by Michael Barker
Swans - April 6, 2009

Continued from Part 1

10. Serving alongside Neil Kinnock as a vice president of the European Movement is John Pinder, who is an influential Federalist who formerly served as the chair of Federal Union, and as the president of the European Union of Federalists. Moreover, Edward Rawson, a current council member of the World Federalist Movement actually participated in the initial 1939 meeting that founded Federal Union. (back)

11. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation was founded in 2008 by Tony Blair, an individual who should be "tried for war crimes" according to the Nobel prize-winning playwright (and One World Action patron) Harold Pinter. Thus in an utter act of hypocrisy Blair's foundation states that it "aims to promote respect and understanding about the world's major religions and show how faith is a powerful force for good in the modern world." Given Blair's track record it seems more likely that his foundation will be working to ensure that the world's major religions defer to the power of capitalism (that is, financial plunders like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs International). This seems especially likely considering that soon after leaving the British government Blair became a part-time adviser to JPMorgan Chase, and started lecturing at the Yale Center for Faith & Culture (whose advisory board includes the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach, who formerly served as Margaret Thatcher's special advisor, and is a patron of the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust -- which was founded by "humanitarian" warrior Baroness Cox). Here it is significant that the Jewish member of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation's advisory council is Rabbi David Rosen, the director of the American Jewish Committee's Department for Interreligious Affairs, and an honorary president of the International Council of Christians and Jews. The sole patron of the latter group is Sir Sigmund Sternberg; while other honorary presidents, aside Rosen, include the likes of Richard von Weizsacker (who is the former president of the Federal Republic of Germany and a member of the Club of Budapest). (back)

12. Until her death in 2006, Kamla Chowdhry -- an individual who played an influential role in the development of the Earth Charter movement (see later) -- served as a trustee of the World Faiths Development Dialogue, and as a co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women. Here it is interesting that Blu Greenberg also serves as a co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women; this is because her husband, Rabbi Irving Greenberg is connected to the two "humanitarian" Jewish front groups that organized the cynical Save Darfur Coalition (he served as chairman of the US Holocaust Memorial Council from 2000 until 2002, and is a member of the American Jewish World Service's advisory board). (back)

13. For criticism of liberal philanthropy, see Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (State University of New York Press, 2003). Also see Michael Barker, "Do Capitalists Fund Revolutions? (Part 2)," ZNet, September 9, 2007. (back)

14. Global Alliances connection to George Bush is reinforced by two members of the group's eight-person-strong advisory board, Robert Macauley and Senator Gordon Humphrey -- who are both connected to AmeriCares, as founder and advisory committee member respectively. The Big Pharma front-group, AmeriCares, has an all-star "humanitarian" advisory committee that includes the like of Barbara Bush (wife of George H.W. Bush), Prescott Sheldon Bush, Jr. (the brother of George H.W. Bush), Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Elie Wiesel. (back)

15. In addition to serving as a co-chair of the State of the World Forum, Oscar Arias (who has been the president of Costa Rica since 2006) is a member of the Club of Budapest, and is connected to many other globalist projects, the most interesting of which is perhaps the Alliance for the New Humanity. Formed in 2003, the Alliance aims to "create an alliance of people based on the awareness of humanity's interconnectedness." They go on to note that they aim to create a "sustainable world, reflecting the unity of all humanity"; and observe believe that: "If enough people shift their awareness toward social justice, human rights, and environmental sustainability, then injustice, oppression, and the destruction of the ecosystem can be stopped." To get an idea of the type of "humanitarian" activists who sat alongside Arias on the founding board of the Alliance for the New Humanity one could do well to look to Deepak Chopra: an individual who according to Jeremy Carrette and Richard King is one of the world's leading proponents of "capitalist spirituality" and "ultimate 'feel-good' spirituality for the affluent." In their detailed critique of his work Carrette and King cite the work of Susan Bridle, and here it is worth quoting her criticisms at length to get an idea of the type of activities the alliance is engaged in. "Chopra promises that we can fulfil all our worldly desires, desires that the great wisdom traditions have repeatedly reminded us are the very source of endless suffering and ignorance -- desires for immortality, unlimited wealth and unending romance, all without having to struggle or make effort in any way.... Rather than recognizing spiritual transformation as an ultimately demanding endeavor, as taught by the greatest sages, Chopra popularises the notion of an easy, feel-good spirituality, with no mention of the perennial spiritual imperatives of renunciation and one-pointed dedication. And rather than emphasizing that true spiritual life is and has always been about the death of the ego, Chopra teaches us to bend the power of the infinite to our own will.... Chopra's brand of spirituality is like fast food; while it seems to satisfy, it actually numbs the very hunger that inspires the spiritual quest in the first place."

Jeremy Carrette and Richard King, Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion (Routledge, 2005), pp.150-3. (back)

16. With regard to two of the "most famous" spiritual centers, the Esalen Institute (located at Big Sur, California, United States) and Findhorn (based in northeast Scotland -- the Findhorn Foundation), Heelas noted that since its founding, "the emphasis [at Findhorn] has tended to shift from counter-cultural Self actualization to a more harmonial relationship with prosperity. ...Turning to the United States, Esalen, founded in the same year (1962) as Findhorn, appears to have followed much the same trajectory". For example, Heelas cites a 1990 Fortune magazine article that reported how Laurance Rockefeller donated "$250,000 to convert the Big House ... into a corporate retreat". (p. 65) Later Heelas writes how "material from a variety of sources (including interviews, magazine articles and TV programmes) strongly suggests that the New Age is -- in measure -- drawn upon to restore the self of the go-getting individualist." (p. 147) In later 2008 he argues that "To overemphasize the case, I now argue that by and large commodification does not matter (much)." Adding that such commodification "does not invalidate the point that non-capitalist counter-currents are operative." (p.210)

Paul Heelas, Spiritualities of Life: New Age Romanticism and Consumptive Capitalism (Blackwell Publishing, 2008). (back)

17. In addition to the aforementioned example of Deepak Chopra, other leading proponents of "spiritual capitalism" identified by Carrette and King are Osho Rajneesh, Jesper Kunde (author of Corporate Religion), Rene Carayol and David Firth (who co-wrote Corporate Voodoo) and John Grant (the author of The New Marketing Manifesto.) (p. 20) (back)

18. "One of the key thinkers to set the agenda for the psychology of religion was undoubtedly William James (1842-1910)," however, Carrette and King acknowledge that: "While James cannot be held responsible for the later utilisation of his thinking, the approach he adopted was captured by later generations enjoying the benefits of free-market spirituality, which celebrated the individual." They continue: "After James and the spiritualists, the focus on states of consciousness came to dominate the psychology of religion and paved the way for a spirituality of inner consciousness. James, of course, did not bring about this transformation single-handedly, it was the development of his work by his followers, such as James Pratt (1875-1944) and, more specifically, a later generation of scholars including Gordon Allport (1897-1967) and Abraham Maslow (1908-70), who propagated an individualised understanding of religion within North American culture. It would be wrong to assume that these thinkers deliberately developed a psychology of religion for capitalism. It is rather the case that their psychology emerged in a context of a North American economic climate that celebrated the individual pursuit of wealth. Psychological ideologies flourished in such conditions. Maslow's psychology, for instance, did not reflect the Two-Thirds World or the land of his parents in Eastern Europe. Rather, it was the psychology of an affluent society that could separate out a hierarchy of needs where 'spirituality' could be separated from the basic needs of finding food, shelter and water to live. The cumulative effect of this was the emergence of a religious experience tailored for wealthy individuals rather than for social justice." (pp. 69-71) (back)

19. It is also interesting to note that, Oldrich Cerny, Havel's former National Security Advisor (1990-93) serves as the Executive Director of the aforementioned Prague Security Studies Institute (see footnote #9).

For further progressive critiques of New Age spirituality, see Michael Parenti, Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America (St. Martin's Press, 1994), Chapter 2.

For one of the first conservative critiques of the New Age movement, see Constance Cumbey, The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow: The New Age Movement and our Coming Age of Barbarism (Huntington House Publishers, 1983); Cumbey recently observed that Pat Robertson's book, The New World Order, included "material evidently directly copied" from her own book (without citation). For a conservative book covering much of the same material I have presented in this article, see Lee Penn, False Dawn: The United Religions Initiative, Globalism, and the Quest for a One-World Religion (Sophia Perennis, 2005). (back)

20. Steve Bruce, "Secularization and the Impotence of Individualized Religion," Hedgehog Review, 8 (1-2): 35-45, 2006, p. 45 cited in Heelas, 2008, p.81. (back)

21. Two other Wisdom University faculty chairs whose background is of relevance to this article are Jean Houston and Rupert Sheldrake. Jean Houston, "one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement" (a movement's which counts William James as among one of its earliest exponents) and is Chair of Social Artistry, a field in which since 2004 she has been training leaders in developing countries for the U.N. Development Program. In 1975, Houston chaired the U.N. Temple of Understanding Conference of World Religious Leaders, and she presently serves on the (pp. 61-2) Likewise, Rupert Sheldrake, the Wisdom University Chair for Holistic Science, also serves on the World Commission's Global Council on Spirituality and Deep Ecology. I have critiqued the World Commission elsewhere, and in another separate article have examined some of the problems associated with Deep Ecology. (back)

22. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy, p. 285. (back)

23. According to his official online biography: "Dr Mack's efforts to bridge psychiatry and spirituality was compared by The New York Times to that of former Harvard professor William James. Dr. Mack advocated that Western culture requires a shift away from a purely materialist worldview -- which he believed was largely responsible for the Cold War, the global ecological crisis, ethnonationalism and regional conflict -- towards a transpersonal worldview which could embrace some elements of Eastern spiritual and philosophical traditions which hold that we are all connected to one another." In an interview carried out by Joe Eich-Bonni, Mack noted: "In the critical, scientific world I think that slowly there are clinicians coming to see these people -- and there are many types of anomalous experiences -- near death, telekinesis, hauntings; a whole realm of spooky paranormal and supernatural events that are increasingly being seen as part of the natural world -- as part of our basic reality. By avoiding [studying these anomalous events] we do endless harm to our planet. In a sense we have rid the planet of the entire spirit world and thereby have turned the whole earth into a marketplace of resources to be commandeered by the more aggressive among us."

For an unrelated albeit interesting critique of William James, see Alex Carey, "Reshaping the Truth: Pragmatists and Propagandists in America," Meanjin Quarterly, 35 (4), 1976, pp. 370-78. (back)

24. Criticism of the validity of such other-worldly research is outside the scope of this article. However, it should be noted that the promotion of these ideas by elite funders serves to distract attention from the real corporate powerbrokers. Indeed, many people who are distrustful of their government (and elites more generally) spend years of their lives engaged in extraterrestrial research (or readings) often to the neglect of the terrestrial realm and worldly geopolitics -- that is, the events they can actually influence (physically not just metaphysically). (back)

25. Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom (Cheshire Books, 1982), p.333. (back)

26. Barber is also the founder and president emeritus of 2020 Vision, "a US grassroots organization with 30,000 members that educates and mobilizes citizens on US environment and military policy issues." The chair of 2020 Vision's board of directors is Robert Musil, who is also a board member of Population Connection -- a controversial group that was formerly known as Zero Population Growth. Furthermore, another 2020 Vision board member, Deron Lovaas, formerly managed Zero Population Growth's sprawl educational outreach program. Liberal foundations that support the work of 2020 Vision include the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. (back)

27. The World Future Council's director of research, Herbert Girardet, has since 1994 been chairman of the Schumacher Society (UK), and presently also serves on the advisory board of Pro-Natura International (alongside elite conservationist Thomas Lovejoy) and the Earth Charter International (see footnote #38). Girardet's first major environmental project was undertaken with self-sufficiency guru John Seymour, and after three years they produced a BBC series and the book Far From Paradise (BBC Publications, 1986), which examined the history of human impact on the environment. The following year they both co-authored Blueprint for a Green Planet (Dorling Kindersley, 1987), which Girardet recalls was "one of the first books emphasising personal responsibility for countering environmental destruction through green consumerism." Given the natural sympathies of free-market environmentalism and the green consumerism propagated by this book, it is fitting to note that Girardet observed how the "publishers refused to include our final chapter, which linked personal decisions and the need for collective action." (back)

28. Two World Future Council personalities are members of the Club of Budapest, (Riane Eisler and Bianca Jagger), while other notable Council personalities include Olivier Giscard d'Estaing (who is the chairperson of the Committee for a World Parliament and a former president of France), Ashok Khosla (who serves on the executive committee of the Club of Rome, and is a founding board member of the Alliance for the New Humanity -- see footnote #15), David Krieger (who is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation), Rama Mani (who is an advisor to the Global Center for the Responsibilty to Protect), and Anders Wijkman (who is the president of GLOBE EU, and serves as the chair of E-Parliament -- a group that World Future Council board chair Jakob von Uexkull provides financial support to). (back)

29. The Web site of the Fund for Constitutional Government notes that they presently support or serve as a "fiscal sponsor" for the following four projects: 1) Electronic Privacy Information Center; 2) Open The Government; 3) Project on Government Oversight; and 4) the Government Accountability Project. Needless to say there is a large degree of overlap between the board members of these four projects and that of the Fund for Constitutional Government.

• Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), also serves as the chair of a group called Privacy International, which was founded in 1990 by EPIC Senior Fellow Simon Davies. Here it is notable that fellow free speech advocate Noam Chomsky serves on the international advisory board of Privacy International. Of course, Chomsky is entitled to support causes that promote privacy, but he might reconsider uncritically allying himself alongside such groups that have clear connections to global democracy-manipulators.

• The head of Open The Government, Patrice McDermott, came to this position after serving as the deputy director of the Office of Government Relations for the American Library Association -- an association whose former president, Nancy Kranich, is the treasurer of both the aforementioned Center for National Security Studies and the National Security Archive. However, before working in this position at the American Library Association McDermott served for eight years as the senior information policy analyst for OMB Watch. The vice chair of OMB Watch, Ellen Miller, is the co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, and like Anne Zill is a board member of Earth Action.

• The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has a number of interesting environmental connections as David Hunter, the chair of their board is also a board member of EarthRights International (a group whose Secretary is linked to those "humanitarian" warriors calling for an intervention in Darfur), while another POGO board member, Lisa Baumgartner Bonds, formerly served as vice president for communications for the free-market environmental group the World Wildlife Fund.

Finally, the most notable connection of the Government Accountability Project is their tie to One World Trust (which was formed in 1951 as the "charitable arm" of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on World Government) -- which lists them alongside groups like the World Federalist Movement and George Soros's Open Society Institute as one of their partner organizations. (back)

30. Given the Charles Steward Mott Foundation's tie to the National Endowment for Democracy it is noteworthy that Anne Zill is a board member of Women for Women International, a group that in 2003 obtained a single grant from the Endowment to promote (rather manipulate) democracy in Iraq. (back)

31. Ellen Miller is the co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, a philanthropic body that aims to support groups that highlight government corruption. Miller is the vice-chair of OMB Watch -- a group that "was formed in 1983 to lift the veil of secrecy shrouding the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB)" and is funded by numerous liberal foundations including the Ford Foundation, the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust, and the Open Society Institute. Heather Hamilton a former manager of the Community Education Center at OMB Watch recently served as executive vice president of Citizens for Global Solutions. Ellen Miller is also a board member of another reformist Ford Foundation funded nonprofit called Center for Responsive Politics. (back)

32. Liberal foundations have quietly insinuated their way into the heart of the global social justice movement, and played a key role in founding the World Social Forum (WSF). As a result of the lack of critical inquiry in to the influence of liberal philanthropy on progressive organizations it is not surprising that, when critiques of the WSF are made, they tend to be met with a resounding silence by progressive activists and their media (most of which have been founded and funded by liberal foundations).

Writing in 2007 in a special issue of the journal Critical Sociology, the Research Unit for Political Economy astutely observes, the WSF "constitutes an important intervention by foundations in social movements internationally" because (1) many of the NGO's attending the WSF obtain state and/or foundation funding, and (2) "the WSF's material base -- the funding for its activity -- is heavily dependent on foundations." It is perhaps stating the obvious to note that more attention should be paid to such important critiques; however, if further critical investigations then determined that such claims were unsubstantiated then the WSF could only be strengthened. On the other hand, if activists collectively decided that the receipt of liberal foundation funding is problematic -- as happened at the 2004 WSF in Mumbai -- then further steps must be immediately taken to address the issue.

While Jackie Smith is loathe to personally mention the detrimental impact of liberal foundations on progressive social change, in a book she edited with Joe Bandy (in 2005), they include a chapter by Daniel Faber that explores this subject in depth. He writes: "Foundation support plays a fundamental role in sustaining the environmental movement. It is estimated that 5.4 percent, or $1.23 billion, of total foundation giving ($22.8 billion) went to the environment in 1999. The bulk of foundation funding, however, goes to a handful of the more politically moderate national environmental organizations. ... In short, the foundation community is throwing its financial weight behind a sector of the movement governed largely by white, middle- to upper-class advocacy organizations without active memberships." Faber then continues by observing that: "In contrast, the foundation community as a whole neglects environmental justice. In fact, given the high number of organizations and the large size of the constituencies being served, the environmental justice movement is currently one of the most underfunded major social movements in the country." However, rather than counsel environmental groups to remedy this problem by seeking more support from the public (rather than elite foundations), Faber maintains that: "The long-term success of the ecology movement in general, and EJM in particular, depends on the reorientation of foundation priorities to support grassroots organizing and base-building strategies that democratically incorporate people into problem solving around the social and environmental ills that plague communities." Consequently given his resignation to the need for foundation support, Faber concludes by observing how: "The recent creation of the progressive-oriented Funders Network on Trade and Globalization and other foundation entities is beginning to address the disparities and assist the EJM in developing these capacities." How progressive the Funders Network on Trade and Globalization is from regular liberal foundation is debatable considering that it is a project of the Rockefeller Family Fund's Environmental Grantmakers Association, and has a steering committee which is home to representatives from the major liberal foundations, i.e., Lisa Jordan, who is the deputy director of the Global and Civil Society Unit at the Ford Foundation.

Research Unit for Political Economy, "Foundations and Mass Movements: The Case of the World Social Forum," Critical Sociology, 33 (3), 2007, p. 506. Also see their earlier report, "The Economics and Politics of the World Social Forum: Lessons for the Struggle against 'Globalisation'," Aspects of India's Economy, September 2003; Daniel Faber, "Building a Transnational Environmental Justice Movement: Obstacles and Opportunities in the Age of Globalization," in Joe Bandy and Jackie Smith (eds.), Coalitions Across Borders: Negotiating Difference and Unity in Transnational Struggles Against Neoliberalism (Roman & Littlefield, 2005), pp. 51-2. (back)

33. Intriguingly, in 1955 Immanuel Wallerstein obtained a Ford Foundation African Fellowship to complete "a dissertation that would compare the Gold Coast (Ghana) and the Ivory Coast in terms of the role voluntary associations played in the rise of the nationalist movements in the two countries." Furthermore, it is interesting that Wallerstein's work was strongly influenced by the French historian Fernand Braudel, whose own research was well supported by the Ford Foundation funding. These connections certainly deserve closer scrutiny, especially considering the strong historic ties that exist between the Ford Foundation and US foreign policy elites. Indeed, now that more is known about the close alliances that existed between the leading liberal foundations and the CIA it would be interesting to revisit previous critiques of Wallerstein's theories. For example, in 1981 James Petras penned "Dependency and World System Theory: A Critique and New Directions," Latin American Perspectives, 8 (3-4), 1981, pp. 148-155. In recent years, Petras has subjected the work of leading Leftist academics (including Wallerstein) to criticism, see his 2003 article "The Responsibility of the Intellectuals: Cuba, the U.S. and Human Rights." (back)

34. Smith and Karides write: "Although some scholars and activists contend that global democracy requires the abolition of global governance institutions, others call for restructuring them, and possibly even forming a true world government in order to regulate the international economy so that it better responds to public needs. ... While there have been a number of criticisms made of the WSF by activists, many see the WSF as an important instrument for preparing the public to participate actively within, and influence the decisions of, such institutions. ... Heikki Patomaki and Teivo Teivainen suggest that the WSF 'forms a loosely defined party of opinion' from which global parties could emerge and wield influence on world politics. Desire to create a more democratic global political economy could lead to greater support for global party formation at the WSF, despite many activists' reservations about political parties."

Later they report that: "According to the survey of participants at the 2005 WSF, the majority of respondents (68 percent) think that a democratic world government would be a good idea, although only 29 percent of these think this is actually plausible." That said, they note how "although there is strong support for creating democratic global governance institutions among WSF participants, most activists prioritized local strategies for social change over global ones. Sixty percent of all survey respondents indicated that the best approach to solving the problems created by global capitalism was to strengthen local communities, rather than strengthening nation-states or creating democratic global institutions." Smith and Karides, Global Democracy and the World Social Forums, p. 76, 89, 125. (back)

35. Joan Roelofs, "Foundations and Collaboration," Critical Sociology, 33, 2007, p. 502. (back)

36. At this meeting John Hoyt was representing Earth Charter in the United States. (back)

37. With Mikhail Gorbachev acting as its founding president, Green Cross International was launched in April 1993. Green Cross's current president and CEO, Alexander Likhotal, had previously worked at the Gorbachev Foundation as their international and media director. Another notable member of Green Cross's five-person-strong board of directors is the former president and prime minister of Portugal, Mario Soares, who is also a former president of the European Movement, serves as an honorary president of Socialist International, and sits on the international advisory committee of the NED's Journal of Democracy. Honorary board members of Green Cross represent environment elites from across the world, but their US representatives include Diane Meyer Simon (see next), the actor Robert Redford (who is a trustee of the free-market Natural Resources Defense Council), media mogul Ted Turner, and the former CEO of PBS, Pat Mitchell (who is presently a board member of two NED-connected groups, Human Rights Watch and Internews). Mitchell also served as the founding president of Global Green USA (the American Arm of Green Cross International), while Diane Meyer Simon also helped found this group and is currently their president emerita. In addition, Global Green USA includes a highly regarded Hollywood celebrity on their board, Leonardo DiCaprio, and so it is fitting that like Redford, DiCaprio is a trustee of the elitist Natural Resources Defense Council.

Maurice Strong's Earth Council (US) was founded in 1990, and their current president is Jan Hartke, who also acts as the chair of the Earth Restoration Corps (which is run by Maurice's wife, Hanne Strong). On top of this, Hartke is the executive director of EarthVoice -- which is an affiliate of the Humane Society of the U.S. -- which was launched in 1991 by John Hoyt (who then served as president of the Human Society). Hoyt presently serves as vice-chair of Earth Restoration Corps, and is a commissioner of Earth Charter International. For further critical information on Humane Society board member David Jhirad, who also happens to be the vice president of Earth Council, see "Jane Goodall's Elite Monkey Business." (back)

38. Earth Charter International's council has three co-chairs: Steven Rockefeller (United States), Razeena Wagiet (South Africa), and Brendan Mackey (Australia). The son of the former vice president of the United States, Nelson Rockefeller, Steven Rockefeller is professor emeritus of religion at Middlebury College, and has served as a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for twenty-five years (chairing the Fund's board of trustees from 1998 to 2006). Steven is also a member of the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality's Global Council on Planetary Ethics and Values, which is home to notables like Ervin Laszlo and Vaclav Havel. The other two co-chairs of the Earth Charter council, like Steven, have similarly elitist backgrounds, as Wagiet has previously worked for WWF South Africa, and thereafter was "appointed as environmental adviser to the previous National Minister of Education, Professor Kader Asmal for four years (1999-2003)"; while Mackey co-chairs the World Conservation Union Ethics Specialist Group. For further critical information on such "environmental" group see "The Philanthropic Roots of Corporate Environmentalism." (back)

39. This section draws upon William I. Robinson's recent lecture, "The Crisis of Global Capitalism," January 28, 2009, The University of California, Santa Barbara. In the online lecture, the five alternative scenarios for possible responses to the current crisis are discussed from minutes 38 until 53. (back)

40. Robinson notes: "A forth response to the global crisis, and again I am not saying this is taking place, and this is not predictive, is what I call a 21st century fascism. The confusion here when I raised this in discussion with colleagues and with critics is that when I say the term fascism they imagine that it has to look like 20th century fascism... We don't go backwards in history, we are not going to see a new Nazism or Mussolinism: 21st century fascism would look very different, it is already looking very different where there are signs of this as a response as a project...The need for widespread organized systems of social control gives an impulse to the fascist response to this crisis."

For further discussion of the threat of fascism, see Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America (South End Press, 1980); Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (City Light Books, 1997); Chris Hedges, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (Free Press, 2007). For a conservative critique of fascism, see Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (Doubleday, 2008). (back)

41. Here it is important to recall the critical role that liberal foundations played in formulating the initial "New Deal." Joan Roelofs writes: "A major social analysis and program for reform, Recent Social Trends in the United States, was published in 1933 (President's Research Committee), initiated by President Hoover, organized by the SSRC, and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. It advocated metropolitan government and regional planning to replace obsolete local government structures, and new governance institutions, such as quasi-governmental and mixed public-private corporations. Economic and social planning was proposed to cure the Depression, and the Social Science Research Council was deemed the appropriate planning institution. The 'New Deal' was largely created with such help, although '... Roosevelt preferred to conceal the fact that so many of his major advisers on policy and some of his major programmes [sic] in social reform were the result of support by one or more of the private foundations ...'" Joan Roelofs, "Foundations and Collaboration," Critical Sociology, 33, 2007, pp. 492-3.

Similarly, the new "New Deal" that William I. Robinson refers to is likely to be influenced by so-called "green Keynesianism." This green Keynesianism is currently being promoted by the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress and the British-based New Economics Foundation -- the group that "led the first Other Economic Summit -- a fore-runner to the World Social Forum." Noted eco-socialist, John Bellamy Foster is critical of such endeavours and he says that his "take on green Keynesianism is that it is much too limited in nature, and too technologically driven, to constitute the nucleus of a full economic recovery. In fact, we are faced with a deep, long-lasting problem of economic stagnation and the crisis of financialization, as discussed in The Great Financial Crisis, which Keynesianism by its nature can do little to address... [W]hat is currently needed is not an economic recovery plan or faster economic growth, but an ecological revolution. This would necessarily be a social revolution, on a far more massive scale than anything yet imagined."