[CTRL] Multiculturalism and the Ruling Elite

2001-06-09 Thread Yardbird

-Caveat Lector-

Multiculturalism and the Ruling Elite -- by Daniel Brandt

Opportunity is rapidly vanishing, poorly masked by an institutionalized preference for 
diversity. Leftist academics in ivory towers are hooked on designer victimology but 
fail to notice the real victims -- the entire next generation. Meanwhile the rich get 
richer. Have a nice New World Order. _

 Anyone who follows today's academic debates on multiculturalism, and by happenstance 
is also familiar with the power-structure research that engaged students in the 
sixties and early seventies, is struck by that old truism: the only thing history 
teaches us is that no one learns from history. By now it's even embarrassing, perhaps 
because of our soundbite culture. Not only must each generation painstakingly relearn, 
by trial and error, everything learned by the previous generation, but it's beginning 
to appear that we have to relearn ourselves that which we knew a scant twenty years 
earlier. The debate over diversity is one example of this.

 Researchers in the sixties discovered that the ruling elites of the West mastered the 
techniques of multiculturalism at the onset of the Cold War, and employed them time 
and again to counter the perceived threat from communism. The Congress for Cultural 
Freedom (CCF) was funded first by the CIA and then, after this was exposed in 1967, by 
the Ford Foundation. CCF created magazines, published books, and conducted conferences 
throughout the world, in an effort to wean intellectuals to democratic liberalism.[1]

 The CIA was also busy in Africa. In an article titled "The CIA as an Equal 
Opportunity Employer" that first appeared in 1969 in Ramparts and was reprinted in the 
Black Panther newspaper and elsewhere, members from the Africa Research Group 
presented convincing evidence that "the CIA has promoted black cultural nationalism to 
reinforce neo-colonialism in Africa." In their introduction they added that "activists 
in the black colony within the United States can easily see the relevance to their own 
situation; in many cases the same techniques and occasionally the same individuals are 
used to control the political implications of Afro-American culture."[2]

 But this is lost history, found today only on dusty library shelves or buried in 
obscure databases. None of it is mentioned in the current debate over diversity, not 
even in one of the most lucid essays, an opinion piece by David Rieff that appeared in 
a recent Harper's.[3] Rieff paints a picture of multiculturalism and shows, in broad 
strokes, how multiculturalism serves capitalism. To appreciate the significance of 
multiculturalism we must, as Rieff does, look at the academic arguments from someplace 
in the real world, or at least from off campus. But we must also be aware of our own 
historical legacy: psychological warfare and the secret state, the mass media and the 
culture of spectacle, the role of foundations, and above all, the interests and 
techniques of the elite globalists who won the Cold War.

 From the time that this war began in 1947, the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller 
Foundations, in cooperation with the CIA, began funding programs at major U.S. 
universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Columbia. They began with an emphasis on 
Russian studies, but by the mid-1960s these three foundations and the CIA had a 
near-monopoly on all international studies in the U.S.[4] This phenomenon, a 
big-money, top-down affair born out of strategic considerations, is the precursor of 
today's academic multiculturalism.

 Some defenders of academic diversity pretend that the elitist shoe is on the other 
foot, and note that their critics are funded by certain conservative foundations. Sara 
Diamond tracks the Olin Foundation and Smith-Richardson money behind Dinesh D'Souza 
and the National Association of Scholars (NAS), two of the more vocal critics of 
multiculturalism.[5] Diamond points out that the Smith-Richardson Foundation has its 
own CIA connections, even though they pale in significance alongside the Carnegie - 
Ford - Rockefeller nexus. But Diamond's major error is in framing her arguments in 
terms of right and left. This allows the real dynamics to escape her field of vision.

 The ruling elite that finds diversity useful is an elite operating at a level which 
transcends right and left. While there is an ideological right that is battling the 
left, and while they do enjoy funding from other conservatives, these folks are not 
the problem because they do not have substantial power. Nothing shows this better than 
the fact that this ideological right has always been as concerned as the left over the 
real source of power, the elite globalists. This began with the Reece Committee on the 
role of foundations in 1954, continued through the 1960s with the John Birch Society's 
attacks on the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and later on the Trilateral 
Commission, and continues today with Pat Robertso

[CTRL] Multiculturalism and the Ruling Elite

2002-11-17 Thread William Shannon
-Caveat Lector-
http://www.bankindex.com/read.asp?ID=1458



Multiculturalism and the Ruling Elite   
By Daniel Brandt 

Opportunity is rapidly vanishing, poorly masked by an institutionalized 
preference for diversity. Leftist academics in ivory towers are hooked on 
designer victimology but fail to notice the real victims -- the entire next generation. Meanwhile the rich get richer. 
Have a nice New World Order.

Anyone who follows today's academic debates on multiculturalism, and by happenstance is also familiar with the power-structure research that engaged students in the sixties and early seventies, is struck by that old truism: the only thing history teaches us is that no one learns from history. By now it's even embarrassing, perhaps because of our soundbite culture. Not only must each generation painstakingly relearn, by trial and error, everything learned by the previous generation, but it's beginning to appear that we have to relearn ourselves that which we knew a scant twenty years earlier. The debate over diversity is one example of this. 

Researchers in the sixties discovered that the ruling elites of the West mastered the techniques of multiculturalism at the onset of the Cold War, and employed them time and again to counter the perceived threat from communism. The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was funded first by the CIA and then, after this was exposed in 1967, by the Ford Foundation. CCF created magazines, published books, and conducted conferences throughout the world, in an effort to wean intellectuals to democratic liberalism.[1] 

The CIA was also busy in Africa. In an article titled "The CIA as an Equal Opportunity Employer" that first appeared in 1969 in Ramparts and was reprinted in the Black Panther newspaper and elsewhere, members from the Africa Research Group presented convincing evidence that "the CIA has promoted black cultural nationalism to reinforce neo-colonialism in Africa." In their introduction they added that "activists n the black colony within the United States can easily see the relevance to their own situation; in many cases the same techniques and occasionally the same individuals are used to control the political implications of Afro - American culture."[2] 

But this is lost history, found today only on dusty library shelves or buried in obscure databases. None of it is mentioned in the current debate over diversity, not even in one of the most lucid essays, an opinion piece by David Rieff that appeared in a recent Harper's.[3] Rieff paints a picture of multiculturalism and shows, in broad strokes, how multiculturalism serves capitalism. To appreciate the significance of multiculturalism we must, as Rieff does, look at the academic arguments from someplace in the real world, or at least from off campus. But we must also be aware of our own historical legacy: psychological warfare and the secret state, the mass media and the culture of spectacle, the role of foundations, and above all, the interests and techniques of the elite globalists who won the Cold War. 

>From the time that this war began in 1947, the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations, in cooperation with the CIA, began funding programs at major U.S. universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Columbia. They began with an emphasis on Russian studies, but by the mid-1960s these three foundations and the CIA had a near-monopoly on all international studies in the U.S.[4] This phenomenon, a big-money, top-down affair born out of strategic considerations, is the precursor of today's academic multiculturalism. 

Some defenders of academic diversity pretend that the elitist shoe is on the other foot, and note that their critics are funded by certain conservative foundations. Sara Diamond tracks the Olin Foundation and Smith-Richardson money behind Dinesh D'Souza and the National Association of Scholars (NAS), two of the more vocal critics of multiculturalism.[5] Diamond points out that the Smith-Richardson Foundation has its own CIAconnections, even though they pale in significance alongside the Carnegie - Ford - Rockefeller nexus. But Diamond's major error is in framing her arguments in terms of right and left. This allows the real dynamics to 
escape her field of vision. 

The ruling elite that finds diversity useful is an elite operating at a level which transcends right and left. While there is an ideological right that is battling the left, and while they do enjoy funding from other conservatives, these folks are not the problem because they do not have substantial power. Nothing shows this better than the fact that this ideological right has always been as concerned as the left over the real source of power, the elite globalists. This began with the Reece Committee on the role of foundations in 1954, continued through the 1960s with the 
John Birch Society's attacks on the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and later on the Trilateral Commission, and continues today with Pat Robertson,[6] Pat