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c0lo writes:

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.

Original Submission