficult constitutional and statutory issues facing the Executive Branch…He brings to Gibson Dunn a wide knowledge of the Department of Justice’s civil litigation and criminal enforcement practices. In 2007, he joined the National Security Council staff in the White House, where he served among a small group of legal crisis management experts responsible for national security…His responsibilities included advising senior White House policymakers and reaching consensus among the senior lawyers of the Executive Branch on the most serious national security legal questions confronting the Nation….”

A former Assistant United States Attorney named Alexander Southwell also began working in 2007 at the New York office of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP firm whose “retirement plan” apparently paid Judge Sack $72,000 in 2008. As a July 24, 2007 press release on the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP website noted:

“…Mr. Southwell joins a number of former Assistant U.S. Attorneys at Gibson Dunn, including Jarrett Arp, Robert Blume, Robert Bonner (U.S. Attorney, Cent. Dist. of Calif.), David Burns, David Debold, Lee Dunst, Miguel Estrada, Michael Farhang, Douglas Fuchs, Nicola Hanna, Peter Jaffe, Randy Mastro, Marcellus McRae, Orin Snyder, John Sturc, Maurice Suh, Jim Walden, Joseph Warin, Gregory Whitehair, and Debra Wong Yang (U.S. Attorney, Cent. Dist. of Calif.).

“Mr. Southwell served from 2001 through 2007 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York.”

National Lawyers Guild Called Lynne Stewart's Trial & Conviction `A Travesty'

The judicial branch of the U.S. federal government is supposed to be independent of both the U.S. Senate and Columbia University Law School. Yet after a Columbia Law School faculty member named Robert D. Sack recently wrote an unjust legal decision that upheld a 2005 trial conviction of Lynne Stewart, the former Chief Counsel to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York--a 1993 Columbia University Law School graduate named Preet Bharara--wrote a motion--on behalf of a U.S. Justice Department that is headed by former Columbia University Trustee Eric Holder--requesting that the bail of the 70-year-old woman human rights lawyer be revoked. And that Stewart be imprisoned immediately.

But in the introduction to its 2005 pamphlet, titled The Case of Lynne Stewart: A Justice Department Attack on the Bill of Rights, the National Lawyers Guild noted:

"When Lynne released for public dissemination to the media a statement from her client--an act that the Justice Department was fully aware of about which it took no action for years--it was assumed her actions fell within current norms of protected legal advocacy. Following a change in administrations as well as the stigma of 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft convened an unseemly press conference and appeared later that day on the David Letterman Show to announce the bootstrapping of that minor violation of regulations into a full blown `terrorism' charge against her.

"Lynne Stewart, known in New York for defending poor and politically controversial clients for decades, was made part of a seven-count indictment, accusing her of `conspiracy' with two others, her translator and a legal assistant. The evidence presented at trial included the secret recordings of her meetings with her client...The evidence showed, at most, that in her effort to counterbalance the devastating effects of her client's lengthy isolation, she had released the press statement years earlier as part of the defense campaign to keep him in the public eye...

"Her trial and conviction were a travesty...

"This case brings us all to a cross-roads. Either we protest her conviction and demand respect for the Sixth Amendment and the rights of clients and attorneys to execute defense strategy without governmental interference and the constant threat of prosecution, or we consent to a radical rewriting of the right to counsel, thereby endorsing the administration's view of a new America ruled by administrative fiat, unhindered by Constitutional restraint..."

Columbia Law School Professor Urged Imprisonment For Lynne Stewart

A Columbia Law School faculty member named Robert D. Sack recently wrote the legal decision that authorized and urged the immediate imprisonment of a 70-year old woman human rights lawyer named Lynne Stewart--for the act of photocopying and mailing a press release for one of her legal clients.

Sack, the son of Park Slope rabbi Eugene Sack, was the Columbia University Law School Commencement speaker in 2007. In his May 17, 2007 speech,Sack confessed the following:

"My father was a reform rabbi with a pulpit in Park Slope Brooklyn...

"...It would be foolish to think that which judge happens to sit on your panel never matters. Sometimes it does...

"I took a job with Patterson, Belknap & Webb here in New York. A partner of the firm, later my mentor, Bob Potter, greeted me at the door. He said, `The most fun around her is representing The Wall Street Journal.' And I said--`Yes. I'll do that.' That's how I got into media law."

Besides sitting on the U.S. federal judiciary bench (having been appointed by Bill Clinton in the 1990s), Columbia Law School Professor Sack has also sat next to two top Dow Jones Company executives--Stuart Karle and James Ottaway Jr.--while serving as a board member of the William F. Kerby and Robert S. Potter Fund.

Coincidentally, Lynne Stewart was the lawyer for the still-imprisoned 1968 Columbia Strike Leader David Gilbert during the 1980s; and the Obama Administration Justice Department which decided to push for Stewart's imprisonment in the Columbia Law School faculty member's federal courtroom is headed by former Columbia University Trustee Eric Holder.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "On Inherited Wealth"

On June 19, 1935, former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the following:

“The transmission from generation to generation of vast fortunes by will, inheritance, or gift is not consistent with the ideals and sentiments of the American people…

“…Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the basis of personal and family security. In the last analysis such accumulations amount to the perpetuation of a great and undesirable concentration of control in a relatively few individuals over the employment and welfare of many, many others…

“Such inherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation which established our Government…”

In his 1939 book The Ending of Hereditary American Fortunes, Gustavus Myers also recalled:

“Bent upon still further breaking up great family concentrations of wealth, President Franklin D. Roosevelt urged Congress to use its taxing power to the limit. In addition to Federal estate taxes, he called for still more levies in the shape of inheritance, succession and legacy taxes on large amounts received by any one legatee or beneficiary. And to prevent possible evasion, heavier taxes on gifts…The Knights of Labor, decades back, had demanded the taxing of great private wealth out of existence…”

Yet in 2009, wealth and political power in the United States still seems to be undemocratically concentrated in the hands of a small number of billionaire and multi-millionaire individuals--and the corporations, political parties, global media conglomerates, foundations and universities which these plutocrats control.

Black Male Worker Jobless Rate Jumps To 17.1 Percent Under Obama

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for African-American male workers over 20 years-of-age under the Democratic Obama Regime increased from 16.5 percent to 17.1 percent between September and October 2009; while the unemployment rate for African-American female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 12.4 percent in October 2009, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all African-American workers (which also takes into account the 41.3 percent jobless rate for African-American youth between 16 and 19 years of age) increased from 15.4 to 15.7 percent between September and October 2009.

Ironically, although Democratic Party presidential candidate Obama claimed during the 2008 election campaign that his economic recovery and stimulus plan would provide jobs for unemployed workers in the United States, since October 2008 the official “seasonally adjusted” official jobless rate for African-American male workers over 20 years of age has jumped from 11.8 percent to 17.1 percent.

In October 2009, the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Hispanic or Latino male workers over 20 years of age was 11.9 percent. For all Hispanic or Latino workers over 16 years of age (which takes into account the 35.6 percent “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youth), the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate was 13.1 percent in October 2009.

For white male workers in the United States over 20 years of age, the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate increased from 9.6 to 9.9 percent between September and October 2009, while the rate for white female workers over 20 years of age increased from 7 to 7.4 percent.

Since October 2008, the official unemployment rate for white male workers over 20 years of age has increased from 5.8 percent to 9.9 percent.

The “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Asian-American workers was 7.5 percent in October 2009. But the official “seasonally adjusted” national jobless rate for all U.S. workers increased from 9.8 to 10.2 percent between September and October 2009.

Since October 2008, the official jobless rate for all U.S. workers has jumped from 6.6 percent to 10.2 percent.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ November 6, 2009 press release:

“The unemployment rate rose from 9.8 to 10.2 percent in October, and nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline (-190,000)…The largest job losses over the month were in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade…

“In October, the number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000 to 15.7 million. The unemployment rate rose…to the highest rate since April 1983…

“The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was…5.6 million. In October, 35.6 percent of unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more…

“The number of persons working part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was…9.3 million…These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job…

“About 2.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in October…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

“Among the marginally attached, there were 808,000 discouraged workers in October…Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…,

“Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 190,000 in October…

“Construction employment decreased by 62,000 in October…Job losses were concentrated in nonresidential specialty trade contractors (-30,000) and in heavy construction (-14,000)…

“Manufacturing continued to shed jobs (-61,000) in October, with losses in both durable and nondurable goods production…

“Retail trade lost 40,000 jobs in October. Employment declines were concentrated in sporting goods, hobby, book, and music stores (-16,000) and in department stores (-11,000). Employment in transportation and warehousing decreased by 18,000 in October…”

U.S. Billionaire Warren Buffett's $4 Billion Investment In Israel

If you're a fan of Ralph Nader who now thinks that relying on U.S. Billionaire Warren Buffett to bankroll a U.S. movement for radical democratic change will magically end corporate totalitarianism and plutocracy in the United States and end U.S. government support for the Israeli war machine in the Middle East, you might be in for a big surprise. In recent years, for example, Buffett has invested over $4 billion in the Zionist movement's Israeli economy, despite the Israeli government's long history of violating the UN Charter, international law and the human rights and national self-determination rights of the Palestinian people.

As the website of the American Israel Investments Associates at http://www.israelgrowth.com/about.html notes:

“With the highest GDP growth (5.2%) of any Western country (2005), Israel has become a very popular market for foreign investors. Warren Buffett’s $4 billion purchase of Iscar, his largest international investment ever, continues a trend that has sent foreign investors running to invest in the dynamic Israeli economy. Global stalwarts such as Johnson and Johnson, Intel, Ebay, Kodak, HP, Cisco, Alcatel, Broadcom, Microsoft, BMC Software, Verifone, and PMC Sierra all purchased Israeli companies in the last year.

“With more companies listed on NASDAQ than any other country except for the United States, Israel is the focus of more and more investor attention.

“Israel has become a destination for all types of investors who seek potentially high returns. Over $1.4 billion of venture capital money was invested in 2005. This ranks Israel second only to the United States in venture capital funding, outranking European and Asian rivals. As the privatization of government companies continues, the large global hedge funds and private equity firms have become very active players, investing billions of dollars in purchasing firms like Bank Leumi (Israel’s second largest bank) and Bezeq (the national phone company)."

Rather than begging U.S. billionaires like Warren Buffett to use the surplus blood money they've acquired (from exploiting working-class people and consumers at home and abroad and then re-investing some of their surplus blood money in an economy that oppresses the Palestinian people) to finance the U.S. Movement for radical democratic change, perhaps people who seek radical democratic change in the United States in 2009 should now be demanding that U.S. billionaires like Buffett immediately divest themselves of their investments in Israel--until the democratic rights of the Palestinian people are fully restored?

U.S. Elite University Economics Departments: Still Racist In 21st Century?

The Ultra-Rich White Folks who still control the 30 top-ranking universities in the United States often claim that they're opposed to institutional racism in the 21st-century.

Yet according to the article, titled "Almost No Black Economists at the Nation's Highest-Ranked Universities," that was posted on The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education website in 2006, only 15 of the 935 economics department faculty members at the 30 highest-ranked universities in the United States are black; and these 15 black economists only "make up 1.6 percent of all the total faculty in the economics departments" of these 30 elite U.S. universities.

See The Journal of Blacks In Higher Education article at the following link for more information:

http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/50_no_black_economists.html

U.S. TV Stations: Still 97 Percent Owned By White Ultra-Rich Folks

The White Corporate Male Power-Structure's mass media conglomerates in the United States claim to be against institutional racism. The same global mass media conglomerates also sometimes claim that--because the U.S. White House is now being occupied by President Obama--the United States is no longer an institutionally racist society.

But ironically,the number of television stations in the United States that are owned by African-Americans in the United States is apparently decreasing in the 21st-century. As the then-National Chair of the National Congress of Black Women, E. Faye Williams, noted in a December 5, 2007 statement before the Subcommitte on Telecommunications and the Internet of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which was holding a hearing on the FCC's oversight of U.S. media ownership:

"...The National Congress of Black Women, Inc. [NCBW] has had a keen interest ini media matters for over 15 years when we began a campaign against violence, denigration and misogyny in the media...America's media companies...need to...refrain from disseminating degrading misogynistic content in order to make a simple buck...

"...Despite making up 34 percent of the U.S. population, racial and ethnic minorities own only 7.7 percent of radio stations and just over 3 percent of television stations...Last year alone minority ownership among TV stations dropped over 8 percent. The number of black-owned stations fell 80 percent..."

African-American Male Worker Jobless Rate Under Obama Regime: 16.5 Percent

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for African-American male workers over 20 years-of-age under the Democratic Obama Regime was 16.5 percent in September 2009; while the unemployment rate for African-American female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 11.9 to 12.5 percent between August and September 2009, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all African-American workers (which also takes into account the 40.8 percent jobless rate for African-American youth between 16 and 19 years of age) increased from 15.1 to 15.4 percent between August and September 2009.

In September 2009, the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Hispanic or Latino male workers over 20 years of age was 11.8 percent. For all Hispanic or Latino workers over 16 years of age (which takes into account the 29.5 percent “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youth), the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate was 12.2 percent in September 2009.

For white male workers in the United States over 20 years of age, the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate increased from 9.3 to 9.6 percent between August and September 2009, while the rate for white female workers over 20 years of age increased from 6.9 to 7 percent.

The “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Asian-American workers was 7.4 percent in September 2009. But the official “seasonally adjusted” national jobless rate for all U.S. workers increased from 9.7 to 9.8 percent between August and September 2009.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ October 2, 2009 press release:

“Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in September (-263,000), and the unemployment rate (9.8 percent) continued to trend up…The largest job losses were in construction, manufacturing, retail trade, and government…The number of unemployed persons has increased…to 15.1 million, and the unemployment rate…to 9.8 percent…

“Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs rose by 603,000 to 10.4 million in September. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) rose by 450,000 to 5.4 million. In September, 35.6 percent of unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more…

“The civilian labor force participation rate declined…in September to 65.2 percent…

“About 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in September…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey…

“Among the marginally attached, there were 706,000 discouraged workers in September… (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 263,000 in September…

“In September, construction employment declined by 64,000…September job cuts were concentrated in the industry's nonresidential components (-39,000) and in heavy construction (-12,000)…

“Employment in manufacturing fell by 51,000 in September…

“In the service-providing sector, the number of jobs in retail trade fell by 39,000 in September…

“Government employment was down by 53,000 in September, with the largest decline occurring in the non-education component of local government (-24,000)…”

Left Media & Left Think Tanks: Foundation-Managed Protest?

(A revised draft of this article later appeared in the Critical Sociology journal in 2007)

In her groundbreaking Foundations and Public Policy book, Joan Roelofs begins a chapter that examines foundation influence on social change organizations by asserting that "philanthropy suggests yet another explanation for the decline of the 1960s and 1970s protest movements." In Roelofs' view, "radical activism often was transformed by grants and technical assistance from liberal foundations into fragmented and local organizations subject to elite control" and "energies were channeled into safe, legalistic, bureaucratic activities."

Left media and left think tank staff people generally deny that the acceptance by their organizations of grants from liberal foundations has "transformed" their organizational priorities, made them "subject to elite control" or channeled their energies into "safe, legalistic, bureaucratic" activities. In 2001, for instance, the former executive director of the left media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting [FAIR], Jeff Cohen, told German journalist Anja Einfeldt of the German magazine Message: "There have never been strings attached to any grants. We have never been asked to tone down our criticism. If anyone tried, we would refuse the money." Another FAIR staff person also insisted that "the charitable foundations which we do accept funding from have no oversight or control over our work."

Yet in a 1998 article in The Nation (which the former FAIR executive director was credited with helping to frame), the executive director of the Institute for Policy Studies [IPS] between 1992 and 1998, Michael Shuman, wrote:

"A number of program officers at progressive foundations are former activists who decided to move from the demand to the supply side to enjoy better salaries, benefits and working hours. Yet they still want to live like activists vicariously…by exercising influence over grantees through innumerable meetings, reports, conferences and `suggestions.'…Many progressive funders treat their grantees like disobedient children who need to be constantly watched and disciplined."

A former staff person at the North American Congress on Latin America [NACLA] also recalled that in the late 1980s "in order to get to the next tier of foundation support in New York, you had to demonstrate that you were doing something in Washington."

In a September, 2002 e-mail, the executive director of the www.tompaine.com left media web site, John Moyers (a former executive with the Schumann Foundation, as well), also stated:

"Like any other grantee, I must report fully my activities and finances to ALL of my funders, including Schumann, on an annual basis…If they don't like what we're doing, we don't get funded for the next year."

According to the San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper, "The foundation money has engendered a climate of secrecy at IAJ [Institute for Alternative Journalism n/k/a Independent Media Institute (IMI)] that's in direct conflict with IAJ's role as a progressive media organization." The same newspaper also asserted in 1997 that "the only money nonprofits can get these days is from private foundations--and those foundations want to control the political agenda."

In his "Getting Behind The Media: What are the subtle tradeoffs of foundation support for journalists?" article, Rick Edmonds observed:

"When they show up with much-needed funding for an investigative series or pay the freight for a reporter working on an underreported beat, foundations don't receive the same due-diligence scrutiny for hidden subtext that journalists apply to a corporate press release or a politician's statement. The effect that foundation money may have on the news business is subtle but real, and increasingly troubling on the ethical front…The lack of overt editorial should not blind us to the more subtle, one might say cultural, ties that bind these news organizations to their funders. There is, for example, any number of opportunities for grant makers to shape the editorial product as it is developed. If the foundations' and recipients' goals have been properly `aligned' not much more money may be needed to see that the intent is carried out.

"Lost in the benevolent fog that surrounds most foundations is the notion that they may have more of an agenda, not less, than a sponsoring corporation. Cultural affinity can sometimes make it difficult for editors and journalists to draw the distinction between accepting a grant and accepting a funder's point of view."

In an interview with Message magazine, I also argued that:

"The acceptance by media watchdog groups of large sums of money from U.S. Establishment foundations may raise legitimate conflict-of-interest issues. They may tend to avoid providing readers, listeners or viewers with much critical alternative news coverage of the global business and political activities of their multi-billion dollar foundation funders."

Whether or not you agree that left media organizations and think tanks have been channeled into a more mainstream and politically ineffectual direction--or are specially-influenced-- by their liberal foundation funders, the evidence is overwhelming that large amounts of liberal foundation grant money have been thrown towards left media groups and think tanks since the early 1990s.

In an article that appeared in the March/April 1995 issue of the left media group FAIR's Extra! magazine, "Foundations for a Movement," the then-assistant publisher of In These Times magazine, Beth Schulman, asserted that between 1990 and 1993, "I can identify only $269,500 in combined grants from private foundations for the four leading progressive publications: The Nation (through its affiliate, the Nation Institute), Mother Jones, The Progressive and In These Times." Schulman also claimed in a note in Table I of this article that "reports for magazines on the left are more complete than reports for magazines on the right."

Schulman's $269,500 figure for 1990-1993 grants to The Nation, Mother Jones, The Progressive, and In These Times, however, did not completely reflect the degree to which the U.S. left media was receiving foundation money either between 1990 and 1993 or by 1995, when her article was published. A 1992 grant of $25,000 to The Nation/Nation Institute from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "for expenses for participants of International Conference of Investigative Journalists after the Cold War," for instance, was not identified by Schulman. Nor did Schulman mention a $150,000 grant from the John D. and Catharine T. MacArthur Foundation that The Progressive Media Project received in 1994 or a $500,000 grant from the Schumann Foundation that Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress received in 1995.

In addition, Schulman failed to include in her calculation the grants received by left publications other than The Nation, Mother Jones, The Progressive, and In These Times, such as FAIR's Extra! magazine, Political Research Associates' Public Eye magazine or Harper's Magazine (whose publisher is also an official of the J.Roderick MacArthur Foundation). Extra! magazine/FAIR, for instance received at least $400,000 in grants from private foundations between 1990 and 1995, including: a $20,000 grant from the Rockefeller Family Foundation in 1991; a $25,000 grant from the Aaron Diamond Foundation in 1992; a $15,000 grant from the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation in 1992; a $15,000 grant from the Foundation for Deep Ecology in 1992; $50,000 in grants from the Sister Fund between 1992 and 1996; and $75,000 a year in grants from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation between 1992 and 1996. As the program officer responsible for the MacArthur Foundation's media program told Aquarian/Downtown in 1997:

"MacArthur is funding Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting. And in '96, they received $75,000 towards the cost of operations. We've been funding it since 1992, at approximately the same level. It was slightly higher a few years ago, when the media budget was a little bigger."

Between 1993 and 1996, Political Research Associates/Public Eye magazine also received grants of $80,000 from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, $90,000 from the Public Welfare Foundation, $69,2060 from the Tides Foundation and $75,000 from the List Foundation; while Harper's Magazine (whose publisher, Rick MacArthur, is also an official of the J.Roderick MacArthur Foundation) has been subsidized by either John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation or J.Roderick MacArthur Foundation grants since the early 1980s.

Since the publication of Schulman's 1995 Extra! article, the extent to which liberal foundations have been funding left media and think tanks has increased. In 1998, for instance, the Ford Foundation gave Progressive magazine a $200,000 grant. That same year, the Rockefeller Foundation also gave a $50,000 grant to Progressive magazine. In 2000, the Ford Foundation gave two more grants, totaling $250,000, to Progressive magazine; and, in 2002, an additional $120,000 in grant money was also given to Progressive magazine by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

By 2001, The Nation magazine/Nation Institute had been given at least $135,000 by Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation between 1991 and 2001.

Another foundation on whose board Bill Moyers sat, George Soros's Open Society Institute, also gave a $50,000 grant to the Nation Institute in 1999 "to support project to improve performance and reach of Radio Nation, weekly public radio news and commentary program." Coincidentally, an official of the Nation Institute, Hamilton Fish III, was also a personal advisor for politics of George Soros. In 1997, Soros's Open Society Institute had previously given a $10,000 grant to The Nation/ Nation Institute. Other foundation grants received by The Nation/Nation Institute in 1997 included a $30,000 grant from the Arca Foundation and a $50,000 grant from the Merck Fund.

A member of both The Nation Institute board and the board of the Public Broadcasting Service [PBS] (until 2000), Catharine Stimpson, was also the director of the Fellows Program of the MacArthur Foundation, responsible for distributing millions of dollars of "genius grants" each year, between 1994 and 1997. The John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation also gave a $20,000 grant to The Nation/Nation Institute in 1997 "to publish and publicize series on NATO expansion."

The Nation/Nation Institute also received large grants from both the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and the List Foundation following the publication of Schulman's article in Extra! magazine. In 1998, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation gave a $50,000 grant to The Nation/Nation Institute's Center for Democracy Studies, while in 2000, the List Foundation gave The Nation/Nation Institute two grants, totaling $55,000. One grant of $10,000 was to help subsidize the Radio Nation show. The second List Foundation grant to The Nation/Nation Institute in 2000 was a $45,000 grant to fund its "Project on Media Ownership." In addition, the Public Welfare Foundation gave The Nation/Nation Institute a $10,000 "charitable" grant for "contribution to Jack Newfield fellowship." Former Microsoft executive and current RealNetworks Inc. CEO Rob Glaser's foundation, the Glaser Progress Foundation, also gave a $50,155 grant to The Nation/Nation Institute in 2000 "for research grants to independent journalists." Yet another grant of $10,000 was given by the List Foundation to The Nation/Nation Institute in 2003 for "investigative reporting."

Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress also received more grants from the liberal foundations following the publication of Schulman's 1995 article. In 1996, a second grant of $150,000 was given to Mother Jones by Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation "to support the hiring of a new senior editor at Mother Jones magazine." That same year, two grants, totaling $32,000, were given to Mother Jones by the California Wellness Foundation and a $30,000 grant was given to Mother Jones by the Joyce Foundation. In 1997, an additional grant of $100,000 was given to Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress by Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation, while a grant of $35,000 from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation flowed to Mother Jones in 1998. A $10,000 grant was also given to another left media group, In These Times magazine/Institute for Public Affairs, by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 1998 "for conference about state of American democracy and role of popular movements within it."

Former Microsoft Vice-President and current RealNetworks Inc. CEO Rob Glaser's foundation, the Glaser Progress Foundation, also has provided grants to Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress since 1995. In 1999, a grant of $111,233 was given by the Glaser Progress Foundation to Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress for the MoJo Wire Project. The following year, the Glaser Progress Foundation gave another grant of $100,096 to Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress "for general support" of its MoJo Wire Project.

Besides including Body Shop entrepreneur Anita Roddick [now-deceased], the Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress board of directors also has included representatives of the Kadima Foundation, the HKH Foundation and the Adam Hochschild Charitable Trust/Sequoia Fund. The wife of Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress board member Adam Hochschild was also given a $3 million grant in 1997 by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation "to establish a Center for Working Families," at UC-Berkeley. In 2003, Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress was also given a $10,000 grant by the List Foundation for its "Washington Watchdog" project.

Following Extra! magazine's publication of Schulman's "Foundations for The Movement" article in 1995, liberal foundation funding for FAIR/Extra! magazine continued. In 1996, Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation gave FAIR/Extra! magazine an additional $15,000; and a post-2000 grant of between $50,000 and $100,000 was also given to FAIR/Extra! magazine by the Schumann Foundation. In 1998, another John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant of $150,000 was also given to FAIR/Extra! magazine. The Tides Foundation also gave a $20,000 grant in 1996 and a $31,512 grant in 2000 to FAIR/Extra! . In 2001, FAIR/Extra!' was also given a $20,000 grant by former Microsoft Vice-President and RealNetworks Inc.' CEO Glaser's foundation, the Glaser Progress Foundation, for its "Action Alert Network", in order to "increase demand for more balanced news from mainstream media."

After Schulman's article appeared in Extra!, the Ford Foundation also began giving grants to FAIR/Extra! magazine in a big way. The Working Assets Radio web site noted in 2001: "As the founder of the Women's Desk at the media watchdog FAIR, Flanders received a $200,000 grant from the Ford Foundation for a collaborative project to combat racism and sexism in the news." In 1997 or 1998, a second grant of $150,000 was given by the Ford Foundation to FAIR/Extra!; and, in 2001, yet another $150,000 grant was given to FAIR/Extra! by the Ford Foundation for "general support to monitor and analyze the performance of the news media in the United States."

Political Research Associates/Public Eye magazine also continued to receive large grants from the liberal foundations after the publication of Schulman's "Foundations For The Movement" article in 1995. In 1999, for instance, Political Research Associates/Public Eye was given: a $50,000 grant by the Public Welfare Foundation; a $120,000 grant by the San Francisco Foundation; a $57,550 grant by the Tides Foundation; a $55,000 grant by the Cummings Foundation; a $25,000 grant by the List Foundation; and a $15,000 grant by the Ms. Foundation for Women. (The Ms. Foundation for Women, itself, was the recipient of: a $4.5 million grant for "an endowment campaign" and a $500,000 grant for "enhancing operational capacity" from the Ford Foundation in 1993; an $800,000 grant from the Ford Foundation in 2000; and a $430,000 grant from the Ford Foundation in 2001).

Political Research Associates/Public Eye magazine was also given an additional $50,000 grant by the Public Welfare Foundation and a grant of $175,663 by the Ford Foundation in 2002. Yet another grant of $100,000 from the Public Welfare Foundation was thrown to Political Research Associates/Public Eye in 2003. That same year, another $10,000 grant was given to Political Research Associates/Public Eye by the List Foundation.

Another left media group which has been receiving heavy funding from the liberal foundations since the 1990s is the Independent Media Institute [IMI]/AlterNet. In 1994, for instance, [when it was known as the Institute for Alternative Journalism) it received a $35,000 grant from Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation. In 1995, it received: a $120,000 grant from the Schumann Foundation: a $50,000 grant from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; a $50,000 grant from the Ford Foundation; and two grants, totaling $74,000, from the List Foundation. The following year, it was given a $200,000 grant by the Schumann Foundation to help fund its "Media & Democracy Conference." An additional grant of $30,000 was also given to the IMI/AlterNet by the List Foundation in 2000. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute also gave a $78,660 grant to IMI/AlterNet "to fund start-up of Youth Source, a youth web site which will be part of a larger web portal, independent Source." According to its web site, IMI/AlterNet continues to be funded by the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

In 2001, former Microsoft Vice-President and RealNetworks Inc. CEO Rob Glaser's foundation, the Glaser Progress Foundation, gave a $35,000 grant to IMI/AlterNet "to support its online magazine." The following year, an additional grant of $20,000 was given to IMI/AlterNet by the Glaser Progress Foundation.

Another left media group--the Independent Press Association--is also being heavily funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Between November 25, 2002 and December 1, 2003, for instance, the Rockefeller Foundation gave four grants, totaling $445,000, to the Independent Press Association. A $100,000 individual grant was also given to an exeutive director of the Independent Press Association-NY by the Ford Foundation in 2003.

Like the left media, left think tanks have also been receiving large amounts of money from liberal foundations since the 1990s. As Roelofs observes:

"There are some think tanks considered left wing or Progressive. They do important work, especially in documenting the activities, and consequences of corporate and government policies. Nevertheless, almost all are funded by the liberal foundations; their challenges to the system are muted…There are several possible explanations for the mellowing that has occurred, including foundation funding and, sometimes, foundation staff joining the boards of funded institutes."

In a 1998 article that appeared in The Nation, the Institute for Policy Studies [IPS]'s executive director and "fund-raiser-in-chief" for six years, Michael Shuman, noted that "foundations that support progressive causes actually have lots of money, more than their conservative counterparts." The former IPS executive director also observed that "over the past fifteen years, I've raised more than $12 million from foundations."

According to Shuman, by 1998 the lPS left think tank had received grants from four of the ten largest U.S. foundations. In 1995, for instance, the IPS was given two grants, totaling $100,000, from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Two more grants were given to the IPS by the MacArthur Foundation in 1998: a $525,000 grant "to develop global affairs agenda for U.S. and to mobilize constituency for its support"; and a second grant of $50,000. In addition, the IPS left think tank was given a $110,000 grant by the Arca Foundation in 1996 and a $123,060 grant from Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation in 1998.

Following the 1998 publication of its former executive director's Nation article, the IPS has continued to receive large grants from liberal foundations. In 2000, for instance, grants given to IPS included: a $50,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation; two grants, totaling $233,370 from the Ford Foundation; a $200,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation; and a $100,000 grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The following year, an additional grant of $350,00 "in support of the Foreign Policy in Focus Project" was given to the IPS by the MacArthur Foundation and two additional grants, totaling $95,000, was given to the IPS by the Ford Foundation. In 2003, the List Foundation also gave a $10,000 grant to the IPS for "general support" of its "Democracy Action Project."

Also in 2001, former Institute for Policy Studies executive director and "fund-raiser-in-chief" Shuman wrote an article, entitled "Why I Won't Sign", for Progressive magazine that endorsed the Bush Administration's post-9/11 military attack on Afghanistan. In his November, 2001 Progressive magazine article, the former IPS executive director and "fund-raiser-in-chief" stated:

"I applauded President Clinton's intervention in Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo…If alliances are built with strong internal opposition to the Taliban, force can certainly weaken the terrorist network thriving in that country…I support the steps President Bush took to freeze financial assets and get Saudi Arabia to break diplomatic ties with the Taliban…There was a serious debate on which progressives should have engaged, and it's not whether force should have been used. It's what kind of force…People like me…offer qualified endorsement of the use of force…"

A few months later, in the February 18, 2002 issue of Rupert Murdoch's right-wing Weekly Standard magazine, a second article appeared by former IPS executive director Shuman, entitled "My Fellow Lefties…Stop It With the American-bashing," in which the IPS's "fund-raiser-in-chief" between 1992 and 1998 argued:

"I believe it's time for my fellow leftists to engage in a truly radical activity--serious self-criticism…Contrary to predictions from leftist skeptics, the Bush administration did not respond immediately with a massive counterstrike [after 9/11]. It took several weeks to build its case against bin Laden, to offer the Taliban peaceful ways out…The position of the Bush administration--that the best way to prevent a humanitarian disaster was to quickly oust the Taliban regime--turned out to be correct…

"…The attempt to draw moral equivalence between the terrorists and U.S. troops is reprehensible…The former increased the chances of civilian deaths by hiding among civilians; the latter sought, however, imperfectly to avoid civilian targets…The vast majority of progressive opinion leaders were wrong in almost every respect…They predicted that American soldiers in Afghanistan would find themselves in a quagmire…The vast majority of women, blacks, Latinos, the elderly and the poor all understood the purpose and justification of U.S. military action. Only the leadership of the Left confused its hatred of American militarism with the legitimate self-defense."

As of December 2003, the number of Afghan civilians killed since the Bush Administration's launched its war on Afghanistan to replace the Taliban regime with one more subservient to special U.S. corporate interests was 24,000, while the number of Afghan civilians seriously injured, since the Pentagon's October 2001 attack, was 5,924. As of May 2003, the number of Afghan troops killed since the October 2001 Pentagon attack was 8,000 and the number of Afghan troops severely wounded was 2,400. One hundred U.S. troops were killed and 564 U.S. troops were seriously wounded, as of January 2004, since the U.S. military launched its war on Afghanistan that the former IPS executive director endorsed. As of September 21, 2009, 841 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan, since the U.S. military launched its war on Afghanistan that the former IPS executive director endorsed.

Another left think tank, the Institute for Women's Policy Research, has also been the recipient of liberal foundation grants. In 1996, for instance, the Institute for Women's Policy research was given: a $100,000 grant by the Ford Foundation; a $100,000 grant by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and a $50,00 grant by the Joyce Foundation. In addition, a $250,000-plus, individual "genius grant" was given to the executive director of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, Heidi Hartmann, by the MacArthur Foundation in 1994. In 2004, an additional grant of $180,000 was given to the Institute for Women's Policy Research by the Ford Foundation.

Among the additional left think tanks that have been funded by the liberal foundations since the 1990s are the Institute for Public Accuracy [IPA], the Institute for Media Analysis/Democracy Now!, the North American Congress on Latin America [NACLA], the Middle East Research & Information Project [MERIP] and the Interhemispheric Resource Center [IRC].

Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation, for instance, gave the Institute for Public Accuracy [IPA] a $100,000 grant in 1997 "for efforts to hold think tanks to high standards of accuracy." According to IPA executive director Norman Solomon:

"It's only because of a few funders that IPA has been able to function with appreciable resources. A `Public Interest Pioneer' grant from the Stern Family Fund enabled me to found the Institute for Public Accuracy. The Florence and John Schumann Foundation and an individual donor made it possible for IPA to open its media office in Washington. The Arca Foundation and Deer Creek Foundation recently gave us grants."

The Stern Family Fund grant to the IPA that Solomon mentions was a grant of $100,000.

In 2001, former Microsoft executive and Real Networks Inc. CEO Rob Glaser's foundation, the Glaser Progress Foundation, also gave the IPA a $34,896 grant for "general support." An additional grant of $20,000 for "general support" was given to the IPA by Rob Glaser's foundation in 2002. The List Foundation also gave a $10,000 grant to the IPA in 2003.

The Institute for Media Analysis/Democracy Now! think tank/radio show also has received grants from the Glaser Progress Foundation. In 2001, for instance, the Glaser Progress Foundation gave the Institute for Media Analysis/Democracy Now!'s "War and Peace Report" a grant of $40,000 "to support the daily national television news program." The following year, the Glaser Progress Foundation gave a second grant of $60,000 to the Institute for Media Analysis/Democracy Now! "for support of Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!". In 2003, yet another grant of $100,000, "for support of the newscast Democracy Now!" was given to Institute for Media Analysis/Democracy Now! by former Microsoft Vice-President and RealNetwork Inc. CEO Glaser's foundation.

The J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation--whose vice-chairman is Harper's Magazine publisher Rick MacArthur--also gave the Institute for Media Analysis/Democracy Now! think-tank/radio show two grants, totalling $85,000, in 2001. The following year, another grant of $100,000 was given to the Institute for Media Analysis by the Lannan Foundation.

Examining "The Rockefeller Empire: Latin America," in the March 1969 issue of its NACLA Newsletter, the North American Congress on Latin America [NACLA] think tank made the following references to foundations in its "An Overview of the Rockefeller Empire" introductory section:

"Through a network of over 13 foundations, 75 family trusts and other mechanisms of high finance, the Rockefellers maintain a dominant interest in some of the world's largest oil companies…Each brother has a particular area of the family empire to oversee; John D., III, the eldest, is the `philanthropist.' He heads the Rockefeller Foundation and has a particular interest in the Far East (especially Japan) and `population control,' (he founded the Population Council)…The brothers are the epitome of the East Coast Establishment. Their third generation wealth is managed for them by institutions which they control (especially foundations, Rockefeller Brothers, Inc. and trusts)…"

Despite its past political critique of "philanthropic foundations," however, "about 25%" of NACLA's "revenue comes from project-oriented foundation grants" these days, according to its web site.

Between 1998 and 2004, for instance, NACLA was given at least $661,000 in grant money by the Ford Foundation. In 1998, the Ford Foundation gave NACLA a grant of $11,000 "toward special report on collective memory of violence in Latin America." In 2000, another grant of $160,000 was given by the Ford Foundation to NACLA to "support research for special reports on the changing shape of human rights advocacy in Latin America and on U.S.-Latin-American relations in the post-Cold War Era, and their dissemination." The following year, yet another grant of $165,000 was given to NACLA by the Ford Foundation. A grant of $325,000 was also given by the Ford Foundation to NACLA in 2003.

The left think tank that's been focusing on Middle East issues since the 1970s, the Middle East Research & Information Project [MERIP], also was being funded by the Ford Foundation by the 1990s. As it noted in a March 11, 1999 press release: "Thanks to a generous grant from the Ford Foundation, MERIP is now embarking on a multi-faceted Media Outreach and Policy Shaping Project."

A member of MERIP's editorial committee who was responsible for its Middle East Report journal's reviews is also a former program officer for the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation-funded Civil Society in Middle East Center of NYU.

In 2000, the Ford Foundation also gave a $300,000 grant to the Interhemispheric Resource Center [IRC]. The following year, a grant of $350,000 was given to the Interhemispheric Resource Center by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "in support of the Foreign Policy in Focus Project."

In 2003, an additional grant of $150,000 was given by the Ford Foundation to the IRC to provide "core support for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project to build support for multilateralism in U.S. foreign policy." The Rockefeller Foundation also gave a $150,000 grant to the IRC on December 19, 2002.

Prominent U.S. left writers have also received large individual grants from different foundations. Noam Chomsky, for instance, was given a $350,000 Kyoto Prize grant by the Inamori Foundation in 1988. A $60,000 grant was given to Barbara Ehrenreich by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in the 1990s while she wrote a book on "Holy War: Blood Sacrifiec and the Religious Root of Militarism." The MacArthur Foundation also gave a $350,000-plus "genius grant" to Adriene Rich during the 1990s. Another prominent U.S. left writer, Adolph Reed, was also given a $96,442 grant by the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 2002 "for a project entitled `Race in American Life."

Supporters of left media and think tank grant-hustling activity generally argue that grants from liberal power elite foundations are necessary for left movement groups to: "level the playing field" in the contest for U.S. public opinion; and to compete effectively in public policy debates with the right-wing media and think tanks which right-wing elite foundations subsidize. According to Beth Schulman:

"Unencumbered grant income makes it possible, for example, to ensure that key staff members on Capitol Hill get a complimentary copy of every issue of a magazine. Public and university libraries can be offered free or subsidized subscriptions. Furthermore, the magazines can afford the staff time to promote individual stories and writers, to build relationships with op-ed page editors, talkshow hosts and broadcast producers."

Schulman also argues that left media and think tanks require grants from liberal power elite foundations because right-wing elite foundations "sponsor think tanks, academic seminars, conferences for journalists and campus newspaper internships." Roelofs notes, however, that "there is not a conflict of interest when corporate money goes to produce pro-corporate ideology," while "the dependence of the `Left' press on elite subsidies can result in mellowing and avoiding topics embarrassing to the funders."

Like many left and liberal critics of the right-wing elite foundation funding of right-wing media and groups, however, Schulman does not object to what Roelofs has characterized as "the hegemonic role of foundations" within an undemocratic, corporate-dominated, imperialist U.S. society. U.S. left media and think tank executives who have tried to imitate the economically undemocratic U.S. right-wing approach to political movement-building still generally reject corporate sponsorship of their political or media activity (unless a corporate sponsor is engaged in "socially responsible" investing). But their failure to challenge "the hegemonic role" within U.S. society of the "progressive foundations" which fund their groups resembles the failure of U.S. right-wing media and think tank executives to challenge "the hegemonic role" of the right-wing foundations, despite right-wing criticism of the activity of the "liberal foundations."

Left media groups and think tanks which finance their journalistic activity and political work by soliciting grants from liberal power elite foundations like the Ford Foundation generally deny that they are acting in either a politically or morally compromising way. Some supporters of acceptance of foundation grants by left media groups, for instance, asserted (on the Free Pacifica e-mail list in the late 1990s) that it's not important where the left media gets its money from, as long as they use the foundation grant money for anti-corporate, progressive purposes.

But left sociologist James Petras, in an article entitled "The Ford Foundation and the CIA: A documented case of philanthropic collaboration with the Secret Police", argues that "the Ford Foundation has in some ways refined their style of collaboration with Washington's attempt to produce world cultural domination, but retained the substance of that policy."

In Petras's view, the Ford Foundation "has developed a sophisticated strategy of funding human rights groups [HRG] that appeal to Washington to change its policy while denouncing U.S. adversaries for their `systematic' violations." According to Petras, "the ties between the top officials of the Ford Foundation and the U.S. government are explicit and continuing." Petras also claims that the Ford Foundation "has never funded any major project that contravenes U.S. policy."

In her Foundations and Public Policy chapter on "Social Change Organizations," Roelofs indicates the various ways that foundation funding of U.S. left groups appear to have exercised a special influence over the political direction of the U.S. left since the 1970s. Foundation grants to one left group rather than another enables liberal power elite foundations to steer the U.S. left's agenda so that "threatening alternatives" don't appear on the serious political agenda. More militant left groups which the elite foundation boards or program managers regard as "irresponsible" or "unrealistic" are not funded: and, as a result, are more easily excluded from left political discourse than are the left groups favored with foundation grants.

Foundations can influence unfunded 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. Foundations can influence a left groups' choice of leaders by only giving grants to left groups whose leaders they regard as politically unthreatening. Foundations can 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 discouraging the unification of U.S. left dissident groups. As Roelofs notes:

"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 article entitled "`Alternative' media paymasters: Carlyle, ALCOA, Xerox, Coca Cola…?", Brian Salter makes a strong case against continued reliance by authentically left media and think tanks on liberal Establishment foundation funding of their activity. After exposing and examining the power elite, corporate and political connections of some of the folks who sit on the boards of foundations like the Ford Foundation, Salter concludes:

"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 U.S. power elite, when its foundation money is allowed to manipulate the political agenda of the Movement and the People.

All Power To The People--Not The Foundations!

The U.S. Left Movement belongs to the People--Not The Foundations!

100 Days After Obama's Inauguration: Where's The Change?

When he was campaigning for president in 2008, Barack Obama and his supporters within the U.S. anti-war movement claimed that a Democratic Obama Administration would being peace to the Middle East and prosperity to the United States.

Yet according to an April 28, 2009 press release of the Air Force News Service, the Democratic Obama Administration authorized the following military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan on April 27, 2009:

In Afghanistan, an Air Force MQ-9 Reaper flying over Balocan used a guided bomb unit-12 to destroy a building with enemy personnel inside. Coalition forces maintained positive identification and tracked the enemy personnel to the building after they had emplaced an improvised explosive device. The Reaper followed up the initial strike with a Hellfire missile to ensure the enemy facility was destroyed.

Near Lashkar Gah, Navy F/A-18E and -F Super Hornets employed GBU-12s and strafes to hit enemy gunmen shooting from fighting positions in compounds and a tree line. The strikes caused the enemy personnel to stop firing on coalition personnel. An additional F/A-18E performed a show of force over an enemy compound during the engagement to suppress enemy fire.

In Tarin Kowt, an MQ-9 hit a group of anti-Afghan forces personnel planting an improvised explosive device. The unmanned aircraft also dropped a GBU-12 to strike enemy personnel that survived the initial blast and were trying to escape.

In the vicinity of Gardez, an Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle and a coalition multirole aircraft performed shows of force and expended flares. The maneuvers were done to deter enemy aggression and stop anti-Afghan forces small-arms and mortar attacks against two coalition convoys.

An Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II flew a show of force and launched flares over Moqor after a coalition convoy started taking fire. Although the shooting stopped upon the jet's arrival, the convoy leader requested a show of force as an additional measure of deterrence against enemy attack.

Near Kajaki Dam, armed personnel were spotted as Afghan and coalition ground forces prepared to patrol a settlement. A Navy F/A-18C Hornet flew two shows of force to discourage the gunmen from engaging. The patrol proceeded without incident.

An Air Force B-1B Lancer bomber flew a show of force near Garmser to deter enemy activity. The maneuver added an additional level of security presence in the area to assist Afghan and coalition forces in maintaining security there.

Joint terminal attack controllers assigned to coalition units verified the success of these missions.

In total, 80 close-air-support missions were flown in support of ISAF and Afghan security forces, reconstruction activities and route patrols.

Seventeen Air Force intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flew missions as part of operations in Afghanistan.

In Iraq, coalition aircraft flew 29 close-air-support missions for Operation Iraqi Freedom. These missions integrated and synchronized with coalition ground forces, protected key infrastructure, provided overwatch for reconstruction activities, and helped to deter and disrupt hostile activities.

Twenty-six Air Force and Navy ISR aircraft flew missions as part of operations in Iraq. In addition, three Air Force and coalition aircraft performed tactical reconnaissance.

Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft and C-17 Globemaster IIIs provided intra-theater heavy airlift, helping to sustain operations throughout Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa.

Approximately 150 airlift sorties were flown, 750 tons of cargo were delivered and about 2,400 passengers were transported.

And under the Democratic Obama Administration, the economic situation for most U.S. workers still doesn’t appear to be changing for the better.

The official “not-seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate still exceeded 10 percent, for example, in the metropolitan areas of the following U.S. cities in March 2009, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data: Detroit (14 %); Flint (15.3%); Spokane (10.4%); Las Vegas (10.4%); Reno (11.2%); New Bedford (12.7%); Louisville (10%); Terre Haute (10.5%); South Bend (10.9%); Fort Wayne (11%); Elkhart (18.8%); Portland, Oregon (11.8%); Eugene (14.1%); Youngstown (12.8%); Toledo (12.1%); Dayton (11.1%); Lima (12.2%); Waterbury (10.5%); Tampa-St. Petersburg (10.4%); Rockford (13.5%); Santa Cruz (13.6%); Charlotte (11.4%); Greensboro (11.3%); Winston-Salem (10.2%); Duluth (10%); Fresno (17%) and Los Angeles (10.6%).

So don’t be surprised if the Militaristic White Corporate Male Power Structure, the Big Media Conglomerates and the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration continue to bring us permanent war abroad and economic depression at home during the next 100 days—100 days after Obama’s inauguration.

46 Days After Obama's Inauguration: Where's The Change?

When Barack Obama was campaigning for president in 2008, Obama and his supporters within the U.S. anti-war movement claimed that a Democratic Obama Administration would being peace to the Middle East and prosperity to the United States.

Yet according to a March 6, 2009 press release of the Air Force News Service, the Democratic Obama Regime authorized the following military actions in the Middle East on March 5, 2009:

“Coalition airpower integrated with coalition ground forces in Iraq and International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan during operations March 5, according to Combined Air and Space Operations Center officials here.

“In Afghanistan, Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles engaged a cave that anti-Afghan forces were using as a bunker. Using guided bomb unit-31s, the jets destroyed the cave entrance thus sealing off the enemy position.

“Near Lashkar Gah, a coalition aircraft performed a show of force and expended flares to deter enemy activity over a local settlement. The aircraft was providing aerial overwatch for a coalition unit in the area.

“An Air Force A-10 flew a show of force near a dismounted coalition patrol performing a mission near Asadabad to discourage enemy attack. The ground force commander called for the show of force since the unit had taken enemy small arms fire in that area earlier in the day.

“Over a highway near Sheykhabad, an A-10 flew a show of force to disperse people engaged in suspicious activity in the path of an approaching coalition convoy. The group dispersed following the maneuver.

“A-10s flew shows of force near a coalition forward base in Ghazni to establish an aerial security presence to prevent a potential enemy attack…

“An F-15E conducted a show of force over the Jalalabad town center to deter anti-Afghan force activity…

“A coalition aircraft performed a show of force over a compound containing an enemy firing position in the Lashkar Gah area. The aircraft performed a show of force to prevent enemy attack on a coalition convoy passing through the area…

“In total, 62 close-air-support missions were flown in support of the ISAF and Afghan security forces, reconstruction activities and route patrols.

“Twenty Air Force intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flew missions as part of operations in Afghanistan. In addition, two coalition aircraft performed tactical reconnaissance.

“In Iraq, coalition aircraft flew 30 close-air-support missions for Operation Iraqi Freedom. These missions integrated and synchronized with coalition ground forces, protected key infrastructure…and helped to deter and disrupt hostile activities.

“Twenty-seven Air Force and Navy ISR aircraft flew missions as part of operations in Iraq. In addition, three Navy and coalition aircraft performed tactical reconnaissance.

“Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft and C-17 Globemaster IIIs provided intra-theater heavy airlift, helping to sustain operations throughout Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa.

“Approximately 135 airlift sorties were flown, more than 441 tons of cargo was delivered and about 3,036 passengers were transported.

“Coalition C-130 crews flew as part of operations in Afghanistan or Iraq.

“On March 4, Air Force tanker crews flew 46 sorties and off-loaded approximately 3.3 million pounds of fuel to 259 receiving aircraft.”

And under the Democratic Obama Regime, the economic situation for most African-American workers, Latino workers and white workers doesn’t appear to be changing for the better.

For example, the official “not-seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for African-American male workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States under the Democratic Obama Regime increased from 15.8 percent to 16.1 percent between January 2009 and February 2009, while the “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for African-American male workers increased from 14.1 percent to 14.9 percent, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The “not-seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all African-American workers increased from 13.4 percent to 13.8 percent during this same period, while the “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all African-American workers increased to 13.4 percent.

For all U.S. workers over 20 years-of-age, the “not-seasonally adjusted” jobless rate jumped from 8.5 percent to 8.9 percent between January 2009 and February 2009, while the “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all U.S. workers increased to 8.1 percent.

The “not-seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers also increased from 8.3 percent to 9 percent between January 2009 and February 2009. In addition the “not-seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Hispanic or Latino male workers increased from 11 percent to 12.1 percent between January 2009 and February 2009.

And, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ March 6, 2009 press release, 12.5 million workers in the United States are still without jobs—46 days after Obama’s inauguration.

21 Days After Obama's Inauguration: Where's The Change?

The Democratic Obama Regime’s War Machine apparently continues to make war on people in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a recent U.S. Air Force press release noted:

“Coalition airpower integrated with coalition ground forces in Iraq and International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan during operations Feb. 8, according to Combined Air and Space Operations Center officials here.

“In Afghanistan, Navy F/A-18E Super Hornets dropped a guided bomb unit-38 on an anti-Afghan firing position and provided shows of force to suppress enemy activity during a ground engagement near Garmser. The Super Hornets provided air support to coalition patrols in the area who had been receiving rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire.

“Near Lashkar Gah, a coalition aircraft employed a GBU-12 and a strafing pass, striking enemy snipers concealed in a building. The snipers had been firing at coalition soldiers when the aircraft's weapons halted their attack.

“In the vicinity of Musa Qala, a Navy F/A-18C Hornet used a GBU-12 and a GBU-38 to strike enemy gunmen engaging coalition patrols during an active firefight. The coalition ground force commander called in air support after the enemy opened fire with RPGs and assault weapons from positions in buildings and nearby rolling terrain.
An Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II executed pre-planned strikes with GBU-38s on enemy targets in the vicinity of Morghab, supporting coalition operations.

“In the area near Balocan, a coalition aircraft and a Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet performed shows of force and expended flares to deter enemy attacks during two separate engagements. Enemy personnel ceased firing immediately upon the jets' arrival, hastily retreating to avoid being targeted.

“A-10s flew shows of force in the vicinity of Ghazni and Moqor to deter enemy activity against coalition convoys transiting the areas. The convoys reached their destinations safely under aerial escort.

“A coalition aircraft executed a show of force and expended flares over Gereshk after anti-Afghan gunmen intentionally mixed with a civilian crowd before opening fire at a dismounted coalition patrol. In light of the apparent attempt to bait coalition soldiers into “inflicting civilian casualties, the coalition patrol commander requested the aircraft fly a show of force as a non-lethal deterrent.

“In the Monari region, an F-15E flying convoy support performed a show of force along the convoy route to deter a potential enemy attack. The convoy was able to proceed to its final objective without interference.

“On-scene joint terminal attack controllers assigned to coalition units verified the success of these missions.

“In total, 74 close-air-support missions were flown in support of the ISAF and Afghan security forces, reconstruction activities and route patrols.

Thirteen Air Force intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flew missions as part of operations in Afghanistan. Additionally, two coalition aircraft performed tactical reconnaissance.

“In Iraq, coalition aircraft flew 37 close-air-support missions for Operation Iraqi Freedom. These missions integrated and synchronized with coalition ground forces, protected key infrastructure, provided overwatch for reconstruction activities and helped to deter and disrupt hostile activities.

“Twenty-five Air Force and Navy ISR aircraft flew missions as part of operations in Iraq. Additionally, three Air Force and coalition aircraft performed tactical reconnaissance.

“Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft and C-17 Globemaster IIIs provided intra-theater heavy airlift, helping to sustain operations throughout Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa.

“Approximately 140 airlift sorties were flown, more than 475 tons of cargo was delivered and about 3,075 passengers were transported.

“Coalition C-130 crews flew as part of operations in Afghanistan or Iraq.

“On Feb. 7, Air Force tanker crews flew 50 sorties and off-loaded approximately 3.3 million pounds of fuel to 305 receiving aircraft.”

And the official unemployment rate for African-American male workers still exceeds 14 percent--21 days after Obama’s inauguration.