Bishop Hill When did Quakers turn bad?
Mar 7, 2015 Greens The Mail is giving the Joseph Rowntree charities a veritable pasting this morning over their financing of organisations sympathetic to terrorism, both Irish and Islamic, antisemitic groups and organisations with an at best ambivalent attitude towards free speech.
It is worth noting however that the Rowntree charities have also been funding some highly dodgy green groups. For example, according to the JR Charitable Trust website, they have recently given £100,000 to WWF, a group that has been accused of funding abuse of tribesmen in Cameroon. They have also recently stumped up another hundred grand for 10:10, of exploding schoolchildren fame and £60,000 for COIN, of "Deniers Hall of Shame" shame.
Joseph Rowntree was, by all accounts, a pretty liberal sort of guy. He'd be turning in his grave if he could see the uses his money is being put to now.
Reader Comments (65)
Alinsky Marxist entryism.
I see the Climate Outreach and Information Network gets a little money.
http://www.jrct.org.uk/grants-database.aspx
Fnaa!
Blair and Brown, filled such organizations to the hilt with Common Purpose directors who only have Cultural Marxism on their minds.
Joseph Rowntree charities 'inc' are a divisive organization and given to social disruption, agitation and general mischief making - green groups, terrorists all are welcome at Joseph Rowntree - this is what Socialist trouble makers can do with limitless funding and with no oversight.
The Mail, at last someone opens the can of worms but it must be said - it's not just the Rowntree lot is it?
The Quakers have always prided themselves on tolerance and open-mindedness. Unfortunately, being too open-minded causes the brains to fall out and persistent propaganda seeps in to fill up the gap. It's a very common condition, sadly.
COIN also gets money from Greenpeace and the European Climate Foundation..
http://www.climateoutreach.org.uk/about/funders-and-partners/
how much? and for what purpose? - nobody knows..
but policy advisor DR Adam Corner - is "not a campaigner"!!! LOL
(note - COIN's founder - G Marshall started - Halls of Shame - Rising Tide, which he founded, COIN does not have one)
So basically they are part of the CO2 as a proxy for "we hate industry and commerce" who dance on the graves of great men like Rowntree who made the decent wealth and healthy modern world.
WWF is an extreme right group. Two of its most prominent members Prince Philip and Prince Bernhard were self declared Nazis. Bernhard was an SS officer (whatever he did later).
Prince Philip, co-founder of the WWF wrote
In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation (in his Foreword to If I Were an Animal; United Kingdom, Robin Clark Ltd., 1986)
Prince Philip has broken a 60-year public silence about his family's links with the Nazis.
In a frank interview, he said they found Hitler's attempts to restore Germany's power and prestige 'attractive' and admitted they had 'inhibitions about the Jews'. The revelations come in a book about German royalty kowtowing to the Nazis, which features photographs never published in the UK.
They include one of Philip aged 16 at the 1937 funeral of his elder sister Cecile, flanked by relatives in SS and Brownshirt uniforms. One row back in the cortege in Darmstadt, western Germany, was his uncle, Lord Mountbatten, wearing a Royal Navy bicorn hat.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-379036/Prince-Philip-pictured-Nazi-funeral.html
The Joseph Rowntree Charity is just a symptom of the perversity of a section of wealthy Western society that hates everything about the society it lives in. Far from seeing themselves as suppressing free speech by supporting Gage and other dodgy organisations, they think they’re promoting a wider range of voices, even if those voices are abhorrent. They think they’re being edgy and open minded, where in fact they’re like teenagers colouring their hair, swearing and getting in with a bad crowd.
It’s a disease of affluence. Because these people don’t really need to struggle they indulge in all sorts of perversions to try to recreate genuine drama in their lives. Rich kids have a long history of doing destructive things to try and compete with their parents’ success. Now we have whole tranches of society who want for little and do stupid things to try and demonstrate their relevance. They irrationally hate the source of their comfort and don’t care if they destroy it… well at until the source of their income dries up.
The Guardian and the BBC are effectively trust fund kids. They despise the hard working middle classes and idolise ‘revolutionaries’ like Russell Brand.
Sadly the phenomena is growing and with the generosity of benefits, even people with no money of their own can behave like spoilt kids. How will this ever improve when the main form of parental control is now bribery, not punishment? People grow up with the sense of entitlement that they should be rewarded, simply to behave well. They demand ‘respect’ without the need to do anything to deserve it.
It’s no accident that many of the Western jihadists and hard line fundamentalists are home grown. Those who are newly free from the tyranny of genuine strife are more aware of how fortunate we really are here, though we even manage to erode that sense of well being, by continually sending the message ‘you deserve more, we treat you badly, we are bad’.
@JanetS - Talking of Quakers who have had their brains fall out and who have lost the plot, just see what one of them has done recently. He has attempted to perform a citizens arrest on the Cameron, Osborne & Davey because they are committing misconduct in public office by allowing fracking to go ahead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc1ESFg4fkA
He got arrested instead!
I would have thought the country is more at risk from ISIS than fracking, but then you have no common sense the smallest thing is important beyond all reason.
Corruption of a Noble Cause?
It is sad that a noble cause has been infiltrated and taken over. Some of their social housing projects, have done brilliant work, in providing genuine housing for those in genuine need, who don't otherwise qualify for "council housing".
Their excuse today, will be helping oppressed minority groups. Some minority groups are oppressed, with good reason, because they seek to oppress the majority.
Common Purpose seeks to Progress the Minority, by Regressing the Majority, and access to substantial funding, suits their Purpose. Rowntree must have been one of their prime targets, outside of Qango's.
They could have financed whomsoever they liked as far as the press were concerned until...they paid for "Hacked Off", a direct attack on the "freedom of the press to do what ever it likes.
Since then they have been under close scrutiny, no doubt, and now their support for the apologists at Cage have given the press the cause that they needed to attack.
Self serving as always. When did a newspaper ever do anything that was not self serving?
...Joseph Rowntree was, by all accounts, a pretty liberal sort of guy....
I'm not a historian, and in any case it's pretty iffy to try to predict what a person from an earlier time would do in current circumstances. In reality, I suspect that most of them would suffer from 'future shock', would reject most of the attitudes and activities of our time, and would want to return to their own period.
That said, Joseph Rowntree was a reasonably typical paternalist Victorian entrepreneur from a grocery background. I suspect that he would have had a lot in common with Thatcher. He was noted for using the latest scientific techniques to improve the lot of his workers, and so he would have been likely to support the use of nuclear power or fracking. At all times he tried to improve the lifestyle of 'his own people' - he was quite parochial in this respect, so he would have been very unlikely to join a mission to force poorer living conditions across the world as a whole. Beatrice Webb described him as ‘an invaluable individual member of the Committee, eager to spend his time and money in working up special subjects…[he was] too modest and hesitating in opinion to lead a committee.’
£60,000 for COIN, of "Deniers Hall of Shame" shame.. Fame, or perhaps infamy?
Extremists have hijacked a disturbing list of formerly worthy charities, professional societies and government bureaucracies. And the list is growing.
When did Quakers turn bad?
The global warming alarmists are obsessed with correlation and causation, and assume that sceptics are all funded by Big Oil.
So, using the same logic, I would guess that Quakers dug their heels in as a response to the Thatcher legacy, but were shown a Shining Path by Bliars puppet master, Mandelson.
It is only a guess, of course, meanwhile I must remember to " donate" another £50 to the taxman and Big Oil, to make my car go further than my longest extension lead.
@TinyCO2: Well put Sir!
@Golf Charlie: "The global warming alarmists are obsessed with correlation and causation, and assume that sceptics are all funded by Big Oil."
I think not. This is yet another smear tactic just like the use of the term "denier", the classic "if you're not with us you're against us" mentality. These people really don't listen to the daft things they say, e.g. "climate denier", after all you on Earth would deny there is a Climate, for goodness sake! They are full of it, literally!
Here's an apercu from John Ray: 'Leftists are people who know and understand a lot less than they think they do'. Conservatives on the other hand can be defined as cautious people who have a better grasp of the limitations of what we think we know. Later in the same piece:
Leftism is the politics of rage. They see things about them that seem wrong to them but rather than seek to understand why that state of affairs prevails, they simply condemn it and propose the first simplistic solution to the problem that comes into their heads -- usually some version of "MAKE people behave better". They are incurious and impatient people and the destruction they can cause as a result is huge.
This appeals to me since I am beginning to see the otherwise astonishing success of co2 scaremongering as in large part intelligible as one particularly successful piece of leftist agitation. That rage must have led to the 10:10 terror video 'No Pressure' seems highly plausible, and the PR failure of it illustrates how little they knew. A tiny example, but informative.
Source: http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/2015/03/leftists-dont-understand-much-leftists.html#links
John Shade, thank you for that, I had not seen it before.
The left have always excelled at spending other peoples money.
The Progressives have learnt how to take control of "institutions" money, and spend it, to suit their Common Purpose, which is their own self interest, rather than the common people.
Common people are only of use, when it is necessary for Common Purpose, to mobilise an angry mob. Unfortunately, not all angry mobs respond, as Dictated, and meet for informal discussions at Blogs like Bishop Hill!
@John Shade
...Leftism is the politics of rage. They see things about them that seem wrong to them but rather than seek to understand why that state of affairs prevails, they simply condemn it and propose the first simplistic solution to the problem that comes into their heads -- usually some version of "MAKE people behave better"....
Political Left and Right are usually defined by describing attitudes to freedom and equality.
There is a balance to be struck between these. Complete freedom results in considerable inequality, as successful people rise to the top and 'pull the ladder up', while complete equality can only be obtained by restricting all freedoms almost completely. Depending where a person sits on this continuum, they can be said to be right-wing, left-wing or middle-of-the-road.
This is why you see the Left-Wing as coercive - it is. The Left Wing would see the Right wing (with some justification) as uncaring. The problem for the Left Wing is that once people achieve sufficient happiness they care less about nominal equality, while more and more coercion needs to be applied to obtain lesser and lesser advantage. Thus, as humanity progresses towards greater material happiness, the Left Wing position becomes less and less justifiable...
A quick look at the Rowntree Trustees suggests they are all pretty much ordinary, naive, professional bleeding hearts, not surprising I suppose as they have to be committed and involved members of the Quaker Community to even be eligible to serve on the Trust. Easily misled and manipulated, the very epitome of the 'useful idiot'.
I can't disagree with that, Dodgy Geezer.
One of my biggest gripes with the anti-CO2 lark is that it neither increases the size of the cake, nor distributes it more fairly. Wilfully making energy more expensive actually reduces the size of the cake for everyone while doing nothing or less for the environment. It only serves to enrich a select few (some of whom sit in the house of commons) and to empower autocrats who enjoy restricting the freedoms of other humans.
Many years ago when I was searching for "the meaning of life" I came across 'The Journal' of George Fox. I was very impressed as to his stubborn attitude to the things in which he believed. His study and understanding of the Bible was deep and comprehensive.
However when I attended a Quaker meeting for several months, I was astounded at the sheer impoverishment of the others there. They had almost no knowledge of the Bible; their prayer life was non-existent and they had become a PC/green group.
What a comedown from the early days of The Society of Friends.
Peter C Trustees only meet occasionally, have nice meetings, with nice people, nice food and nice drinks. They are there to approve the nice things, that their nice members of staff, tell them so nicely, are nice things to do. Any other nasty ideas, are concocted by nasty people, with nasty intentions.
Trustees may well be nice people, who are proud of doing nice things, and they are so busy being nice, that they don't spot the nastiness that surrounds them.
Being nice and gullible, is often a requirement for someone to be appointed a Trustee. Don't tell any Trustees you know though, it might shatter their gullibility, and then they would no longer be wanted, as a Trustee.
BBC staff are very supportive of their nice Trustees, until they fail the gullibility test. I expect Rowntree's work on a similar basis now.
However when I attended a Quaker meeting for several months, I was astounded at the sheer impoverishment of the others there. They had almost no knowledge of the Bible; their prayer life was non-existent and they had become a PC/green group.
That pretty much sums up the modern clergy in the UK, for whom religion, like climate change, is just a protection racket.
Rowntree was an alcohol abolitionist.
Mikky on Mar 7, 2015 at 4:45 PM
Where two or (possibly) three are gather together ... there is little reason for hierarchy.
When more are gathered together ... that's when a good, strong hierarchy can be built, one with strong leadership that can defend the successful status quo, resist silly changes and stop people challenging their superiors' superior (obviously) knowledge, nay, their wisdom, and wasting their (superior) time!
Greens/Islamic terrorists/fascists/communists- are all different sides of the same ugly, totalitarian face.
TinyCO2
[...] It’s a disease of affluence. Because these people don’t really need to struggle they indulge in all sorts of perversions to try to recreate genuine drama in their lives. Rich kids have a long history of doing destructive things to try and compete with their parents’ success. Now we have whole tranches of society who want for little and do stupid things to try and demonstrate their relevance. They irrationally hate the source of their comfort and don’t care if they destroy it… well at until the source of their income dries up.
The Guardian and the BBC are effectively trust fund kids. They despise the hard working middle classes and idolise ‘revolutionaries’ like Russell Brand.
Sadly the phenomena is growing and with the generosity of benefits, even people with no money of their own can behave like spoilt kids. How will this ever improve when the main form of parental control is now bribery, not punishment? People grow up with the sense of entitlement that they should be rewarded, simply to behave well. They demand ‘respect’ without the need to do anything to deserve it.
It’s no accident that many of the Western jihadists and hard line fundamentalists are home grown. Those who are newly free from the tyranny of genuine strife are more aware of how fortunate we really are here, though we even manage to erode that sense of well being, by continually sending the message ‘you deserve more, we treat you badly, we are bad’.
True enough. We seem to live in a self hating world where 'affluence' feeds the self hatred. The better the life we create for our children, the more we should feel guilty. We seem to be at the stage where even basic 'energy requirements' are seen as some kind of 'Western Imperialism'.
It is the usual green/red view that, if someone has 'wealth' then someone else has been deprived of 'wealth'. 'Wealth' being a constant ... Which it is obviously not.
I have a young daughter for which I'm saving Money and Gold in order to get her to Canada by school leaving age. I want her to be out of this mess and into 'a future' by the time she approaches higher education age. She will not, under any circumstances, stay in Europe post 16. This place is a mess. She will not be part of that mess. I can go out and throw Molotov cocktails but she we have no part in this (European) world.
As with many Brits, I have relatives in Canada and The US ... My daughter is out there as fast as I can move her with adequate funding. She wont like it but she will have to go. No way is she going to face what is to come here as her introduction to the world.
@ Golf Charlie
Not so in this case GC. According to their website all awards are made by the full Trust meeting in session.
The process is Applications for a grant are handed to a Trust Committee (a sub committee of Trustees) to evaluate. That sub committee co-opts 'expert' advice where necessary and either dismisses the application or places it before the full Trust with recommendations.
...@ Golf Charlie
Not so in this case GC. According to their website all awards are made by the full Trust meeting in session....
I think that what GC is saying is that the nice gullible trustees are unlikely to reverse ANY of the sub-committee recommendations. And the evil nasty people are in the sub-committees - or co-opted as 'experts'...
Having been working today I have only just read this thread and am astonished (but not surprised) by the quality of the comments. Al the regulars seemed to have excelled in finding original but pointed aspects to this story of a betrayal of a noble and altruistic mind. Tiny CO2 @ 10.24 neatly encapsulates the angst afflicting our "western" civilisation. Janets (who she? ) @ 9.57 provides the unforgettable "open minds cause the brain to fall out" , noted and stored for future use - thank you. Even Smiffy @ 10.12 has pulled a real gem from the archives, historically contextualising a current relationship. Peter C @ 6.41 exposes how, if you put you placemen right - you control the agenda. Most notable - no troll has dared to show his face amongst this outburst of clear, analytical reason . I take my hat off to you all.
dodgy geezer, thanks! You put it more bluntly for me!
Noble cause corruption, can be done in a very subtle manner.
Allied POW's during WW2, were very cunning/clever in 'bribing' their guards, and were hailed as heroes. Once bribed, they could be threatened with blackmail.
It has always gone on, and still does. Wealthy charities, especially with religious motivations, are soft targets.
Organised crime has a legacy of cultivating respectability, with carefully considered donations to law enforcement, hospitals etc. Capone? Krays?
Today it is called PR, or in Westminster "Lobbying". Corruption is the more easily understood term, when UK politicians get caught at the receiving end, which hasn't happened for at least a week. Straw men, and women are everywhere. Some even have children keen to follow in their parents footsteps.
Peter C in the world of open politics, with full meetings open to the public, the decisions are made in pre-meeting meetings, behind closed doors. The vote is predetermined before the debate. The debate is about point scoring and registering objections, for future point scoring, which may be years later. And of course for the TV cameras, for constituency support, if applicable.
I have not been to the Rowntree website, but doubt there were many objections to the 'donations' to the causes, deemed worthy, by whoever wrote the report saying they were worthy.
People who vote against recommendation, are sidelined. It does not matter whether it is Westminster, or the Village Hall Swings and Roundabouts Committee.
Agree, some excellent comments on this thread.
I also applaud Tiny Co2's contribution, especially the line about the BBC and the Guradian being "trust fund kids." That translates perfectly in Australia with regard to the ABC and the Fairfax press (although with Fairfax, the money has just about run out). But, we also get a lot of BBC content here, and the Grauniad has opened a local outlet as well.
As for Quakers, it is hard to believe that a principled, thrifty, hard working chap like Rowntree would approve of what they are doing. He didn't make his fortune by being naive, or suffering fools on the payroll. But, it echoes the American experience, where the money of oil kings and industrialists is now being used to undermine everything that the trust founders stood for. More trust fund kids at work (or play).
Not entirely off thread, but over at the Guardian, Rusbridger has a piece. He states that there was a meeting of journalists in january, to agree how to keep fossil fuels in the ground, with the Paris meeting so important.
Who was invited?
Are there minutes?
Don't you just love democracy, when it is carried out behind closed doors!
"He'd be turning in his grave if he could see the uses his money is being put to now."
As would CP Scott, I imagine...
Link
The Quakers have always been non-conformist.
Their raison d'etre is to support the long tails of the normal curve of opinion. They seek the weird and gamble big.
Worth noting what John de Melle said; originally their Gaussian curve of opinions was centred on the Bible. And now they have no centre.
But funding the crazies is what Quakers do.
And good on them for sticking by their principles - if they still have principles.
Back in the early 1960s, Quakers were stalwarts of CND. That follows, of course, from their deep pacifism but on the principle that if you lie down with dogs you catch fleas, it was impossible to be involved with CND without picking up all sorts of other bugs. And that was no accident.
Given the general impoverishment that would follow any sort of 'Green revolution' or, indeed, the fuel poverty already experienced by many, there is no obvious reason why a Quaker would support such nonsense but it is likely that the movement has, like many others, bought the entire 'progressive' package and lost the ability to think logically.
This is very sad: but is probably indicative of what can happen when professional charity managers/administrators take control. The green movement is well versed in infiltration, at top levels, followed by getting their supporters in other positions of influence. Remember, green is good: sceptics are bad - they are all sponsored by big oil.
I expect Jihadi John was just drinking a toast to the Quakers on his flight to Tanzania, when the local authorities decided he was a bit tired and emotional
They fund Richard Murphy too, to the tune of £35,000 a year. Being a tax campaigner doesn't come cheap. And of course, for that, we should never forgive them.
@ TinyCO2 – you explain the phenomenon perfectly, thank you.
@ SadButMadLad – I'm not sure whether to thank you or not: I hadn't seen that, now I wish I hadn't! I despair, I really do :(
@ diogenese2 – thank you, I would love to take credit for the phrase but I'm pretty sure I've heard it or read it somewhere else. It seemed apposite though :)
As to who I am, well, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts”, hence the plural name (I really am called Janet). Potted history: my first degree was in environmental biology and geology; over the last 35 years I've gone from environmental activist to union activist and member of the Militant Tendency (Marxist) through mild anarchy to Thatcherism to apolitical to libertarian capitalism, moved from Berkshire to Kent to the Scottish Borders, and currently work as a clinical pharmacologist in the pharmaceutical industry. I've been lurking and very occasionally commenting on this and many other sites for years, my interest in environmental and political matters being rekindled by the infamous hockey stick, which caused my bullsh!tometer to go off the scale. To the best of my recollection, I arrived at our gracious host's site in 2008 via a link to “Caspar and the Jesus paper” from Climate Audit. So now you know probably a lot more than you wanted to ;)
@Tim
+1 there
what is especially irritating about much of the activities of the activists funded by Rowntree is their propensity to hijack dissent and dissatisfaction with other things and fuse them into fraudulently contrived mandates to campaign on their pet subjects and to position themselves as your voice on any number of topics - it sucks. It's exasperating that pols seem to fall for their numbers too....
The circular emails and petitions that deluge you if you comment on something on one of the associated web sites and the web marketing are really odious.
Most "ordinary" folk who engage with them are astonishingly unaware of this and in my experience unwilling to believe the duplicity and manipulation that underpins it all.
OK.... and then there's the Murphmeister .....
@ Golf Charlie
I do know how the world of committee works, but in this case it does not apply. Go look at their site. This is a small, bare bones group of, as I said, well-meaning, professional bleeding hearts, overflowing with soft Christian, fluffy Liberal, 'everyone is innately good and kind', 'everyone can be saved' principles. Like I said, the epitome of the 'useful idiot', easily misled and manipulated by anyone prepared to pander to their vision of what is good.
@Janets - your political history sounds like you've grown up :-). Idealistic left wing when young, realistic world-wise right wing when older.
SadButMadLad
There are several quotes to the effect that "if you aren't liberal at 18 you have no heart; if you aren't a conservative at 40 you have no brain."
The one I like best is from Clémenceau:
Janets -- welcome to the bear pit, especially for someone who has discovered the beauties of the Border country.
Must disagree with some of my most respected colleagues on this site.
Janets will be off with the fairies on the next thing that takes her fancy."Flaky" barely begins to describe that life history.
johanna
In my life I have been a teacher, a retail department manager, a salesman, a salesman again, a newspaper owner, a freelance journalist, director of a computer graphics company, a freelance journalist again, a proof reader, and am now comfortably retired but still active in France.
Would you care to assess my flakiness? ☺
Mike Jackson Flakiness
As I have got older, and my hair has 'reduced', dandruff seems not to be a problem.
Is this a correlation/causation confusion issue?
Or do flaky bits just blow away, having nothing to hold them in place?
I am sure the Green Blob would jump to a single conclusion such as CFC's, and credit their banning, with my miraculous cure.
The Rowntree trust and foundation are two different entities but curiously entwined. The trust lists one of its main activities as providing housing. It seems to get most of its income from investments of 200 million and does a few charitable acts with the small change, enough to claim charitable status but far too little to convince me they're not another false charity. The foundation is a hardcore, subversive, policy on request outfit that prepares propaganda that fulfills all the normal prerequisites demanded by recent governments, undermining the fabric of society, damaging the national economy and anything else that could be labelled 'just plain barmy or dangerous'.
This is not a bleeding heart liberal outfit, a better label would include the words 'hostile' and 'sinister'.