The Greatest Show on Earth
“Why Is It That So Many Good Causes Get Hijacked By Bad People?” asked R.F. Wilson. “Take human rights. I’ve got nothing against human rights. In fact, I’m all for them. But why is it that so many disgusting people hijack the good cause of promoting and safeguarding human rights and start milking it for all it’s worth? And eventually it results in lowlifes and scumbags jumping on the human rights bandwagon and pushing out decent people whose liberties and freedoms are trampled and abused. It’s just ain’t right.”
The danger of corruption doesn’t stop with the human rights crowd. The anti-capitalist, anti-war, anti-pollution, anti-racism and even animal welfare organizations are all vulnerable. They sometimes mutate into horrible parodies of their original intent. Why does it happen?
That’s easy. It is because, as Willie Sutton once said, that is where the money is. And money attracts snake oil salesmen. Nowhere was that more dramatically illustrated than the recent American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals agreement to pay the Ringling Brothers $9.3 million to settle a fraudulent lawsuit they lodged against the circus using a paid witness. That’s not the half of it. It’s only the tip of a RICO case brought against the animal rights advocates and its lawyers.
The settlement covers only Feld Entertainment’s claims against ASPCA for attorneys’ fees and damages in the initial Endangered Species Act (ESA) case filed in 2000 by the animal rights activists and the resultant racketeering (RICO) case brought by Feld Entertainment in 2007. Discovery in the initial lawsuit uncovered over $190,000 that these animal activist groups and their lawyers paid to Tom Rider who lived off of the money while serving as the “injured plaintiff” in the lawsuit against the circus.
The complaint, whose full text can be viewed here alleged the activist organizations used bribery, paid witnesses, mail fraud, obstruction of justice and money laundering to create a lawsuit against the Ringling with the hidden intent to ban the performance of elephants at circuses and to raise a billion dollars in donations for themselves. Shakedown, fraud and political shenanigans all rolled into one.
Yes that’s right folks. One billion dollars. You can buy a lot of peanuts with that. That’s the amount they may have raised by faking the case against Ringling.
Whether or not the complaint prospers it illustrates how big a business activism has become. Recently Amnesty International made the temporary news for paying director Irene Khan “the sum of £533,103, and her deputy, Kate Gilmore, £325,244 to leave the organization” for reasons unspecified. The alternative was to fire them but that was judged too risky to attempt.
A full and frank explanation of the reasoning behind Amnesty International’s pay-off packages to Irene Khan and Kate Gilmore has been given by the organisation’s international executive committee (IEC) chairman, Peter Pack, in which he describes the payment to Khan of over £533,000 as the “least-worst option”…
Pack said there were three options available to the committee: to change their decision, to dismiss Khan, or to reach a confidential agreement with her. The IEC agreed it could not change its decision and that dismissing Khan “would have done enormous damage to the operations and reputation of AI” having “a major adverse effect on the overall work of AI for human rights”, Pack said. So upon consulting with a “highly-regarded London law firm” AI prepared a valedictory payment package for Khan.
They cite “enormous damage” to AI’s reputation if they tried to fire her — so what did she know and when did she know it? Irene Khan’s resume is also revealing. Activism at the top is run by people indistinguishable from those in the media/government complex elite.
The daughter of a non-practicing medical doctor Sikander Ali Khan, granddaughter of Cambridge graduate and barrister Ahmed Ali Khan and great granddaughter of an eminent doctor of Calcutta, Asdar Ali Khan who was the personal physician of Syed Hasan Imam. Her uncle Rear Admiral Mahbub Ali Khan was the chief of the Bangladesh Navy. Khan‘s great-great uncle Ghazanfar Ali Khan was the first Muslim Cambridge graduate from Sylhet. Irene’s first cousin Zubaida Rahman is married to Tarique Rahman the son of a former prime minister and a president of Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia. During her upbringing, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) – was fighting for independence from Pakistan. Human rights abuses that occurred during the Bangladesh Liberation War in which Bangladesh achieved independence, helped shape teenage Khan’s activist viewpoint. She left Bangladesh as a teenager for school in Northern Ireland.[5] Khan then went to England and studied law at the University of Manchester and then, in the United States, at Harvard Law School. She specialized in public international law and human rights She is the Chancellor of the University of Salford.
That kind of resume doesn’t get you a soapbox. It gets you a British peerage in due time. The Great and the Good are an incestuous crowd. The day when ‘activism’ meant the unpaid little guy fighting City Hall are gone. Now the activist is just the next occupant of City Hall — or the White House. With the kind of money and power that activist organizations deal in come corrupting influences of the same sort that distort big government and business.
But the fiction of the unpaid little guy is still carefully cultivated, largely by front displays of unpaid volunteers or poorly paid Third World staffers. These are the people that well-meaning individuals think they are supporting. But behind that facade of underpaid and bright eyed idealists flit the barons of poverty on their way from one international conference to the next. And they won’t be eating hotdogs either. The pay gap between ‘international’ and ‘local’ staff, even between persons of equal qualification is a scandal. A fascinating discussion on the gap between upper tier activist salaries and those of the rank and file says in one place: “if the locals knew what the foreign staff get paid, they’d be mad”.
But R.F. Wilson’s observations remain the most salient. How does one keep good causes from going rancid? Is there any way to keep idealism from being hijacked by hucksters? If the only way to a good cause sincere is to keep it penniless and small, then how can anything on a large scale ever be achieved?
Open thread.
They’re playing our song.
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
Tip Jar or Subscribe or Unsubscribe
But their intentions are so good! How can you say these are bad people?
Someone once famously said that all causes go thru 3 stages from noble and righteous to a business to a racket. My own theory is that all organizations, no matter what their original purpose (be it business, charity, etc) eventually evolve to the state where their only purpose is to preserve and perpetuate the organization. Either one works here.
What Buck said, except that in a true free market, a business would have competition and that tends to root out inefficiencies.
The non profits tend to attract dreamers, schemers, commies and crooks. Maybe a solution would be to tax the non profits income as if it were a for profit entity.
John Edwards.
The GOP should have tied the Donks and Obama to Edwards and run full tilt against Edwards in 2012.
“How does one keep good causes from going rancid?”
A start would be to remove non-profit and tax deductible from the tax code.
Creative destruction: rust never sleeps.
More circus music: Three Dog Night: Must Let The Show Go On
Putting maximum limits on the salaries and value of perks that can be paid to any employees and officers/consultants/etc if they want to keep their non-profit status might be a good start as well. Most if not all of the people at the top claim to be doing it for idealistic reasons. One wonders if their idealism might fade a bit if they have to trade their BMWs for used Chevies.
WTC Mosque to Welcome Islam Friendly Gay Bar as their new neighbor:
In the name of Tolerance and Communication, Greg Gutfeld Explains His Plan to open an Islam Friendly Gay Bar Next to the 9-11 Mosque
Suggested Names:
“JiHot” (or “JiHunk”)
“Turban Cowboy”
“RamaDam”
“You Mecca Me Hot”
“Suspicious Packages”
Bar will serve 72 Virgin Drinks (non-alcoholic)
IN THE WAY THAT New York WILL ACCEPT THE WTC MOSQUE,
THE MOSQUE SHOULD ACCEPT THE GAY BAR!
Building Dialog for our Brave New World.
Bar will break down barriers and reduce Homophobia.
How to stop the inevitable rot? Damifino! Probably the Nazi Party even had a nice set of principles that few could argue with, and today every tinpot dictatorship seems to have a Xerox copoy of the U.S. Constitution hanging on the wall and claimed to be theirs. But if an organization has a genuine set of principles it can refer to – like the U.S. Constitution – then you may be able to figure out who to put up against the wall and shoot when the inevitable occurs.
At one time I was a member of the Nature Conservancy. Sounded like a good idea, and was recommeneded by Jerry Pournelle. If you want to protect a given piece of land, put your money where your activism isn’t and buy the place. True, you are restricting economic development by “hoarding” the land (maybe the only kind of economic hoarding that really occurs) but you are paying your own money. But after a few years I found out they had come to a wonderful new idea: buy the property using donations and then sell it to the Fed Govt to make national park. Then take that money and do it again, and again. I did NOT want to turn over more land to the Feds.
And then later I found out that the leaders of the organization were first buying personal estates right next to where the new parks would be created, thereby ensuring that no one built next door to them. And they got to define the boundaries of the new Federal land. A sweet deal for a few who like the outdoors and don’t want any neighbors who do as well.
Of course, an honest news media would help prevent corruption as well, but that’s an even bigger problem.
Obama: The Greatest President in the History of Everything
It’s hard to remember the dark days before 2008. It was a time of hatred, racism, violence, obese children, war, untaxed rich people, and incandescent light bulbs — perhaps the worst days we had ever seen. And at the heart of it all was a thuggish, thoughtless man, George W. Bush, who lashed out angrily at whatever he didn’t understand — and he understood so very little. Then there was that laugh of his — that horrible snicker that mocked everything intelligent and nuanced. Also, he looked like a chimp.
It seemed like the end for the United States of America. We would crumble in the hands of vicious, superstitious dimwits determined to hunt “ter’ists” or other figments of Bush’s rotten mind. There was nothing left to do but head to Whole Foods to prepare our organic, sustainable, fair-trade last meal as the country ended around us. Despair had overtaken us, and we wondered aloud whether we could ever feel hope again.
And then a man emerged who firmly answered, “Yes we can!”
Oh, but Barack Obama was no mere man. He was a paragon of intelligence and civilized society. A savior to the world’s depressed. A lightbringer.
A genius thinking thoughts the common man could never hope to comprehend. And his words — his beautiful words read from crystal panes — reached down to our souls and told us all would be well.
With the simple act of casting a ballot for Barack Obama, we could make the world an immeasurably better place — a world of peace, of love, of understanding, of unicorns, of rainbows, of expanded entitlements. This was his promise.
And now, having had him as president for 4 years, we can say without reservation that he has delivered all his promises and more and is the best president this country — or any country — has ever had or could even imagine to have.
—
9. RWE…
re:
“Damifino!”
Don’t sweat it:
The Greatest President ever will do your thinking for you in those areas in which you are incapable.
$1 Trillion Obamacare Tax Hike Hitting on Jan. 1
On January 1, regardless of the outcome of fiscal cliff negotiations, Americans will be hit with a $1 trillion Obamacare tax hike.
Obamacare contains twenty new or higher taxes. Five of the taxes hit for the first time on January 1. In total, Americans face a net $1 trillion tax hike for the years 2013-2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
•New Obamacare Tax Form Mandates Americans Report Personal Health ID Info to IRS
•Deficits, Debt and Budget Deals: Obama’s Second Budget Plan Parades Failures of the First
•Top Five Obama-Biden Tax Hikes Burying the Middle Class
In one small regard, your article is complete rubbish.
Snake oil salesmen were good people. Chinese snakes have a high concentration of Omega-3 and 6 oils which reduced inflammation on the tired joints of (chinese) rail-road construction workers. Just sayin …
The rest of your article is pretty good though….
The Salvation Army seems to have been immune. Wonder why.
Boldly stating the case for the professionally and perpetually concerned progressives, who turn crocodile tears into gold, see The Thomas Friedman Op Ed Generator (H/T Small Dead Animals)
an honest news media
I have to admit that my first thought at seeing that was; “Isn’t that the equivalent of dividing by zero?”.
As far as non-profits and charities. Yeah, get rid of the tax deduction for charitable gifts. If the gift is motivated by charity, then the donor will do it, maybe even anonymously. If it is motivated by tax law, then make them find something productive to use to get out of paying taxes. It would be better for society.
As far as the tax law on non-profits [and noting that in reality any revisions to the tax code are going to raise taxes on the productive and protect the politically connected]; it should be rewritten to mandate a) limits on total compensation for individual employees, b) mandate that a set percentage of the accumulated funds every year be spent on the avowed cause supported by the non-profit, such percentage not to include any administrative costs, overhead, or personal compensation, c) make the non-profit status time limited and renewable based on a review of their financial activities matching the requirements, and d) the organization cannot have been convicted of or signed a consent degree involving fraud, bribery, or extortion. If a-d are violated, they lose their non-profit tax status and cannot re-apply for it for 10 years. If they can stay in existence that long.
Subotai Bahadur
Mrs. Davis @12: “The Salvation Army seems to have been immune. Wonder why.”
Maybe the reason is kind of like that given in the commercials about the kosher hotdogs: we have to answer to a higher power.
I work as a volunteer for a small charity origanization, no pay. The mucky-mucks never show up at the center except when there is a chance to to get their picture in the paper or to pick up cash donations. Oblivously there is little or no motivation to do good works, just personal advancement.
Remember Popcorn Sutton!
#14. Subotai Bahadur
I agree except that I would add one further priviso. If a non-profit loses its status because of this, no paid employees of the non-profits in question can ever be employed by another non-profit again. It is simply too easy to create another non-profit under another name that has the same essential identity. That’s what ACORN did. And make it like felons in possession of a firearm– a minimum felony sentence with no possibility of probation or parole and a big hefty fine.
#2, I do believe that can be referred to as Pournelle’s Iron Law.
d @ 12: The Salvation Army seems to have been immune. Wonder why.
Don’t look too closely.
I agree, Salvation Army is starting to stink a bit.
Hiring ‘homeless’ to man the donation buckets outside stores? Basically enabling begging with the SA getting a big cut. How about trying to help them get a bottom rung job, with helping them actually get to it regularly probably being the #1 way to help.
Also, the ‘Angel Tree’ at Christmas is becoming a racket. There are plenty of people not ‘poor’ by our standards who are connected and get on the list — and well meaning poeple at businesses donate to give a few undeserving families ridiculously nice things like XBoxes, expensive (~$100) sneakers etc.
Part of the corrupting factor is that the *appearance* of helping is what brings in the next round of $$s from donors — being too picky about who they actually help can get in the way of that.
I have a friend who worked a couple years as a full time paid fund raiser for the Boy Scouts organization. He was on commission with a quota, and when he beat the quota, the majority of the he money raised went to his own pay, with much of the rest going to the hierarchy (regional managers, directors etc.)
Increasingly parasitic, kind of like United Way.
All while the Scout Masters do the actually work of BSA for free.
RWE @9
I’ve had much the same experience with the Nature Conservancy crowd.
Did some volunteer work for them when I was younger and some of the craptastic self-serving hypocrisy I saw them justify in the name of ‘Conserving Nature’ was utterly disgusting to behold. It really opened my eyes regarding so-called non-profits.
They catalysed one of the retrospectively most regrettable -but illuminating- deeds this young idealistic/dumb a__ has been involved in wherein I made the mistake of lending my home-grown (thus morally authoritative™) voice in support of one of their causes at a decisive hearing which ended up killing a hotel project and several hundred jobs…Only to discover over the course of the next year or so of the battle that the resident Conservancy folks were mostly in it to keep the little [local] people who frequented the beach across the bay from having practical access to the “good” side of the bay which abutted their gated enclave. Wouldn’t want to spoil their high and mighty peon-free lifestyle.
My brief association with them was where I learned that [leftist] non-profits and various federal departments had become a rather incestuous lot were many of the real racist wolves in sheep’s clothing hung out – in the comfort of a trusted environment gently massaged by sacred euphemisms. It was the only time I have ever heard white people use the “N” word conversationally…And not one of them was southern, or redneck, or conservative, or an X-tian bumkpin from fly-over country.
Oh, and the conservancy land in question was sold off to the National Park Service at a tidy *gasp* profit where it has languished in federal custodial limbo for nearly twenty years while public access has been essentially severed.
““Why Is It That So Many Good Causes Get Hijacked By Bad People?” asked R.F. Wilson. “Take human rights. I’ve got nothing against human rights. In fact, I’m all for them. But why is it that so many disgusting people hijack the good cause of promoting and safeguarding human rights and start milking it for all it’s worth? And eventually it results in lowlifes and scumbags jumping on the human rights bandwagon and pushing out decent people whose liberties and freedoms are trampled and abused. It’s just ain’t right.” I know the type very well. I have had my own interactions online with the nastiest of the anti-Russia lobby nasties. One tweeted this week that Islamists should ‘have at it’ and start killing Russians. She happens to be the daughter of Russian immigrants (so she says) and tweets @LibertyLynx. Another fanatic Russophobe compared Texas Congressman Ron Paul and his supporters to the Khmer Rouge. Such pleasant nice people who feel that being on the side of the angels against the devil Putin justifies almost anything.
http://streetwiseprofessor.com/?p=5898
It proved extraordinarily difficult to pin down the reason for the dismissal of AI’s Irene Khan and Kate Gilmore, other than some vague reference to management and governance shortcomings, though there was no allegation of wrongdoing. In fact one site referred ironically to the opaque nature of Amnesty International.
But in the course of trying to puzzle it out I noted that both Khan and Gilmore were almost instantly re-employed. One as a university senior administrator and the other as a staff person on the UN. Something of the background from which they emerged could be detected.
First Amnesty UK is currently on strike over a decision to move many of the headquarters functions to the regions. Second, it is riven by political infighting. For example, one of their UK staffers has been accused of anti-semtic postings. Another of their senior fieldmen was accused by AI partners of selling out to the Thai government and clearing his reports with Bangkok; Aung San Suu Kyi was criticized by AI people for not vigorously denouncing a Burmese government campaign against Muslims. Maybe most seriously, they are being accused by Sri Lanka of backing the lost Tamil Tiger cause.
One gets the sense of a secretive organization split into factions where a few senior functionaries live and act like potentates, reveling in their power. One line that made me laugh was the observation that in most jails you never saw hide nor hair of Amnesty International. That is because it’s product is largely what is called “advocacy”. It doesn’t distribute blankets or medicine or food to people in jails. It engages in NGO and multilateral politics.
If you really want a cup of coffee and a donut, you’re probably better off going to the Salvation Army or St. Vincent de Paul’s. And this I think, goes to the heart of why idealistic organizations are so easily corrupted. The are suborned in proportion to their desire for power. Once an organization becomes an “advocacy” group it has to go along to get along. Go along with the NGO context; go along with the host country; go along with the rebel groups.
On the other hand, organizations which don’t mind tooting the trumpet in front of a collection pot have a “kingdom which is not of this world”. The Salvation Army will never be featured on a talk show or interviewed by David Letterman. In a sense they are outside the system. They are also largely outside its miasma of corruption.
So Amnesty International is paying the price for the wearing the Ring of Power. And that I guess, is how it goes.
OT: Fox reporting that Hillary has been admitted for a blot clot “following concussion”. No details or other channel pickups yet.
£533,000 = $861,807
The actual entity that employed Ms. Khan was Amnesty’s “non-charitable trading arm,” FWIW, per the link. Amnesty USA rates a 32.2 out of 70 in financial performance, acc to Charity Navigator. The Ford Foundation is a major sugar daddy of AI.
David Horowitz’s new(ish) book “The New Leviathan” talks about how the assets of the foundations of the left ($100 billion) dwarf the assets of those on the right ($10 billion). As is not news to many Belmont Clubbers, foundations which have started on the right by first-gen founders have been steered way left by second- and third-gen descendants and later followers, often in explicit violation of the wishes of the founders.
For great-wealth-creators on the right, it does seem to be a double-bind, doesn’t it? What Uncle Sam doesn’t rip off outright in taxes can’t even be safely left behind in a foundation, either, due to the plague of leftist locusts that will swarm in, consume and increase their numbers at the direct expense of those you were trying to help to begin with.
******
How does one keep good causes from going rancid? Is there any way to keep idealism from being hijacked by hucksters? If the only way to a good cause sincere is to keep it penniless and small, then how can anything on a large scale ever be achieved?
Taking a page from Groucho Marx, who said he wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have him as a member, perhaps the way to steer clear of hijacked causes (or those about to be) is to not throw oneself into any cause in which one seeks to “win friends and influence people.” I realize this sounds counter-productive and perhaps it is. Perhaps the least corruptible cause is the non-cause of emphatic individualism: I don’t want yer help so get out of my d**n way and leave me alone.
Perhaps this is why Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you”? The sound of the tin cup rattling is like chum in the water to the poverty-industry sharks. The truly needy get screwed over twice. First by whatever circumstance or skeeve who ground them into the mud to begin with; and again by the velvet-heeled nabob busybodies, who would be out of their six-figure jobs and 5-star-hotel international conference circuits were “the problem” to be well and truly eliminated or drastically reduced.
The nabobs enjoy long, cushy careers regardless of most performance outcomes in their fields. Imagine if Jonas Salk had been operating in this kind of environment with the same motivations for guaranteed lifetime sinecure. We would still have kids in iron lungs.
Say, back in the auld days, didn’t the richy-rich families send their perfumed spawn off to Cambridge or such to study arcane subjects like 7th-century Khazar poetry or Jamaican botany, with the foreknowledge and understanding that young Harry, since he could not be useful, should at least be respectable?
So it seems that THAT — the deliberate channeling of young over-affluents into capped-and-gowned lives of non-productivity — has not changed. What does seem to have changed in expectations for this cohort in modern times is (1) much less demand for respectability (oh, for the days when the words “Kardashian” or “sex tape” had yet to enter common parlance), and (2) who foots the bill for these people’s education and high-salaried careers. It is now pretty much expected that government (read: taxpayer)-backed loans shall pay for young Chelsea’s edumacation, and because she wants to do good & change the world, she deserves a well-remunerated career in the public sector (at taxpayer expense) as well. With full retirement & bennies at 52, of course.
Gosh. At least the Kartrashians earn their money on the free market & not through taxpayer extortion and do-gooding with a cudgel. For all her ignoble qualities, at least Kim sticks to flogging brands of bronzer and not trying to assert her expertise on Roman Period crop growth at AGW conferences.
P.S. It should be noted that Ms. Khan is a piker compared to someone like Franklin Raines. If you really want to score the big boodle, you get out of the NGO sector and go burrow yourself into the just plain (or semi-covert) G side of things. Revolving door, I realize.
Sometimes it is hard to know what constitutes a good cause. I became interested in nonprofit management issues after serial involvements demonstrated, to my satisfaction at least, that a cycle of boom and bust was the norm. People with good intentions routinely ended up disillusioned and bitter. It seemed perverse that the desire to do good ended with so much bad blood.
This insight received confirmation when I became involved with program evaluation for the United Way. In a number of telephone help programs, the new volunteers were assigned the graveyard shifts dealing with lonely people who more often than not feigned desperation in order to talk to a captive ear. Most of the night calls were from regulars who, as you might imagine, needed to be regularly distressed. Naturally, the nonjudgmental listeners were precluded from pointing any of this out. These conditions lead to rapid volunteer turnover and generated pleas for more funding in order to advertise for more volunteers. The managers bristled at my suggestion that the program structure needed re-thinking. Almost without exception, the program statistics provided no useful information about the efficacy of the programs; none that I evaluated surveyed any of the recipients.
Finding a friendly, nonjudgmental person in whom one can confide is often very helpful to those who can benefit from such a process. But is it an idea that can be translated into a service paid for by third-party donation? Because the clients do not, usually, pay for the service, and the donors are often governments or other large entities or groups of employees there is an inherent agency problem in which the managers are the only ones with a vested interest in keeping the program going. And sincerity? Unfortunately, that is a characteristic of people – not programs.
Trace contributes to Wounded Warriors.
…appears to be a legitimate organization.
http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/
Tough People Do
Here is a link to the performance at the RNC of Trace doing this song: Tough People Do
TOUGH PEOPLE DO
Written By Chris DuBois, Jason Matthews and Joel Shewmake
Back in 39 she was 26
The wife of a soldier tryin’ to raise four kids
On rationed out beans and watered down milk
Tryin’ to keep ‘em all warm with a patchwork quilt
That great depression ended about 1945
But grandma lived to be 92
See, tough times don’t last
Tough people do
Tough people pull themselves up by the bootstraps
When they hit hard luck
And they stay strong and they keep on fightin’
Like they don’t know how to lose
Tough times don’t last
Tough people do
Those talkin’ heads on cnn
Say we’ll never get out of this hole we’re in
Price of gas is up and the market’s down
And there’s a bunch of empty houses in every town
Well, i’d interrupt that program with a little headline of my own
This just in from the old red, white and blue
Tough times don’t last
Tough people do
Tough people pull themselves up by the bootstraps
When they hit hard luck
And they stay strong and they keep on fightin’
Like they don’t know how to lose
Tough times don’t last
Tough people do
I’ve been out of work since mid july
My bank account’s about bone dry
Been lookin’ for a job no luck so far
But I bought a little time when I sold my car
Well, I’ll go dig a ditch if that’s what it takes
Baby, somehow or another we’ll get through
Tough times don’t last
Tough times don’t last
Tough people do
Tough people do
—
Bogie said…
“…the plague of leftist locusts that will swarm in, consume and increase their numbers at the direct expense of those you were trying to help to begin with.”
Hard to think of any institutions the left has NOT taken over, or decimated entirely.
(Like Religious Free Speech in the Public Square)
US government funding of “nonprofits” has not been directly mentioned. IIRC, NPR and related organizations received almost a half billion dollars in 2012. This is in addition to the tax-free status with respect to income including tax-free contributions. Salary for these “nonprofit” employees are not subject to the (relatively) high limits for government employees. Perks and expenses are not limited, as they are (supposedly) for government employees. It is big business to get free money from state and federal government agencies, and pay themselves giant salaries. The accounting for nonprofits is completely hidden from the public, so much political backscratching with public funds is done within the secretive shelter of nonprofits, away from the prying eyes of FOIA and other transparencies required for public corporations and government agencies.
In addition to eliminating tax deductions for donations, limits on compensation to some fraction of that for a corresponding private sector job, etc as proposed above, no federal or state grants or other funding should go to any nonprofit/foundation. That will directly address our state and federal budget problems.
Contributions to legitimate religious organizations should rermain deductible. “the power to tax is the power to destroy” (Justice Holmes?), so there should be some first amendment protection for churches.
#28 followup
So, nonprofit/foundations should be required to be fully transparent, permitting no secrecy to hide behind. That is, all salaries, contracts, payments, donations, other revenue/income/funding and expenses/obligations should be made publicly available. Violation of the compensation, payout requirements, and other laws should be enforceable by any citizen by qui tam private enforcement action, with fines paid to the citizen-enforcers for violations. The payout requirements should be for limited, “truly charitable” purposes (with the burden of proof on the nonprofit).
I believe that AI’s initial shtick was to put together letter writing campaigns regarding “prisoners of conscience.” Of course they point out their successes but not their success rate.
One could look at this as the beginning of modern therapeutic, fell-good activism. Go to a few meetings, read the news letter, write a few letters, and send in a few bucks. Aside from giving up a few soy latte’s, little hardship and no risk is incurred. And if the local freedom fighters do succeed in changing the regime then it is easy to claim credit from your seat at your local haunt or recliner.
It’s all about “the problem of evil”. The Christian explanation is “.. because the nature of man is evil..”, redeemable only by someone holy, who’s outside the system (e.g. Jesus Christ).
The leftist explanation of evil is “Republicans”, “Capitalists”, or lately “conservatives”. The left claims “we’re all progressing, or ‘evolving’ into something better …”.
Evil men prove leftists wrong about evolution and the nature of man, every single day. Second law of thermodynamics makes more sense to me.
Well, they say the lotto is a tax on the poor and/or stoopid. It may be a little more complex than that, but not much. I’d suggest Obambus with his grass-roots fundraising is another tax on the poor and/or stoopid, but like the lottery they get their value out of the psychic joy of participating in The Game. A lot of these NGOs are additionally taxes on the stoopid, but much more on the rich and/or stoopid, which apparently includes about 98% of Hollywood.
A lot of TV product sales from the pocket fisherman forward, are to people more interested in the diversion than in the product. Salvation Army and Goodwill at least serve a purpose, they recycle low-value items to the poor at very modest prices, so if they (secretly) turn a profit, perhaps it’s justified … some years ago I was not quite involved with some IT projects for SA, and though I never went to work there I wondered why they even needed an IT project and I heard some of the numbers and OMG.
It’s like these, “donate your car” charities (often advertised on Rush), that are basic scams, a poor deal for the giver and hardly any gets to the destination, but hey, I guess a few percent of it gets to Rush, thereby fulfilling a socially useful purpose. Life can be very complex.
Politicians have no intention of doing anything to solve the fiscal issues, they have little or no skin in the game and they view this problem as one for the masses to deal with, not them. Politicians exempt themselves from following laws they stick us with like Obama care, here is a petition to include them in the messes they made. If you agree, please sign it and pass it anyone else who does.
http://wh.gov/QeX9
Have to start somewhere.
This is a good resource for those wanting to investigate this further:
http://www.capitalresearch.org/
For almost two years I worked at a non-profit that was dedicated to teaching parent effectiveness training to parents whose children were involved in gangs, drugs, violence, on the wrong end of the law or just wildly out of hand. It was really satisfying work as many parents created miracles in their families using the principles we taught.
Every year there was a big push to get people ‘active’ to demand more funding. Their sole funding source was, and remains to this day, grants from government. So every year we’d organize the parents and support staff to show up at city hall, the offices of the county commissioners, etc. Every year peoples’ jobs depended on what funding was available. I suggested that at least part of the the program could be easily monetized by producing, marketing and selling videos of the best teachers and classes along with workbooks, etc. I could tell right away how popular my plan was by the downcast looks and ensuing silence. Ah, well. Strangely, years afterwards, they were happy to accept my volunteer services.
During my last year there they were approached by the Industrial Areas Foundation (turns out to be a major leftist scam, but I didn’t know that at the time) to expand their very successful program and make it the standard for Los Angeles County. Much community activism ensued, demonstrations mounted, speeches speechified, op eds edified, all leading to the commitment of millions of dollars from State, County and a raft of City governments to fund the training of workers to go out and make a difference, lease office space, buy furniture and office supplies, hire administrators, etc. I had to leave before this was all due to come to fruition, but in speaking to my former colleagues later, Hope in Youth fizzled. As is usual for the IAF, they got the ball rolling, and once the money was delivered, decamped, taking even the office furniture with them. And of course, the IAF doesn’t open their books to anyone.
Altruism is always wrong and fundamentally immoral. Sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice, leaks to corruption of the human spirit. There is always someone ready to “profit” from your sacrifice. You are expected to reap some kind of psychic or metaphysical reward from your sacrifice, while someone else reaps a real and tangible earthly reward.
That doesn’t mean there are not worthwhile charities to donate to, but donations require you to give with eyes wide open. Organizations become corrupt because people recognize there are marks in the world to be conned out of their money, and learn the talk or slogans needed to maintain the persuasive con going.
As I recall, Irene Khan and Kate Gilmore were involved in some really over the top anti-Semitism, that even made anti-Israel Amnesty International gag. I think they had some involvement with Hamas or something like that.
Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy: over time, the purpose of any organization mutates from its stated purpose to one of primarily self – perpetuation. And the leadership of such an organization know it.
Pournelle originally stipulated it to explain the ossification of NASA and the failure of vision there. But the principle applies everywhere all the time.
Wretchard says : Money attracts snake oil salesmen. Some of whom craft false narratives in the name of “good causes.” Consider the Three Cups of Tea saga, which concerns a charity known as the Central Asia Institute (CAI) that supposedly builds schools in Taliban territory. According to author Greg Mortenson, the idea of building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan came to him after he got lost on a mountaineering expedition to climb K2 and was rescued by the chief elder of a small village. To thank the village, Mortenson promised to build a school for the education of its children, particularly the girls. He obtained the money needed to found and endow the CAI from a Silicon Valley magnate. Three Cups of Tea was first published in 2006 and was on the NYT nonfiction best sellers’ list for three years; it also became required reading in freshman lit courses in over 100 schools as well as for U.S. troops deploying to Afghanistan.
The trouble started in 2011 when author Jon Krakauer, CBS News, and even Nicholas Kristof (!) began to complain of Mortenson’s management style (Kristof noted that less than half the money Mortenson collected actually went to build schools) coupled with allegations that the dramatic events recounted in the book– including Mortenson’s supposed capture by the Taliban– never took place. The whole tangled web of storytelling and the consequent lawsuits against Mortenson are outlined here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Cups_of_Tea
The latest victim of Mortenson’s embroidered narrative is his co-author, David Oliver Relin, who committed suicide by freight train last month. “The 49-year-old coauthor of the bestseller-turned-controversy Three Cups of Tea is said to have driven to the Corbett Hill Road exit of Interstate 84 and left his car in a parking area beside the railroad tracks that run along the Columbia River.
Nearby is a forested area where he had once read to his wife, schoolteacher Dawn Relin, the earliest pages of the book that would become a blessing before it became a blindsiding curse. . . . .
Relin was so proud of Three Cups of Tea that he dedicated it to his late father, Lloyd Relin, a prominent Rochester attorney who won a landmark bankruptcy case before the Supreme Court and died in 1986. Imagine how the son must have felt last year, when both 60 Minutes and author Jon Krakauer charged Greg Mortenson, Relin’s co-author and the focus of the book, with fabricating significant parts of the story and using charity donations related to the book for his own benefit. . . . Relin could not have imagined that [Mortenson] was a man who would later be called a pathological liar.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/06/the-death-of-co-author-of-three-cups-of-tea-is-ruled-suicide.html
It looks like a Whale Wars type scam. Or maybe they’re fighting terror by filling a power vacuum. (Those are dangerous because anyone can move in who is different.) It’s hard to say, exactly, but I see many blue flags being raised…
“with the hidden intent… to raise a billion dollars in donations for themselves.”
Note that Anonymous takes donations right on their website. And don’t be certain Bart’s Voice ever donated a penny to counter them – almost every princess who joined that group came straight from the Catholic church. Now the same type of frauds went and made up Falun Gong worshipers… They baited poor Christian Bale to go cause a scene and embarrass himself… I guess if the West can own silly cults and natter about human rights, then so can we Chinamen.
“It proved extraordinarily difficult to pin down the reason for the dismissal of AI’s Irene Khan and Kate Gilmore, other than some vague reference to management and governance shortcomings, though there was no allegation of wrongdoing.”
AI comes from the letters in “CIA”, but reversed. It’s like “NGO” when they leave out the “Non-” and its meaning.
“Maybe most seriously, they are being accused by Sri Lanka of backing the lost Tamil Tiger cause.”
The Tigers could have been stopped by preventing the power vacuum which allowed their presence there…
36. David
Altruism is always wrong and fundamentally immoral. Sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice, leaks to corruption of the human spirit.
I think what you are describing is masochism. My own stint in the non-profit world did help get a lot of kids better socialized, which will contribute to some degree to the health of the culture. Where it will ultimately leak to in any given case is unknown to me, and irrelevant. I got paid for my efforts, sometimes in cash, sometimes in the satisfaction of seeing some young kid taken in hand by his formerly more disfunctional parents.
Wretchard, this is why the pro-Serbian D.C. lawyer called the NRI, NED, the Jamestown Foundation et al the ‘Demintern’ after the old Comintern or Communist Internationale.
“One gets the sense of a secretive organization split into factions where a few senior functionaries live and act like potentates, reveling in their power. One line that made me laugh was the observation that in most jails you never saw hide nor hair of Amnesty International. That is because it’s product is largely what is called “advocacy”. It doesn’t distribute blankets or medicine or food to people in jails. It engages in NGO and multilateral politics.”
Again being on the side of the angels means never having to say you’re sorry. In this sense the so-called ‘neocon Right’ has become the mirror image of the whole ‘you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs’ Walter Duranty Left.
http://reginaldquillbigsis.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/the-tyranny-of-good-intentions-and-refusal-to-see-conspiracy-from-chicagos-south-side-to-syria/
The crackup and failure of many of these NGOs also reveals that globalism aka John Fonte’s ‘transnational progressivism’ is a very real force that does not fit neatly in the Left/Right paradigm or at least can ‘fake it’ on the Right by entertaining the likes of John McCain, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Lindsey Graham. But since any admission of globalism’s power by definition threatens to take one into ‘tin foil hat’ territory, the mainline Repubs will go back to sleep and tell us all the same, even when the UN openly brags that the Sandy Hook shooting will enable their Global Gun Ban Treaty.
Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracies.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com
Wretchard’s comment about oganizations that do vs those that advocate illuminates the path to the answer to R.F. Wilson’s question. Doing is hard. It takes work, skill, persistence. Your efforts can (and probably will be) judged (you’re building schools in Africa? Did the schools stand up, or collapse and kill the kids? You’re running a soup kitchen for the poor? Did you feed them, or give them food poisoning?).
Advocacy is easy. All it is is a talking. Yak, yak, yak. Just like lawyers, politicians, and journalistas, the other favorite occupations of the same-old-same-old classes. All the motor-mouthed narcissits gravitate to places where they don’t have to do anything. Where having the right opinions is the only thing they’re judged on. Doers are eventually driven out – they’ve got other places where they can be succesful, and being around the yakers is exceptionally frustrating for a doer.
But it’s not unique to NGOs. It happens in business too, like Buck said way up in #2 above. And Bart’s point about businesses facing the discipline of the market is important too. Businesses that get captured by the yakers eventually go under, their assets being returned to the soil to fertilize a new crop of ventures.
I don’t think charitable groups can be held to the discipline of the market, primarily becuase their paying customers (the donors) will never be the same as their receiving customers (the people they help) because, well, folks with money don’t need charity and folks who need charity can’t afford to buy it. So in that regard, what the money buys is good feelings. I can donate a few bucks to ASPCA and feel good about myself. Horray for me, I care! That’s an especially important commodity for rich lefties who treat the help like dirt. But I digress…
I think the only solution is to give charities the Replicant treatment – they’re only allowed to live so long, then they die. Put an absolute limit of 20 years on a foundation. After that, all money goes away. I dunno where. Maybe to charity, har har.
If you want to make any of these institutions more effective at helping people globally I would suggest increasing top line salaries so they have less disposable income to run their day to day operations. That would make them less able to pedal their main product which is the usually the prolongment and expansion of human misery. Hire Ms.Khan back. Give her a raise. Appoint her head of several other NGOs also so they may liase and co-ordinate synergies more effectively. She could jet about the planet and hold entire conferences by herself. A capable modern woman can wear many hats, they don’t have that masculine handicap limiting focus to one item at a time. More Ms. Khan and less human misery, thats what we need.
Vicki Hearne’s Bandit (title changed by the Left; original was Bandit: Dossier of a Dangerous Dog. Hearne takes no prisoners and is not heart-warming) – is a discovery that HSUS is the enemy of dogs, written back in the 80s, when it became apparent that the media was not your friend.
It’s a source of a thousand Belmont-like observations about everything.
“They sometimes mutate into horrible parodies of their original intent.”
Or like so many including socialism and some on your list, fulfill their original intent reaching their bloody apotheosis.
“If we believe in absurdities, we will commit atrocities.” (A paraphrase, of course.)
Only one question remains: are people capable of understanding reality so as not to believe in gun control. animal rights, world peace, Islam, socialism. etc. and thus be eager to commit atrocities.
Another organization which has strayed far is the Audubon Society. Audubon himself was a naturalist and an artist but was also an avid hunter and fisherman. And for many decades the AS was agnostic about hunting and fishing.
Now the AS is a very strong advocacy group against all hunting and fishing, and have, as another poster commented, moved to restrict activities of almost any kind on the lands that they own except in limited areas. For example, in Massachusetts, they purchased Daniel Webster’s former hunting and fishing property south of Boston which had been open to sportsmen for decades and immediately banned not only fishing and hunting but even so-called “passive use” of the bulk of the acreage.
AS officials, of course, still have the run of the place.
These restriction are, in this case, doubly hypocritical, because Webster was also a very avid hunter and fisherman. When confronted about the idea that neither Audubon nor Webster would have approved of these changes, the AS people involved answered that because they were great men, if they were alive today they would understand and be in favor of the restrictions (similar to the response one gets from leftists who invoke JFK when confronted with his tax cutting policies).
The Iron Rule almost always requires that there be a lot of unresolved cognitive dissonance, coupled with the worst forms of greed and envy – those which pretend to be concern for “fairness” or “justice” or “the needy”.
36. David said…
“Altruism is always wrong and fundamentally immoral. ”
That seems to me to be a bit overwrought:
In Garret Hardin’s classes, we had discussions about altruism in the Animal Kingdom, and evolutionary aspects of same.
Perhaps the argument could be made about organized altruism, but something as universal as individual altruism could hardly be called fundamentally immoral, imo.
Monkeyfan #21:
Interesting news. And I think you point up a common reason why so many “Good” causes go bad.
So many really were not Good in the first place.
Civil Rights = Artificial Advantage for Me Over Thee.
Environmentalism = I Got Mine and The Hell With Anyone Else
Rights Advocacy = Leftism
Legal Advocacy = There Are Too Many Lawyers
Charity = Scam
Libertarianism = I Want My Drugs
9. RWE. The Nature Conservancy is worse than you remember. They also sold donated land to those who would be “likely to protect it for future generations”.
#19 and #20 are right. Despite its noble origin and historic goodness the Salvation Army has now aligned itself with the global warmists, Christians Against Climate Change. I was enraged to learn of this sea change in what had always been the most noble of charities.
Don’t confuse something like Christian benevolence with altruism.
This is how semantics and propaganda can corrupt thinking and twist the meaning of words.
Literally, altruism is sacrifice without expecting reward. Immolate yourself for the sake of immolation. This is certainly not the same as benevolence or charity between two people when the generosity of one person is reciprocated by gratitude of the recipient. We should also not be benevolent for the expectation of “gratitude”. Benevolence can have purpose and meaning beyond the expectation of gratitude, but altruism is sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice. Give till it hurts, and then give some more. Yes, that is masochism.
Davod #49:
A guy I work with has a lifetime membership in that organization (I think he regrets that now), and as a result I became aware of the latest horror to befall our environment.
Recycling!
It seems that recycling of paper products as well as imports of foreign wood, has reduced the value of woodlands to the old line timber companies in the USA. So they are selling it.
The Nature Conservancy instantly came to realize that it was better for forests to be owned by companies who wanted to grow forests than by companies who wanted to build housing developments, industrial sites, and (gasp!) golf courses (their very words). So they started some kind of effort to stop this crime against humanity. Not sure what their approach was, except to get more land turned over to The Government.
One wonders how many of the organization leaders’ vacation homes were nestled up against such managed forests.
And on my last trip through rural Georgia I noticed what appeared to be less involvement by wood products companies in certain heavily forested areas. Some homes sit empty. Businesses are abandoned. A former company forest maintenance facility now appears to be a private home. It’s that evil recycling!
51. David…
Look it up!
Your individual description and definition of altruism is at odds with conventional definitions and descriptions in Literature, Libraries, Dictionaries, Textbooks, et-al.
Speaking about political circuses http://preview.tinyurl.com/aefpncw
From the Wall Street Journal “Nuclear Options Vex Europe”
So a 15% increase in electricity rates takes effect tomorrow? Happy New Year, Europe! That ought to do wonders for the value of the Euro.
This calls for some Sinatra! He’s always good for a New Year’s Eve Party.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG_ZNOYSr74
I think it was Olin(?) of the Olin Foundation who specified that the organization would dissolve a generation after he initiated it- compare to the Ford Foundation and his wisdom is revealed.
Quite simply he didn’t allow enough time for the bastards to take over.
Happy New Year (already!) to our Australian host. Time flies — maybe I will be ready for Y2K, next year.
At some earlier point in my life, I was a soft touch for all of those kinds of organizations — Southern Poverty Law, Brady bunch, etc. But now my New Year Resolution is to step back. Things are not going to end well for our Leftist overlords, and all we have to do is stand aside and watch it happen.
When the Gov’t can no longer pretend that it has not already run out of money, how safe are all the funds locked up in those Leftist foundations? How long before Obaminoids recognize that selling federal vacant land (aka “parks”) will let them kick the can just a little further?
Laugh about it! Mock them furiously! And enjoy the ride in 2013.
Every spring in Athens, GA they have a “Human Rights Festival” at which local bands perform and various leftist speakers peddle socialist and environmentalist
argle-bargle. In the early 90s I was in town for it and happened upon a booth occupied by friends of the Peruvian Shining Path (Revolutionary Maoist movement). They invited me to sign a petition demanding the release of the recently imprisoned Shining Path leader, a terrorist, Dr. Abimael Guzman. Anyone familiar with the bloody and vicious reputation of Sendero Luminoso can appreciate the rich irony of their presence at a “Human Rights Festival.” About three years ago their featured speaker was none other than William Ayers, one of the two bombers of the Pentagon I can think of (the other being Osama…). There are few better places to see the hijacking of the good idea that is Human Rights than Athens GA in Springtime.
57- Surely you see the larger fraud happening. Every proper noun you stated is a farce or complete fiction. It’s one big smear against Mao and environmentalism.
Saludos to @14 Subotai Bahadur, @17 Tcobb and @28-29 jaybird
whose proposals for ‘nonprofits’ would cure many ills. Transparency and accountability, and limits on pay and percs.
rockman @ 57 – Is that you, Rockman from TOD? “I’m not an engineer, I just play one on The Oil Drum”? You may not be an engineer, but you are a good geologist. How are Little Miss Rockman’s experiments going? She ought to give hope to those who despair over the state of the younger generation.
Still testing out the milk breakout from Blue Bunny Ice Cream milkshakes? Wait ’til I get her started on demonstrating continuous lubrication of flowing oil wells as illustrated by LavaLamps! She could get a gig on TV during the upcoming Deepwater Horizon trial phase over the source control efforts.
Are You Smarter Than a Sixth Grader?
Machias@60
I am a geologist, but not that one.
Maimonides’ 8 Levels of Charity
http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/maimonides-8-levels-of-charity/
Note that the highest level of charity is not “giving” to a poor person, but rather “investing” in them (presumably via loan or equity investment). This approach has the advantage of not only aiding the poor person on his road to self sufficiency, but enhancing his self respect, since he wasn’t “given” something he didn’t earn.
1. Investing in a poor person in a manner that they can become self-sufficient.
2. Giving to the poor without knowledge of the recipient and without allowing the recipient to know your identity.
3. Giving to the poor with knowledge of the recipient but without allowing the recipient to know your identity (anonymous giving).
4. Giving to the poor without knowledge of the recipient but allowing the recipient to know your identity.
5. Giving to the poor without or before being asked.
6. Giving to the poor after being asked.
7. Giving to the poor happily but inadequately.
8. Giving to the poor unwillingly.
Amnesty International did not become corrupt. It was a leftist fraud from the get-go, and here’s how it all started…
Amnesty International is also pro-jihadi.
AI ought to be shut down as the fraudulent financial scam that it is.
rb @ 62: Maimonides’ 8 Levels of Charity
Hollywood Harry’s Neo-American Levels of Charity:
0: Righting a wrong
00: Fighting evil
000: Saving the world
0000: Holding a press conference to announce your act
00000: Doing it for the children
/overposted
Rockman @ 61 – Too bad. I really liked discussing the Deepwater Horizon accident with him. But I got finally banned by Leanan for being a Global Warming Denier with facts on my side.
They were awfully picky about me posting things like
WHAT DO WE WANT?
LUBRICATE AND BLEED!
WHEN DO WE WANT IT?
NOW!
We could have saved some dolphins.
CHU LIED, DOLPHINS DIED!
Coming to federal court in The Big Easy in January 2013. Stock up on popcorn now.
OT: I’m outta here. Some here may have seen in a few posts awhile back that I’ve been considering going “dark”, at least internet-wise. That time is now. This is one of my favorite sites, and while I don’t post a lot I really enjoy the people who do post here. And I will continue to, I hope. At least until even the BC goes dark.
But I’ve now seen with my own eyes some things that have made me decide that it is now not too early to start getting “careful” about how you present yourself online, or even in person. Speaking only for myself, I think the federal government in the US has fully now “gone over to the darkside”. And I think I’m on at least one of their lists…and I’m not by any stretch a public person, nor am I a felon, nor am I (I thought) anything they’d be interested in. I won’t give them more info.
Call me a conspiracist (though I despise the 9/11 “truthers”) or call me just paranoid, but my time is now. Going dark, though I’ll continue to read the BC (from public access points only) and sympathise. I plan on coming through to the other side, and to do that my gut is telling me that now is the time to do that. We’re just getting too close to the point where everything we do is monitored, and I want all my comms to be as old as possible at the point where they “go public” and start digging through stuff like what I’m typing right now looking for gun owners or traitors or jews or whatever.
Good luck, all. I suspect we’ll all need it…though I still hold out hope that I’ll come crawling back feeling like a fool.
I’ve long held a theory related to publishing that perhaps has a parallel here.
I think that many magazines and other publications were originally started by a small group of enthusiasts who just wanted to share info about something they were into (today, the internet fills this niche). It was originally run more as a hobby. If their publication was successful and garnered more interest, the pub expanded its content. But a problem arose: the pub was growing beyond its hobbyist roots, and now required such things as better financial management, organized advertising to help offset the growing costs, and physical production expanding to the point that it could no longer be literally published in one of the founder’s basements.
The solution was to seek “professional” help from a class of people who understood publishing, management, and finances, but these new folks were not of the original enthusiast class. They came mostly out of liberal schools, where, among the knowledge needed to handle publications and advertising, they also soaked up the liberal cant that crept into academia. Over time, the original nucleus of founding enthusiasts died off or other wise moved on, leaving the publication in the hands of the “professionals.” And thus, over time, the publication began taking on the political viewpoints of its new masters.
I suspect that many non-profits also share a similar trajectory (although I readily grant that an unfortunate number started off with a specific leftist agenda). The problem has been that, over time, management of these organizations has been hijacked by the “professional” class coming out of an equally hijacked academe. Thus we encounter a self-licking ice cream cone of publications and organizations steadily moving left.
(Also, add to this equation the notion that any successful system attracts its share of parasites.)
ASPCA is responsible for one of the most hated and depressing commercials ever. I refer to Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” played over images of wretched animals in cages. According to the Wikipedia article about McLachlan, that commercial has raised $30 million. By the way, I have found that the commercial is much improved by killing the sound and playing Yakety Sax for the sound track.
I have a saying that helps explain the corruption of “good works:”
There are more people who want power than there are people who deserve power
That adage also applies to the growth of government.
There is a difference between a club and a cause.
I have known of animal rescue farms whose proprietors were thrown off their own land via legal action by animal rights groups. The rescue folks operated under the rational notion that, as humans and sentient beings, we have an obligation to treat animals humanely. This is not the intent of the hard-core animal “rights” activists. “Animal Rights” is not about elevating other animals to the same level as humans, but, rather, to lower humans to the same level as all other animals.
That should be no surprise to those that know it was Peter Singer, the “Bioethiscist,” who started the movement with his book “Animal Liberation.” Singer is a monster, and the defacto leader of all those in western society who devalue human life.
Anyone familiar with PETA’s “final solution” for animals is that they want pets to die off, as they consider pet ownership to be a form of “slavery.” Whether they still hold fast to that original intent is a matter of debate, but they have been duplicitous from their inception.
President orders pay increase.
So now it is official, congress and federal employees are paid by the president. Now, I can understand how the Executive branch might be able to freeze pay for federal employees, but the legislative branch is now beholden to the executive branch?
Worse, the legislative branch agrees.
It isn’t just NGO’s. Any grassroots organization that becomes successful attracts “left wing” know-it-alls who then come in and tell everybody what to think, what to do, how to do it, et cetera. Please note that the know-it-alls never do the painstaking work of building up the organization. They merely seek to take it over once somebody else has done all the work.
This is a key reason why wiser sorts in “progressive” causes often hate and loathe the “hard core leftists”. It isn’t the political ideology of “Occupy” that enrages grassroots activists. It is rather the common presumption on the “Left” that THEY set the agenda and everybody must follow them rather than even bothering to recognize the achievements of people other than themselves.
One key aspect of the Left is that leftists talk, but they don’t listen.
Well-to-do young socialists with leisure time and energy join do-good organizations and rise to management or other control positions in the organization. They outlast and displace the even more well-intentioned founders, often successful capitalists. After intrenchment comes tyranny and corruption. Eventual alliance with the world socialist organization and Alinsky.
The only solution I can think of is to expunge approval of socialism from the culture.
I’m surprised that no one has yet mentioned the Sierra Club. Founded in 1892, the Sierra Club was the original wilderness preservation organization and advocate for conservationism (predated modern environmentalism by many decades). In its early history, the Sierra Club achieved many significant successes in wilderness preservation. Then in the 1970s, the Gramscian/Green-political narrative became operative with the left. The Sierra Club was seen as the perfect instrument by the watermelon left and slowly taken over from the grass roots up to its top management (like classic root rot). The story of the Sierra Club’s metamorphosis from a politically viable conservation organization to just another Left Wing propaganda mouthpiece could be the basis for a political science Ph.D. thesis. The Sierra Club is now mainly focused on global warming and anti-nuclear technology issues (the Sierra Club is actually against nuclear fusion as a power source). Almost all of its political coin has been squandered on this nonsense. In the late 1970s, I was a member of the Sierra Club and had a long exchange with the editor of the club’s main magazine “Sierra” over issue of nuclear power. I was wasting my time. The take over was already complete and I had no option left but to allow my membership to lapse. I should add that by doing so I furthered the process of leftist takeover. At one time, most of the Sierra Club’s membership were probably classical conservationists with little support for leftist causes. However one-by-one, the original members were forced out and replaced with screeching moonbats.
Let’s look at the situation from another angle. Why haven’t the Masons or the Oddfellows been taken over by Socialists?
That which is started out of altruistic purposes becomes a victim of its own success. Once certain milestones have been met the bean counters do the extrapolation and realize just how much better they could be if they did 30% more per year. Now the organic process that has been successful in the past requires meeting artificial ‘sales goals’ and the need to close bigger and bigger deals leads to fudging the numbers.
I worked for a few companies in the 80’s whose company wide productivity was under duress to make quarterly forecasts, neither above or below, just on target, the way Wall Street demands them. Over on spending? Park trucks down the street with all of your needed just in time inventory so they do not show up on the books. A little short of your sales forecast? Ship product that was not ordered to a distributer and book the sales onto your ledgers. Offer it later at a deep discount.
Chances are some Harvard MBA screwed the pooch on it.
To back up my assertions about the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy in my #72 post (assuming the post is still there), I offer this from Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/03/ncrp-criteria-foundation-opinions-contributors_threatens_philanthropy.html
Many of the worst abuses by non-profits could be rooted out if they were simply subjected to the same reporting requirements as profit organizations. Far too little data receiving far too little scrutiny.
@77 Alexis: “Why haven’t the Masons or the Oddfellows been taken over by Socialists?”
Good question. Perhaps because (somewhat similar to the Salvation Army) the members really believe and live by the principles and virtues that they are taught. “Virtue”, unfortunately, is conspicuously absent from public discourse these days.
73 MSO…
Blatant Arrogance of the DC Grandees has become completely institutionalized:
Obama family ‘costs taxpayers $1.4BILLION per year’
(that’s 20 times more expensive than British Royal Family)
Which country is a Monarchy?
Which country bestows such gratuitous waste on it’s Maximum Leader that he or she cannot help but be completely removed from everyday reality?
—
Barack Obama and his family cost the taxpayer $1.4billion per year, according to a recently published book.
By contrast, the British Royal Family costs less than $60million each year
When the President travels around the country on campaign, he is obliged to take Air Force One.
His party reimburses the taxpayer with the cost of a first-class air ticket per passenger – but this is far from the full cost to taxpayers.
It also provides a President running for re-election with a national transport network which is unavailable to his challenger.
Moreover, much of the money spent on Mr Obama’s family goes to perks such as entertainment and household expenses.
For example, the White House contains a movie theatre which is manned by projectionists 24 hours a day in case one of the family feels like a trip to the cinema.
And even the Obamas’ dog Bo costs the taxpayer thousands of dollars – his handler is reportedly paid over $100,000 a year.
Another huge presidential outgoing, according to Mr Gray, comes in the form of staff members who can be appointed by the commander-in-chief at his own personal discretion.
226 members of Mr Obama’s staff are apparently paid over $100,000 – and the President can increase their salaries at any time.
Pay Raises all around!
Party On!
““Fish rots from the head” means bad ideas affect the body.
This may be the body politic or body corporate or family.
This phrase underscores the importance of leadership. Who are the decision makers and what drives their decisions? “
I think there is a basic problem with organizations that depend on money that comes from basically begging. I think it would be a rare thing for them to NOT eventually regard other people’s money as rightfully theirs. When the funds come from a company, such as Ford, then the non-profit organization at least starts out with people who are aware that private industry had to create products and that was the real source of the wealth.
But eventually, as time goes on, you get to people who, although perhaps better educated, have an attitude exactly like that of the famous woman who was looking for her share of the Obamamoney from Obama’s stash. They think they have a right to Other People’s Money, whether from the great stash that Ford or Carnegie or Vanderbilt created long ago, or from just everyone in general.
Whether NPR or the Red Cross or the Ford Foundation, I think that inevitably such organizations become socialist in outlook, determined to acquire funds from other sources because they are “owed it” for the “good of all mankind” as well, of course, as their personal well being.
First, a hearty snovom godom to all Belmont Clubbers!
Second, I have resolved tin 2013 to be like Ike, who according to his son telling Dale Carnegie “never wastes a minute thinking about people he doesn’t like”. I suppose that should include the fanatics of the eternal Cold War/anti-Russia lobby, the fake Right infiltrators/Cointelpro whether real or wannabes, and of course the crazed gun grabbing globalists and their lefty foot soldiers/dupes. NGOistan whether heartfelt and hijacked or nasty from the word go is included in that company. Besides as BC learned with Whiskey everyone gets tired of a one-note pony after awhile.
Third the second resolution should be easier to keep as I’ll be too darn busy either prepping or getting ready to leave the U.S. to waste a second highlighting the minions of the traitors to the Republic and mindless trendies of both ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ who follow them to perdition. Suffice to say I’m grateful there are folks here like Subotai and others who understand what we’re up against and what to do if the day of evil comes, as the Book says.
A bit OT, but in light of post 66, seems like it’s worth a mention.
First of all, I was pleased to see esteemed BC commenter Subotai mentioned in his very own dedicated blog post on a different site:
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2012/12/subotai-bahadur-government-is-at-open.html
In light of his insightful comment, I’m sure most of you have seen the NYT editorial from the Georgetown law prof (supposedly a Con Law prof, no less) that is advocating discarding the Constitution. Am I the only one greatly disturbed by the fact that we are now at a point where open calls for fascism are printed in the “paper of record” in the United States? This isn’t just some kook with an op-ed printed in the Podunk Gazette. This reeks of battlespace preparation, and it makes me queasy. Troubles are close at hand.
Happy New Year, Belmont Clubbers! Thank you, Richard, for making 2012 so much richer and to all the Clubbers who contributed such wisdom and thought. Knight1
I’ve given up on becoming a billionaire, so I think I’ll try advising them on how to insure the wealth they leave behind does real, lasting good.
So many genuine ‘Captains of Industry’ leave their money to foundations that eventually morph into leftisi engines that would have horrified the founders of the feast.
SO: If you have a son; Buy him a pick-up with a good power washer in the back and tell him; “Theres the world boy, go get it.”
If a daughter; Buy her a commercial sewing machine and an ‘Encyclopedia of Fashion Through the Ages.’
THEN:
Find a villiage or hamlet, here or abroad, that has all of the human capital to prosper but lacks a key piece of infrastructure; a safe, stable water supply; a dock on the coast or river; a bridge to connect to the world; a sanitary sewer system; an eletrical supply; a dam and irrigation system;
And build it for them.
Don’t set up a trust, don’t leave grants, Build things.
I think it was Carnegie who said;
“It is a sin for a man to die rich.” He built libraries all over the US in small towns. No telling how many minds were watered at those wells.
Did someone say that President “Leading From Behind” Obama was wimpy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ6xBaZ92uA
Where’s Popeye when we need him?
Amnesty International was never what it seemed. Here’s an article by Claudio Véliz published on the May 2007 issue of Australia’s Quadrant magazine:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070629014542/http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/article_view.php?article_id=3400
Happy New Year
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200411803196645&set=a.1427794013853.2061142.1202892499&type=1&theater
The word ‘charity’ has a very precise meaning which is being abused all up and down this thread. If we understood what charity really meant, these questions would resolve themselves.
Charity is the third (and highest) of the three theological virtues, the other two being Faith and Hope. They are called “theological” virtues because 1) They have God as their object; and 2) They issue from God and are not possible without Him. Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, is the bearer of all authentic charity, which is the eternal love that exists between Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Jesus made this love available to us by his atoning sacrifice on the cross, which is communicated to us through the sacraments of the Church. A soul thus redeemed by God must in justice love God first and foremost, which of course includes accepting the entirety of revealed doctrine as it is preserved in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and obeying the precepts thereof, for charity is lost through eaach and every mortal sin. This soul, whose love for God exceeds all other objects, is motivated also to a love of neighbor, for God has also loved him. This love of neighbor is oriented primarily towards saving his neighbor’s soul through the exercise of the Seven Spiritual Works of Mercy:
1. To counsel the doubtful.
2. To instruct the ignorant.
3. To admonish sinners.
4. To comfort the afflicted.
5. To forgive offenses.
6. To bear patiently the troublesom.
7. To pray for the living and the dead.
This is real charity. Any so-called good work which does not have as its object that of bringing a neighbor closer to the Church of Christ, is not to be called charity. Yet because men have bodies as well as souls, and one must often care for the body as an aid to caring for the soul, the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy are also commanded, which are:
1. To feed the hungry.
2. To give drink to the thirsty.
3. To clothe the naked.
4. To shelter the needy.
5. To visit the sick.
6. To visit the imprisoned.
7. To bury the dead.
However, even the Corporal Works of Mercy must be situated within a context of saving souls, for to live eternally with God is the end for which man was created. Works which strengthen and fortify the body but are in themselves powerless to save the soul are of no help at all, for what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?
Now ‘charity’ as it is being used in this thread appears to be more a synonym for “institutionalized voluntary redistribution of goods and services,” which of course is not even to be mentioned in the same breath with the theological virtue of Charity. This is simply socialism, but socialism reduced to the scope and whims of an individual, or in other words what the modern American right-winger calls “liberty.”
So why do good causes go bad? Because there is no such thing as a good cause apart from Christ. There are no good ideologies, no worthy ideals. Idealism itself is the enemy of true religion, even when it attempts to do some “corporal work of mercy.” The Stoics, too, had their hospitals and their schools and orphanages, and they persecuted the Church of Christ.
76. Alexis: “Why aren’t the Masons being taken over by socialists?”
That’s a laugh, Alexis. The Masons are the original socialists.
Matt @ 90 – You seem very hung up on the concept of “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church”.
How do you reconcile that church with humans voluntarily working together to extinguish the “Hell Fires of Kuwait”? That was not the effort of any church, or even of people from the same organized religion. It was an example of obeying The Golden Rule. Humans using their FREEDOM to perform their DUTY under the terms of THE COVENANT OF THE WHITE CITY UPON THE HILL.
KEEPING THE FAITH.
For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.
The Masons were the original liberals*, Matt. Huge difference.
Of course, to some people, believing that the Church should not have absolute authority over every aspect of human existence is a bit “seditious”, isn’t it?
*in the original sense, not the corrupted, obscene, Spock-with-a-goatee alternate universe meaning the collectivists have given it.
We may say that they are idealist, but they are not. Their devotion is applied to thinking well of themselves, and that is an journey which has no finish line. It is safer to get between a wolf and a steak than an idealist and his opinion of himself. The unpaid idealist may stand to be corrected by experience, but the paid idealist is paid to be an idealist.
William Hazlitt
It is essential to the triumph of reform that it should never succeed.
H. L. Menchen
The urge to save humanity is almost always a subterfuge for the urge to rule it.
Some Happy New Year. Is this the year the Pubs finally sell out the Republic? I don’t think their thirty pieces of silver will be worth much in our new glorious Islamofascist state.
Remember, those who vote with the Fascists are Fascists themselves. Many just pretend to be something else.
MachiasPrivateer,
Please cf. the four distinguishing marks of the Church.
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2007/rknox_fourmarks_may07.asp
Wounded Warrior Project recently had a dust-up with the firearms industry. They are very willing to take money from firearms manufacturers as donations but they do not want to allow their logo to have anything to do with firearms or knife makers.
That has stirred the pot in the Second Amendment supporter communities. Tomorrow, I’m moving my monthly donation to another veterans group and have already boxed up a couple of expensive WWP Under Armor polos and will send them to my son. I don’t want to punish their support of the troops, but I for one will support a different group.
Some don’t see a connection between those “friendly” organizations(like WWP) who make their decisions based upon a PC attitude and the harm that that compliant stance does to many of our institutions, none the least are the First and Second Amendments. There are far too many Progressives trying to destroy the institutions of this country for me to stand pat and be ignorant of what these actions do to our collective freedoms.
It is too bad. Their commercials move me on a deeply emotinal level because of my investment into my “brothers and sisters” who gave so much in the sand box. I WILL find a good charity that supports MY values and freedoms. As for WWP,
“No longer.”
Who knew that charity could be so complicated? I thought that charity meant giving something without expecting anything in return.
Reading the comments it is obvious that I have been misled. Dang – first day of the new year and already I’m confused.
For Augustine, charity meant thinking the best of others rather than the worst, which is how it saves your soul.
It became money later.