Human Events carried an article this week about a new book by Phil Kent called “Foundations of Betrayal: How the Super-Rich Undermine America.” The book is an expose of the donating habits of the very large foundations in America, and why they seem to give vastly more money to the causes of the Left than to those of the Right.
It seems the organizations that thrive off donations from these foundations have been busy shaking them down for years, much like what Jesse Jackson does, with threats of litigation if the foundations don’t pay up. It’s the political version of protection money–corporate blackmail.
How did things get this bad? Gizzi points out that investigations that were initially begun in Congress in the 1950’s seemed to get nowhere and provided no answers. Those investigations have never been revisited. Maybe it’s about time.
What’s needed is a reform of our judicial system that would make it extraordinarily difficult to sue these foundations where no tanglible harm has been committed. Politically-targeted litigation should be outlawed entirely. That alone would shut down a large part of the Liberal movement in America.
The needed reform is the adoption of a “loser pays” system. Every other western democracy in the world enjoys the benefits of this type of legal system. Other countries have been very successful at heading off meritless and fraudulent lawsuits designed to silence politcal opposition with costly legal attacks. In America thesebadly needed reforms are ferociously resisted by the Bar Association and the Legal Lobby simply because they are the ones who profit the most by such lawsuits. Read PointofLaw.com for more information. Brigham Young detested the practice of “Lawyercraft” for this very reason.
On an interesting side note, Gizzi noted that some of the World’s largest religious organizations have been snared in this little scheme. Gizzi writes:
…fueled by six-figure donations from the William and Flora Hewitt Foundation and similar sources, the National Council of Evangelicals now makes the case for global warming as much a cause as, say, the teaching of divine creationism as an alternative to evolution.
He goes on to say that the National Council of Churches, Jewish Life, and the U.S. Catholic Conference have collectively received more than $5 Milllion in the last 14 years for the purpose of preaching the environmentalist gospel to their congregations. Kent calls them “wolves in clerical garb taking their 30 pieces of silver from foundations and their shills.”
Mormons are often accused of preaching another Gospel, which the Bible forbids. Perhaps our Evangelical friends should look to the removal of the environmentally-friendly beam in their own eye.
