The Way Life Should Be? Vol. XVII (Finale): Get Woke, Shoah Invoke
It’s a sad state of affairs when charity becomes weaponized, but here we are. It certainly wasn’t always this way—it was once an integral part of the old WASP establishment’s noblesse oblige to those less fortunate than they. As Alison Powell, Willa Seldon, and Nidhi Sahni write:
Throughout the 20th century, large US institutional foundations such as the multiple Carnegie foundations, the Ford Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation played an outsize role in philanthropy. By virtue of their large share of the philanthropic marketplace, these institutions were able to shape the thinking of policymakers, attract social innovators, and exert influence to bring together the private sector, government, and civil society. As a result, they played a vital role in underwriting social change: They helped to eradicate polio in the United States and then across most of the world; they provided 96 percent of Americans with easy access to free libraries; they helped to reduce smoking in the United States by more than 60 percent; and they promoted a “green revolution” that dramatically increased agricultural production.[1]
Certainly these magnates were not without fault by any stretch of the imagination, and a strong executive such as Teddy Roosevelt proved necessary to rein them in. There’s a lesson in that, an essential one, in that strong and responsible governance on behalf of the people and the environment is an essential counter-point to the all-consuming profit motive.
Our current government hasn’t the spine to curtail the cravenness and grotesque gluttony, the likes of which would’ve made the robber barons blush—for they are bought and sold, for one, and the true power brokers are not of the same Anglo-Saxon stock, for another. We have a government run by financial institutions and corporations for financial institutions and corporations; when it no longer serves its purpose, it will be discarded along with the country itself. As it stands, we have watched America become little more than an economic zone, a gigantic market, its founding stock the target of ultimate erasure through a mixture of malice and greed.
In Revolution from Above, Kerry Bolton extensively documents the bankrolling of feminism, “civil rights,” and other causes that have proven corrosive to the moral foundations of this country by foundations such as the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. As with virtually all of the philanthropic charities established by America’s old financial and industrial magnates, once the original benefactor had died, the foundation was co-opted to be re-fashioned in order to undermine the communities and society it was ostensibly there to help. These foundations are becoming obsolete in the 21st century, however, with the predominance of private equity and the private equity model.
The private equity model has actually been adopted by philanthropies to some degree, but what is far more prevalent is the treatment of philanthropic organizations as investments. Lobbying is such a dirty business and has such negative PR, but charity and philanthropy…well, that’s another story. That’s how big business can couch the importation of a new labor force in humanitarian terms. That’s how big capital and multi-nationals can super-charge their efforts to knock down borders, socially re-engineer entire populations, and even ethnically cleanse those populations proving to be reluctant or troublesome.
The rise of the private equity model is one way in which Jewish capital was able to effectively corral the old WASP establishment; the growth potential of private equity and its relative complexity could rapidly out-strip the resources of the extant American ruling class and first enfold and then subsume them into the burgeoning neo-liberal system. Not that the WASPs were entirely hoodwinked—they had plenty of willing collaborators to do their dirty work in the World Wars, transformative immigration, the erosion of civil liberties, et cetera. In terms of adapting to the new model, Jeffrey C. Walker catalogues:
Over time, larger, more professional private equity businesses emerged, with whom the wealthy families couldn’t compete. Instead, those families began to invest through the new PE funds. The PE industry then began offering funds specializing in particular industries (such as health care, tech, media, industrial, or consumer), geographies (including the United States, Europe, China, and Latin America), and deal sizes. Focused on pursuing higher rates of investment return, these specialized PE funds enjoyed [a] competitive advantage.[2]
Now here’s where things get interesting; returning to Walker:
Like PE funds, these philanthropic funds are focused on specific objectives—for example, the sustainable development goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations. Like PE funds, they are managed by experienced, knowledgeable leaders who can apply the most current knowledge of impactful program design to their investment decisions. And like PE funds, they allow wealthy families to channel their funds to a larger number of organizations than they could reach if they tried to seek out one well-run, effective nonprofit organization at a time.[3]
This is almost surely the primary reason that “social change” has accelerated so rapidly. Speaking at the 2017 Global Steering Group for Impact Investment Summit, Sir Ronald Cohen, an “impact investing innovator and advocate,” believes that the field’s rapid growth will reach a tipping point and “spark a chain reaction in impact creation,” touching investors, big business, foundations, and social organizations.[4] We are witnessing that already. Susan Wolf Ditkoff and Abe Grindle concur: “Many of today’s emerging large-scale philanthropists aspire to…audacious successes… Steady, linear progress isn’t enough; they demand disruptive, catalytic, systemic change—and in short order.” Recalling a number of sentiments discussed in the previous installment, from Bank of New York Mellon Wealth Management’s paper “From Philanthropy to Social Investment” (2018):
Demographic shifts are poised to bring about significant changes in the philanthropic market, and this evolution is being accelerated by the emergence of newer, more dynamic models for giving and changes to the U.S. tax code. It’s imperative for both institutions and the individuals they serve to recognize how these changes will affect their philanthropic endeavors and learn how to navigate them in the most efficient manner possible…The continued evolution of the philanthropic market…will have a profound effect on how we view giving—less as charity, and more as a social investment…As philanthropists come to think of themselves as social investors, non-profits must also redefine themselves as “for-purpose” institutions. This must be more than a rebranding. An effective for-purpose institution must…aid in identifying opportunities across the investment spectrum…A “social investor” will endeavor to compile a portfolio of solutions that draws from both the non- and for-profit worlds…According to the Global Impact Investing Network, measurable investments in impact vehicles reached $228 billion in 2016, equal to 55% of the traditional philanthropic market. These vehicles, which fall under the umbrella of “social finance,” do more than just pursue a positive societal or environmental impact; they also seek to offer a satisfactory financial return…To [younger givers], environmental, social and governance issues are intertwined with financial health and long-term, corporate sustainability.
To some degree, this last point may be a “life imitating art or art imitating life” question, but most likely these “younger givers” have been conditioned to hold this view and are simply reflecting the neo-liberal architecture back at itself. In any case, the ruling class has indeed made “environmental, social, and governance issues…intertwined with financial health and long-term, corporate sustainability.” This is precisely the problem, and it goes way beyond “Woke-washing” brands with the rainbow. It is social and political engineering on a global scale. The ability to “seed” money/investments globally has allowed for a synergistic effect which, provided the present architecture remains unchanged or worse is built upon and expanded, can only amplify the stated aims of globalization. Though Walker obviously believes this is a good thing, look past his glowing language to identify the strategy at play here, a strategy I’ve provided countless examples of regarding Maine in particular over previous pieces:
There are now philanthropic funds that focus on supporting great new ideas from top social and system entrepreneurs. This has been a core strategy of groups such as New Profit, Draper Richards Kaplan, Ashoka, and Echoing Green. New Profit, in particular, has been investing in social change for 20 years, and has supported the growth of nonprofits like Teach for America, Kipp Schools, and City Year. Much like venture capital funds, philanthropic funds like New Profit install staff members on the boards of the organizations they support, where they spend three to five years adding value through the counsel, management insights, and useful connections they provide.[5]
This is the essential framework of philanthropic capitalism. The vast network of organizations are linked by personnel, history, ideology, and financial aims and ties. The various charities and philanthropies do not view their works as good for its own sake—there is always an ulterior motive, and it always involves an economic component. Creating social disharmony among whites is also good, too. Regarding the former point, consider the Rise Fund’s calculations on social investment; their charity is filtered through an economic lens of GDP and return on investment: “In the malaria world…organizations can measure the return on dollars invested in mosquito bed nets against lowering health costs and increasing a country’s 10-year GDP. The result has been a 15-to-1 payback.” Saving lives is a nice by-product, but those lives translate into more workers and more consumers. As Chris Addy, Maya Chorengel, Mariah Collins, and Michael Etzel explicate:
The partnership between Rise Fund and Bridgespan Group has produced a forward-looking methodology to estimate…whether corporations or institutions can evaluate the projected return on an opportunity. We call our new metric the impact multiple of money (IMM). Once they have identified the target outcomes, social impact investors need to find an “anchor study” that robustly translates those outcomes into economic terms.[6]
As I discussed with Nestlé and SwissContact, this is not about “empowering women” or “marginalized communities,” it’s about training a semi-educated and compliant workforce who will readily buy from the company store. It really is that simple. The role of capital in this process is essential; Capital Impact Partners provides an illustrative example, in their own words (emphases are mine):
Capital Impact Partners has continued to invest in shared prosperity, equity, and inclusion for its communities nationwide. With income inequality, mass incarceration, wealth stripping, and other forms of structural discrimination continuing unabated, breaking barriers to success for underinvested communities has become ever more important. Capital Impact announced…financing and investment efforts…to serve more than 14,500 beneficiaries and create more than 515 permanent and construction-related jobs…Transforming marginalized communities into places of opportunity comes from disrupting structural racism and discrimination in order to expand economic and social justice…Capital Impact also took a leadership role in exploring how financial institutions can be more inclusive of individuals with criminal records…Capital Impact’s…financing…create[s] new educational opportunities and…safe spaces for immigrants to live in communities across the United States.[7]
Specific examples include:
- In Bridgeport, CT, Great Oaks Charter School is bringing high-quality education to a census tract with a 71 percent poverty rate. Eighty-six percent of the students who will attend the school qualify for free and reduced-price lunch…Capital Impact supported the construction of a 70,000 sq. ft. facility that will become the permanent home of Great Oaks Charter School…The school will scale up from serving 400 students in grades 6-9 to 750 students in grades 6-12, 15 percent of whom are English language learners and 20 percent of whom have disabilities. Great Oaks has…a focus on professional development for local students.
- Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools is creating a high school in Dumbo…The majority of the students are expected to be African American, 85 percent of whom will be eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, and 32 percent of the student population are going to receive special education at the school. Because of its proximity to technology companies in Dumbo, the school curriculum focuses heavily on technology.
- Creating schools that intentionally reflect the socioeconomic, racial, and cultural diversity of the communities in which they operate—diverse by design—is a promising practice within education that is showing results. Citizens of the World Charter Schools (CWC) is the first national school network to follow a diverse by design model, creating an environment in which all students thrive no matter their background, precisely because they are integrated. Diversity is a cornerstone of school leadership as well, with minorities making up 60 percent of the leadership team and 40 percent of the board.
- Tacoma Community House (TCH) in Tacoma, Washington…has seen an increasing number of farmworkers and refugees, resulting in a significant need for social and legal services…TCH is the only center providing comprehensive services to immigrants and refugees in the region. TCH serves immigrants from 105 countries – approximately 4,000 individuals each year. The majority of their clients are of Latino and Asian descent, with the remainder hailing from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Through partnerships with regional community colleges, businesses, housing providers, local health centers, and government offices, the center provides access to education programs for children and adults and job placement, internships, and training for job seekers. TCH also offers immigration services and advocacy.
Dovetailing with capital and “social justice” are the supports for the architecture of philanthropic capitalism, from the advocacy groups to the law firms. Add to the multitudinous alphabet soup of advocacy organizations the Alliance for Justice (AFJ); Edward Labaton, co-founder and President of the Institute for Law and Economic Policy (ILEP—introduced in Volume V), was honored by the AFJ as its 2015 Champion of Justice; what said “justice” looks like is the usual sentimentalized dreck readers will no doubt be well-familiar with at this point:
Immigration is baked into our DNA as a country. People from all over the world seek refuge and opportunity in America, and how we treat those who are new to our country says a lot about us as humans.
In conjunction with AFJ, a number of organizations co-signed a 2018 letter protesting several judicial appointments of judges who believe a non-Israeli country should have the right to police its borders. Included on the list of co-signing organizations were: the NAACP, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, MoveOn.org, CAIR, Rwandese Community Association of Maine, Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP), Maine Business Immigration Coalition, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), whose mission is:
To protect and promote the rights and opportunities of low income immigrants and their family members. NILC staff specialize in immigration law, and the employment and public benefits rights of immigrants. The Center conducts policy analysis and impact litigation and provides publications, technical advice, and trainings to a broad constituency of legal aid agencies, community groups, and pro bono attorneys.
All of this is designed to ensure that the influx of foreigners is not impeded; among their many uses to the neo-liberal order, Third World immigrants are a huge investment opportunity. Mission Investors Exchange says as much: “Venture capitalist investors, philanthropists, and businesses are looking at immigrants and refugees as opportunities for investment.” They then list some of the major players:
- Nuveen: Nuveen is a private investment manager that recently made an investment in an online-based remittance provider that focuses on channels in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. The goal is to invest in technology to lower the cost of remittance for migrant populations.
- NeedsList: NeedsList addresses the need for massive innovation in the humanitarian sector with a marketplace connecting local NGOs with individual and corporate donors.
- Refugee Investment Network (RIN): The RIN moves private capital from commitment to active investment by sourcing, structuring, and supporting the financing of projects and companies that benefit refugees and host communities. They are creating an investor-centered knowledge hub targeting business opportunities that support refugee self-reliance; building a pipeline of deals that will speed and scale private investment in communities of displaced people; and articulating investor needs to funders, governments, and the development community.
- Tent Foundation, or The Tent Partnership for Refugees: This foundation was established by Hamdi Ulukaya, founder and CEO of Chobani. The initiative, a partnership of over 80 businesses in over 30 countries, grew out of the Obama Administration’s appeal for the business community to engage more deeply with global refugee crises. In addition to sparking a $500 million investment commitment from George Soros, the appeal built a coalition of businesses expressing measurable commitments.
- George Soros and Open Society Foundations: Open Society Foundations founder and chair George Soros announced a pledge to invest up to $500 million in startups, established companies, and other businesses founded by migrants and refugees. The assets will be managed by Open Society Foundation and is in addition to its existing grant and program-related investments of the Foundations.
- Community Enterprise Development Services (CEDS): A nonprofit lender that provides business startup training and micro loans to immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs, as well as entrepreneurs who face barriers accessing traditional sources of capital.
- OpenInvest: This financial analysis and investing platform developed an investment screen allowing its customers to invest in the companies helping refugees. The company’s #WithRefugees Impact Investment Screen identified 21 public American companies making significant contributions to refugee survival and welfare.[8]
Mission Investors Exchange is a massive network of community foundations, public charities, private foundations, “impact investors,” law firms, investment advisors, asset managers, consultants, and community development financial institutions (CDFIs). Their aim is “to build an infrastructure that assures the sustainability of impact investing and expands [its] ecosystem.” Partnering or affiliate organizations include: the Boston Foundation, AARP Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, Deutsche Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the John T. Gorman Foundation, MetLife Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the Prudential Foundation, Nutter McClennan & Fish LLP, Community Development and Investment Group at Northern Trust, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, US Trust—Bank of America Private Wealth Management, Graystone Consulting, the Climate Trust, Bank of the West BNP Paribas Wealth Management, TD Bank, Solomon Hess Capital Management, Maycomb Capital, National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders, Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI), Cornerstone Capital, and the Omidyar Network.
The name Cornerstone Capital should ring a bell from Volume VI. Self-described “Jewish lesbian” founder and CEO Erika Karp penned an op-ed for Forbes in 2012 where she explicitly ties capitalism, globalism, “social justice,” and her ventures to Judaism, opening with a quote from Hillel and using it as a through-line, along with her Jewish identity—two themes which are echoed in another article by Karp from 2016, this time featured on Cornerstone’s own website. She states:
As we once again approach the Jewish High Holidays — “The Days of Awe” — we return to a theme we have touched upon before: the importance of amplifying the voices of progress…“The Days of Awe” could bring lessons to leverage the power of capitalism towards its best and highest purpose…In reflecting on the future of capitalism, we draw from wisdom of the great scholar Hillel…“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, then when?” These questions posed at around 50 BC are incredibly timely in the context of today’s struggling global economy and threats to our system of capitalism…All the pieces are in place to move forward and leverage the extraordinary power of capitalism on behalf of the entire world. We have everything we need across the broad realms of technology, science, academia, economics, government and finance…There are one thousand asset management firms representing $30 trillion in assets…These firms [are] all signatories of the Principles for Responsible Investment.[9]
The Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) was set in motion by then-United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.[10] It is an official UN-supported network of global capital, “based on the notion that environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, such as climate change and human rights, can affect the performance of investment portfolios and should therefore be considered alongside more traditional financial factors if investors are to properly fulfill their fiduciary duty. The six Principles provide a global framework for mainstream investors to consider these ESG issues.”[11] Just two years after Karp’s second piece, the PRI had swollen to almost $90 trillion in assets under management and rising.[12] For perspective, the annual global gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to be approximately $80 trillion, and the collective global wealth is about $360 trillion. In other words, one-quarter of the entire planet’s wealth is under the control of this particular international network of neo-liberal capitalists who are facilitating resource consolidation and speculation, mass migration into and erasure of white nations, moral and environmental degradation, and Jewish supremacy.
Karp has also been involved with the World Economic Forum (WEF), the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation “strengthened by a strategic partnership framework agreement with the United Nations.” David Wallace-Wells describes its annual summit as “an orgy of plutocratic comity.” Comprised of NGOs, supra-governmental organizations, venture capital firms, multi-national companies and banks, diplomats, academic institutions, and media figures, WEF is essentially the last word in neo-liberal globalism. Partner and affiliated organizations include: Nestlé, Soros Fund Management, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, Hess, Walmart, Visa, Verizon, Hewlett Packard, Deloitte, ING, Western Union, Tyson Foods, TD Bank, the Rise Fund, Toshiba, Coca-Cola, Silver Lake Partners, Pepsi, Prudential, Pfizer, S&P Global, Nasdaq, Nielsen, the New York Times, Polo Ralph Lauren, Procter & Gamble, NBC, the New York Stock Exchange, Novo Nordisk, Morgan Stanley, Nokia, MasterCard, Allianz, AIG, Alibaba, AT&T, Microsoft, Marriott International, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Goldman Sachs, Adobe, Advantage Partners, African Rainbow Minerals, Merck, Lloyds Banking Group, Kaiser Permanente, Liberty Global, State Grid Corporation of China, Saudi Telecom Group, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, JP Morgan, LinkedIn, Hyundai, IBM, Infosys, Guggenheim Partners, Gulf International Bank, Hydro Quebec, Huawei Technologies, HSBC, Google, Facebook, Heineken, General Electric, Hitachi, London-Heathrow Airport, Humana, HP, Ericsson, eBay, Dow, Humana, Emirates Group, Deutsche Bank, European Investment Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Dell, Discovery, Chevron, BP, BBVA, Citi, Cisco, Barclays, Bayer, the American Heart Association, Amazon, Bank of America, BlackRock, the Blackstone Group, Santander, Boeing, Booking.com, Credit Suisse, McKinsey, LUKOIL, PayPal, Thomson Reuters, UPS, Unilever, Anglo American, Investment Corporation of Dubai, Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, Bank Leumi Le-Israel, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, Bloomberg, the LEGO Company, Volvo, Anheuser-Busch, Volkswagen, Airbus Defense and Space, AARP, African Development Bank Group, Bain & Company, Expedia, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Iron Mountain, Investec, Ingka Group (includes IKEA), Levi Strauss, the Mayo Clinic, Scotiabank, Royal Dutch Shell, Royal Bank of Scotland, Stanley Black & Decker, Swarovski, African Export-Import Bank, Banco do Brasil, Prudential, Discovery, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, the State Bank of India, and Quest Diagnostics.
The future these entities are planning for us in what WEF calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution / Globalization 4.0 is one of unlimited mobility—ie, the mass movements of cheap labor/consumers and goods in the service of the neo-liberal economy. Ultimately, WEF and its affiliates such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) desire to “maximize…foreign direct investment on the economy, society and the environment” and increase “global economic interdependence.” These are central planks of its E15 Initiative, a partnership between WEF, ICTSD, WTO, UN, OECD, the Center for International Development at Harvard University, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Evian Group, Brussels European and Global Economic Laboratory (BRUEGEL), Chatham House, Climate Strategies, the Global Governance Programme, the European University Institute, the Graduate Institute of Geneva Centre for Trade and Economic Integration, the World Trade Institute, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (named after the first president of Germany’s Weimar Republic),[13] the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council, Peking University National School of Development, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, International Institute for Management Development (IMD) International Business School, Kommerskollegium National Board of Trade (a government agency in Sweden that answers to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs), Southern Voice (a network of over fifty think tanks from the Global South that actively supports the UN’s Agenda 2030), and the governments of Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Canada, and Switzerland. Major features of the E15 Initiative include:
- An emphasis on multi-lateral trade agreements styled after the Trans-Pacific Partnership that undermine national sovereignty and enforce a kind of “trade egalitarianism”
- An international appeals process to undermine existing bilateral trade agreements
- The removal of all tariffs by “developed countries” for imports from the Third World; near-removal of all other tariffs
- “Scale technical assistance from the International Monetary Fund or multilateral development banks to LDC sovereign debt issuers”
- Increase foreign aid from “developed countries” to the Third World
- “Mandate within the WTO the disclosure and phased prohibition of fossil fuel subsidies, according special and differential treatment to poorer developing countries”
- Create a system of global food stamps
- Emphasize blended finance or hybrid-model capitalism as the preferred method of development
- “Streamline processes and procedures related to visas and work permits and establish a plurilateral but open ‘innovation zone’…within which skilled researchers and technical personnel would be able to migrate freely for up to ten years”
- “Establish an Advisory Centre on International Investment Law to level the playing field for developing country governments that lack the legal expertise to defend themselves adequately in disputes, based on the model of the Advisory Centre on WTO Law” (read: standardize all economic systems to neo-liberalism)
- “Enhance local capacity to conform to global standards”
- “Develop norms for making regional and plurilateral agreements more inclusive”
- “Combining improvements in infrastructure, investment climate institutions and workforce skills with openness to foreign direct investment…Emphasize the facilitation rather than restriction of imports and inward foreign investment”
- Establish a global supply chain
- Mandate compliance with the Paris Climate Accord
- Institute export restrictions[14]
Despite using the usual wet cardboard euphemisms such as “sustainability” and “equity,” Karp’s brand of “social impact investing” is not predicated on making a positive impact or anything of the sort—it is about crippling the West and countries like Japan, exploiting the Third World, enforcing globalism, and putting a rainbow paintjob on the contemporary vehicle of Jewish supremacy while generating previously-unfathomable profits for a small coterie of oligarchs. Amy Bennett relates Karp’s rough outline of the Shape of Globalization to Come:
Far from simply catering to progressive individuals looking to “invest their values,” environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors provide critical insight into a company’s viability and long-term economic performance. It’s not ancillary analysis, it’s critical fundamentals. This realization…was a pivotal moment for Erika Karp and a key to success in developing a truly integrated research framework…“Economics is a wonderful way to think about, and put a framework around, social constructs,” says Erika…[Karp] established relationships in different areas of the capital markets—including corporations, non-governmental organizations, regulatory agencies, exchanges, wealth asset managers, investment banks, accountants and others (including the United Nations and the Clinton Global Initiative)… It all involves having a macro capital markets view. Erika notes it’s not about moving millions or even billions, but trillions of dollars towards impact, especially when considering ESG imperatives like climate change, women’s economic empowerment, animal welfare, education, ocean pollution, potable water and increasing broadband access. “To give you a sense, in 2017 maybe $400 billion of venture money was moved towards alternative energy. We need to move $1.5 trillion a year if we’re going to achieve anything like the COP 21 [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] objectives. And that’s just for alternative energy. If you can’t get the capital markets working and having money flow towards progress, we won’t be able to do it…We don’t think of ESG or impact investing as an asset class. We think it should be completely integral to the investing process.”…Donor advised funds and similar philanthropy-focused investment vehicles are critically important “portals” for wealth management clients to access impact investing, Karp adds. “We are seeing a transformation of traditional philanthropy strategies towards impact investing.”[15]
This transformation is all-encompassing and signals a full integration of disparate modes of investment with philanthropic endeavors and different modes of lobbying. Essentially, traditional notions of public versus private are out the window, with governments themselves part of the investment portfolio, so long as they serve as profitable vehicles and/or useful intermediaries. As it is, funneling huge funds through various philanthropic loopholes pads profits through tax exemptions and amplifies the ability of investors and big capital to influence the political process, as we will see below. The goal, as stated by Cornerstone Capital, is for “partnerships, integration of philanthropy into business strategies, and innovative types of investments, including impact-focused investments, [to] transform the traditional economy.”
The integrative approach promises mutual support and amplified profits, in addition to the financial interests and incentives already present in each sphere. For example, the VOLAGs (refugee re-settlement agencies) have already monetized migration through per-head payouts. For perspective, one of the smallest of these VOLAGs, the Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) and its subsidiaries received almost $21.9 million from federal, state, and local government grants in 2016 according to their own financial report on the condensed consolidated statement of activities. They have also received recent donations from the United Way, IKEA, HSBC Bank USA, the Wells Fargo Foundation, Capital One, BB&T, SunTrust Bank, Whole Foods, TD Bank, Susan G. Komen, Ethiopian Airlines, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, E*Trade, Bed Bath and Beyond, PNC, and Golden & Cohen, LLC. They’ve received Open Society and Tides money in the past as well as microloan funding from Citigroup. Further:
ECDC testified before Congress last year that the Unaccompanied Alien Children crisis could “lead to the demise of the refugee resettlement program as we know it.” This was primarily a funding concern…ECDC provides a wide variety of services to refugees, and is involved in other contractual services as well, for example Small Business Administration microloans for new minority businesses.[16]
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) does all of this and more, and has gone one step further in profiting off mass migration into the US—HIAS has an agreement under which it collects on loans given out by the International Office of Migration (“IOM”) to refugees. HIAS keeps 25% of the total amounts collected, and recognizes it as migrant loan processing fees and repayments revenue in the accompanying consolidated statements of activities. HIAS’s corporate partners include Airbnb, 3M, Starbucks, Marriott, and Sodexo. Surely there is no vested interest in having cheap labor by these companies. HIAS also received over $21 million from the US State Department in 2016 and over $3 million from the US Department of Health and Human Services.[17]
The VOLAGs are reinforced by the plethora of law firms, advocacy groups, and other charities that either profit directly from their services or indirectly as covert lobbying organizations, fronts or conduits for illicit financial dealings, and/or social engineering vehicles. ILEP is a perfect case-in-point (incidentally, all five of ILEP’s principal figures are Jews, including Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling donor Marc Gross). While this 501(c)(3) generally stays within the lines of symposia on class action lawsuits and the like, its innocuousness camouflages a deeply subversive agenda. Consider that in 2018, ILEP partnered with Loyola University-Chicago for a symposium on consumer protection that featured Barney Frank as its keynote speaker. Yes, that would be the nipples-protruding (very, very disrespectful) Jewish homosexual Barney Frank who:
Accept[ed] as a gift a round trip fight on a luxury jet from S. Donald Sussman of Paloma Partners, a hedge-fund manager who had previously received a $200 million federal bailout as a subsidiary of AIG. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank oversaw the dispersion of the bailout funds. Frank reported the cost of the 2009 flight from Maine to the Virgin Islands, estimated to be worth $30,000 each way, to Congress as worth only $1,500…Scandal is nothing new to Barney Frank. The Boston Globe asked him to resign in 1989 after it was revealed that he had fixed parking tickets for a male prostitute who was running a brothel out of his Dupont Circle condominium…While serving on the House Financial Services Committee, Frank consistently supported the expansion of questionable mortgage loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while his partner, Herb Moses, was an assistant director of Fannie Mae responsible for relaxing mortgage standards. This policy, of which Frank was a prime mover, led to the largest credit implosion in the history of civilization…Frank, who continued to promote dangerous credit expansionary policies throughout the Bush years, subsequently partnered with Sergio Pombo, who was an employee of the World Bank…Frank consistently reaped campaign money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as from various banks…As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank inserted a special provision into bailout legislation to grant $12 million in TARP funds for One United Bank, a bank connected to the husband of Rep. Maxine Waters.[18]
I’ve used the adjective “incestuous” to describe the ruling class before, and clearly with good reason.
Let’s consider one example of how an earlier version of the (still evolving/metastasizing) neo-liberal hybrid model was able to manufacture consensus for “gay rights issues,” which would prove the harbinger for the recent push toward “transgender rights” and the normalization of pedophilia and other disturbing trends no healthy society would ever tolerate:
After Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2003, the following year 11 states enacted amendments banning same-sex marriage, often by sweeping vote margins. Eager to put substantial funds behind the fight for marriage equality, major funders led by the Gill Foundation and the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund brought together more than two dozen LGBTQ leaders in 2005 to devise a common strategy. What emerged from this gathering became known as the “road map to victory,” which would create an electoral and public opinion infrastructure capable of winning and maintaining support for same-sex marriage, one state at a time. It identified 100 tangible battlefields that could then be pursued in sequence as part of a coordinated field operation…Funders came together as the Civil Marriage Collaborative to support the road map. The Haas, Jr. Fund itself contributed $39 million. Marriage equality was a classic example of using a big bet to wage an advocacy campaign. Here, the role of philanthropy is to take a risk that no one else will take. Such a big bet can provide the critical infrastructure required for movements: materials, people, transportation, legal services, research, and more. It can also represent a vote of confidence, especially when the odds against progress are high. When the Haas, Jr. Fund made its first contributions in support of marriage equality, momentum seemed to be going in the opposite direction, with more and more states amending their constitutions to ban same-sex marriage. Big investments in advocacy offer leaders the time they need to weather defeats and press forward to create change.[19]
The authors then go on to state that this model is being applied to “gun control,” which I have written about elsewhere (side note: this “philanthropic endeavor” is currently being spearheaded by Michael Bloomberg). Gay marriage was a sustained, coordinated, and well-funded campaign to manufacture an issue, wear the traditional institutions down, and ultimately impose an agenda through a combination of dubious legislation, judicial activism, bureaucratic machinations, executive fiat, media manipulation, academic indoctrination, mass marketing, and social pressure. Susan Wolf Ditkoff and Abe Grindle expand on the methods used to institutionalize the objectionable:
Tim Gill and other philanthropists who support LGBTQ rights demonstrated the importance of setting milestones. In the early 2000s, at the urging of movement leaders including attorney Evan Wolfson,[20] they began devoting considerable resources to the very specific objective of legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. For decades the movement had focused on the broad goal of “advancing LGBTQ rights,” and although that work continued, leaders hoped that a significant push on a concrete winnable milestone would more powerfully advance the larger cause. They further concentrated efforts on a targeted set of states in order to build momentum and lay the public and legal foundations for a national victory…The marriage equality movement struggled to connect with the general public as recently as 2008, even losing a well-funded ballot initiative in left-leaning California. In the aftermath of that and other setbacks, supportive philanthropists financed polling and focus groups to help movement leaders understand how to reframe the core message. The research revealed that many voters perceived the movement as driven primarily by same-sex couples’ desire for the government benefits and rights conferred by marriage—and they did not find that a gripping rationale. This insight was pivotal: The movement refocused its communications strategy on equality of love and commitment, arguing that “love is love”—a message that struck a chord. Victories piled up, culminating in the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage throughout the United States.[21]
These 501(c)(3)s serve a vital role in subversion under the guise of charity, among their many other functions, as we’ve seen. Additionally, many of these 501(c)(3)s such as HIAS have diverse investment portfolios that include mutual funds (HIAS also invests in the State of Israel government bonds). As Wesley B. Truitt informs, “A number of mutual funds feature investments that are socially responsible according to criteria advertised by the fund…The Timothy Plan fund avoids investing in companies whose practices are considered contrary to Judeo-Christian principles.” The 501(c)(3)s are often a valuable conduit and/or cover for major profit-making ventures. The ability of the 501(c)(3)s to then invest tax-exempt money in donor-advised funds (DAFs) is one major reason for their increasing popularity among investors. From the Ropes & Gray LLP document, “Beyond the Private Foundation” (March 2018):
With the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1969, private foundations were required to contend with many new regulatory requirements and restrictions…Subsequent rulings…confirmed the advantages of the DAF model. In 1987, the Internal Revenue Service lost its attempt to deny tax-exempt status to a public charity that existed almost exclusively to maintain DAFs and other donor-recommended charitable projects. Several years later, the Internal Revenue Service granted tax-exempt status to a non-profit organization established to maintain DAFs and affiliated with Fidelity Investments, namely, the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund. Since then, DAFs have flourished. In 2016, there were reported to be almost 285,000 DAF accounts holding assets worth nearly $85 billion.
Grants from donor-advised funds to charities increased almost 20 percent from 2016 to 2017, with the number of individual donor-advised funds growing a whopping 60.2 percent. Charitable assets increased 27.3 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P Index) rose by 18.4 percent, or over 400 points, in 2017.[22] Scholars have found that the “strongest predictor [of individual giving] is the S&P Index…a 100 point increase in the index is associated with a $1.7 billion increase in charitable deductions.” Roughly 60 percent of the contributions to donor-advised funds are non-cash assets such as publicly traded securities, closely held stock, real estate, and personal property.[23] Donor-advised funds are fast becoming the preferred method of choice for investors, though not the only one. More capital and other assets are also flowing through a variety of linked structures, such as LLCs and 501(c)(4)s in an increasingly inter-connected fashion. Alison Powell, Willa Seldon, and Nidhi Sahni explain:
Living donors are also increasingly willing to forgo the tax benefit of putting funds into a foundation and are embracing alternative legal structures that enable both for-profit investing and nonprofit giving, or giving to political donations and advocacy. These structures include limited-liability companies (LLCs, which allow for greater control of funds and stocks, diversity of investment options, and more privacy than a foundation) and the 501(c)(4) structure (which allows social welfare organizations to participate in political campaigns and lobbying while maintaining their nonprofit status). For example, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Omidyar Network, and the Emerson Collective (run by Laurene Powell Jobs) have all set up LLCs to allow for advocacy or impact investing. Even a more traditional institution, the Walton Family Foundation, has set up multiple 501(c)(4)s to support its focus areas.[24]
To tie these last few strands together, we must understand that from the destruction of social cohesion in Western countries to the swollen profits, the nexus of capital and control with philanthropy has triggered the exponential acceleration of globalization and is fast becoming the primary vehicle for a negative social and demographic sea change the likes of which we have never seen. The runaway worship of capital coupled with—and enabled by—the Judaization of society has produced these conditions, and only a radical reorientation back toward productive, substantive, sustainable, and ethnocentric values—not those built on speculation and the veneration of the alien and the dysgenic—can counter-act the destruction. One need look no further than Russia in the 1990s compared to Russia today. Imperfect, yes, but vastly improved.
The Jewishness of Karp and company is not incidental, nor is this some kind of novel outlier. The modern concept of DAFs can be traced back to the late nineteenth century, when the first federated charity, the Jewish Federation, was established in Boston. By the mid-1930s, donor-advised funds began to proliferate within the Jewish community and were usually housed at local Community Foundations and Jewish Federations. As previously evidenced, this remains central to the disbursal of funds, which inevitably come with strings attached. These Jewish Community Foundations are massively profitable in their own right, as Alyssa Ochs reports:
The year 2017 was yet another record-breaking year for the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles (JCFLA) because it gave the highest dollar amount in grants in the funder’s history—$100 million. Back in 2016, the funder gave $81 million, so this was a 23 percent increase. In 2015, the foundation and its donors made $96 million in grants, a 35 percent increase over $71 million the year before…We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Jewish giving is going strong and getting even stronger by the year. At the end of 2017, the foundation’s total charitable assets under management was $1.25 billion, which is a 14 percent increase from 2016. JCFLA opened 58 new donor advised funds just last year as well. Overall, the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles manages assets for over 1,300 families…Jewish donors who work through community foundations like this often have a very global perspective and give a lot of money to Israel and Jewish outreach areas in other parts of the world…Another trend that we’ve been noticing lately among Jewish foundations is an increasing willingness to support non-Jewish groups.[25]
We know this from our early investigation of Catholic Charities. There is also the matter of not just outsourced and internalized Jewishness, but the very essence of Judaism forming the back-bone of neo-liberal capital, as evidenced by Erika Karp’s own admission. What we are witnessing is the next stage in Judeo-neo-liberalism’s evolution; from “internationalism” and communism in the first half of the twentieth century—financed primarily by Jewish capitalists such as Olof Aschberg and Jacob Schiff in its early Soviet days and supported well into the 1950s as an extension of Judaism—to Cultural Bolshevism and the dawn of neo-liberalism in its second half, this third act is far more dangerous for its pervasiveness and intrusiveness, and the fact that an induced paralysis of government and consumer at best, an active facilitation of their own destruction at worst, gives the primary drivers carte blanche to act with impunity and steamroll what little resistance they presently encounter.
That said, the neo-liberal globalist system is also incredibly fragile and is largely built on a house of cards. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the golden gilding of the neo-liberal age is one or two hard shoves away from crashing to pieces. It requires constant maintenance, policing, and expansion to work, and may well collapse under its own weight in the absence of any powerful external force. With a firm grasp of the methods, institutions, actors, and aims in hand, though, the right entity or coalition may well be able to put the shambolic corpse down for good sooner rather than later, and construct a far more fair and natural system. To my mind, the end goal must be to allow for the self-determination of all peoples, respecting the environment and human bio-diversity so that all may have a healthy and happy homeland to call their own.
[1] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/reimagining_institutional_philanthropy
[2] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/attracting_greater_philanthropic_funding_the_private_equity_model
[3] Ibid.
[4] https://hbr.org/2019/01/calculating-the-value-of-impact-investing
[5] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/reimagining_institutional_philanthropy
[6] https://hbr.org/2019/01/calculating-the-value-of-impact-investing
[7] https://www.capitalimpact.org/2018-third-quarter-financing/
[8] https://missioninvestors.org/resources/foundations-and-others-investing-immigrants-migrants-and-refugees
[9] https://cornerstonecapinc.com/hillels-voice/
[10] Yes, this Annan: “Annan’s real legacy was to continue the trend of morphing the secretary-general’s administrative responsibilities into a symbolic role to justify jet-setting across the globe. He continued that in his retirement, flailing hopelessly in Syria (despite his organization’s huge budget), and bankrupting his own Global Humanitarian Forum through gross mismanagement. His son Kojo first used his father’s credentials to make a quick buck, and then took corruption to a new level, as his prominent feature in the Panama Papers.” https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/kofi-annan-represented-all-that-is-wrong-about-the-united-nations
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_for_Responsible_Investment
[12] https://www.unpri.org/annual-report-2018/how-we-work/the-pri-in-numbers
[13] “The FES was a section of the Social Democratic Education and Culture Organisation, and was banned along with the party itself in 1933 by the Nazis. In 1946, the FES was reinstituted at the founding assembly of the Socialist German Student Federation. In 1954, the FES was restructured into a charitable organisation ‘for the advancement of democratic education.’ This established the FES as an independent, self-contained institute. In addition to education programmes, the FES has also worked in the area of development aid since the 1960s. In this effort, it has supported democracy and freedom movements, for instance in the African National Congress (ANC), and played an important role in overcoming dictatorial regimes in Greece, Spain, and Portugal.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Ebert_Foundation
[14] http://www3.weforum.org/docs/E15/WEF_Full_Report_Strengthening_Global_Trade_Investment_System_21st_Century.pdf
[15] https://real-leaders.com/the-economics-of-sustainable-and-impact-investing/
[16] https://capitalresearch.org/article/refugee-resettlement-the-lucrative-business-of-serving-immigrants/
[17] https://www.hias.org/sites/default/files/hias_inc._12-31-2016_-_sf_fs_-_final_report.pdf
[18] https://www.wnd.com/2010/10/217209/
[19] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/becoming_big_bettable#sidebar1
[20] Jewish
[21] https://hbr.org/2017/09/audacious-philanthropy
[22] https://www.nptrust.org/reports/daf-report/
[23] Ibid.
[24] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/reimagining_institutional_philanthropy
[25] https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2018/9/14/two-jewish-foundation-trends-even-secular-groups-should-know-about
















