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from the nice-lab,-be-a-shame-if-funding-got-cut dept.
The Christian Science Monitor carried a fine article (Apr this year, but current for a long time) on how the super-rich buy their way out from criticism. In brief: donations not only to politicians but to NGO-es as well. Which leads the CSM worry that we are letting the democracy succumb to money. Some excerpts:
Other sources of funding are drying up. Research grants are waning. Funds for social services of churches and community groups are growing scarce. Legislatures are cutting back university funding. Appropriations for public television, the arts, museums, and libraries are being slashed
[...] So the presidents of universities, congregations, and think tanks, other nonprofits are now kissing wealthy posteriors as never before.
But that money often comes with strings.
When Comcast, for example, finances a nonprofit like the International Center for Law and Economics, the Center supports Comcast's proposed merger with Time Warner.
When the Charles Koch Foundation pledges $1.5 million to Florida State University's economics department, it stipulates that a Koch-appointed advisory committee will select professors and undertake annual evaluations.
The Koch brothers now fund 350 programs at over 250 colleges and universities across America. You can bet that funding doesn't underwrite research on inequality and environmental justice.
[...] A few weeks ago dozens of climate scientists and environmental groups asked that museums of science and natural history "cut all ties" with fossil fuel companies and philanthropists like the Koch brothers.
"When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions ... they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge," their statement said.
[...] Our democracy is directly threatened when the rich buy off politicians.
But no less dangerous is the quieter and more insidious buy-off of institutions democracy depends on to research, investigate, expose, and mobilize action against what is occurring.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:19PM
I'm pretty sure javidb actually thinks most of those things aren't just OK to push, he thinks they are true.
No, the only one I think is true is the one about assassinating my character. I'm a lousy guy with terrible character. The rest of it I disagree with, but I oppose using force to try to stop people from saying those things.
Tobacco is horrible and killed my grandmother and I personally live with serious respiratory ailments and can't stand the stuff. I think racism is abominable and I am extremely pro-minority and pro-immigration as well.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:00PM
So you believe climate change is a real thing - something that is an externality to the marketplace - but you don't want government to do anything about it?
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:43PM
So you believe climate change is a real thing - something that is an externality to the marketplace - but you don't want government to do anything about it?
Yes.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @11:01PM
You should put that in your sig so everyone will know exactly where you are coming from.
Here: "I believe climate change exists, that it is a problem that markets can not solve, and I don't want the government to do anything about it."
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Wednesday October 07 2015, @11:02PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @11:13PM
> My signature already nicely implies all of my political viewpoints in a single sentence.
Your political viewpoint is that you expect people to be mind readers?
Well, I did kind of get that from many of your other posts.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday October 08 2015, @08:32AM
Well said.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]