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)
It would be good to generate a public debate about the limits of advocacy as charitable activity. It seems that the whole of the Joseph Rowntree trust's activities are focused on advocacy, that is, attempts by organisations to persuade governments and others of their points of view. They might be right or wrong, but they have no direct impact on problems in the way that a charity such as ours hsoa.org.uk does. And the groups receiving funding from JRCT and other organisations like them already have the opinions that they are being paid to promulgate, which is nice work if you can get it.
I have opinions on all sorts of subjects, and some of them might even be valid and beneficial for humanity if adopted, but it would be the height of cheek for me to ask other people to pay me to lobby for them, and get favoured tax treatment into the bargain. I really don't see why this kind of activity qualifies for charitable status at all.
Mikky:
"That pretty much sums up the modern clergy in the UK, for whom religion, like climate change, is just a protection racket."
It's hard to disagree with Mikky on this, but simply to plead that there are a few of us who "have not bowed the knee to Baal."
Please follks, don't forget Murry Salby's lecture on origins of the modern rise on CO2 17th March 7pm for 7.30pm
Emmanuel Centre, Marsham St. SW1P 3DW
Just turn up, as I think there'll be space.
I'm totally with David S on this. There is a world of difference between trying to solve a problem directly with your own actions and the different activity that is trying to change government policy.
I think that rather sadly the Quakers have lost their way. In the past they did practical and worthwhile things, like actually starting a new mental health institute using a new approach that treated patients as people with a problem that could be treated rather than chaining them up and treating them like animals. Note that they did this themselves and got personally involved - not paying someone else to lobby the government to possibly do something.
Robert Conquest's 2d law of politics -- "Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing. "
"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? ☺"
You can't hold a job down? -:)
Sorry Mike, couldn't resist it. Interesting career.
Thanks for the concurring posts folks, I can’t decide if they cheered me up because so many can see the same problem (and offering hope the wider public feel the same) or depressed because it’s such a widespread phenomena in the first place. It stumped me for anything more to say the whole weekend.
Janets’ route here is a good one. We need far more people like her. People who start out like Joanna and I probably have less insight into what is needed to waken minds on the opposite side of the fence. Some might say the transition is growing up but it might equally be described as lowering your expectations. We can’t create utopia, we certainly can’t create it with just vague, unrealistic plans. Idealists often risk everything in demanding the impossible but they’re not bad people for having the ideals.
Individually people like the Rowntree Trust staff, the BBC and probably even the Guardian, are fine people. I doubt they’re conscious of the damage they do to the country by pursuing good policy beyond the point where it stops improving lives and starts damaging them instead. In their minds they're supporting the underdog against imperial bullies but really they're just kicking for the sake of it.
You can always rely on the Nuremberg Beano (Mail) to entertain
@tiny - up to a point. There are real problems caused by the Bien Pensant crew. Life as a perpetual dinner-party leaves them detached from the real world that real people inhabit.
Thanks for the welcomes, and hi Johanna, I laughed, I've never been called flaky before. Could we compromise on eccentric? After all, I've been lurking here for nearly 7 years :)
I attempted to write a succinct reply and failed miserably, ended up with a sizable essay on dialectical materialism. Then I read it and reflected that a) it was way too long, b) it was getting off the point of the thread and c) it made me sound like a tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theorist and would probably have confirmed my flakiness :D So I've extracted a couple of paragraphs to try and explain the left's mindset in a very simplified fashion and I'll leave it at that.
The left is streets ahead of the right when it comes to propaganda. Just think of all those nice shiny, happy words: sustainability, justice, open-mindedness, fairness, compassion, equality, inclusiveness, freedom, etc ad nauseam. (Leave aside the fact that the meaning of the words has been distorted. They sound good to the man on the street, which is all that's required.) Anyone who speaks out against the progressive way is put automatically on the defensive, because obviously no sensible, sane, kind, normal sort of person could be against all these good things. Therefore you must either be mad, evil, or being paid by someone to do it (possibly all three). The persistent idea that all sceptics are in the pay of big oil/coal comes directly out of this mindset, and it's why the accusation will never lie down and go away, no matter how much evidence you adduce against it. They really believe it.
And that is the real problem in getting through to them. Evidence is worthless. Everything is relative, everything is open to interpretation, words don't mean what you think they mean. Truth is something over and beyond reality and no longer needs to have any connection with facts, and the left has a monopoly on it. The left is right, and everyone else is so wrong that they shouldn't even be listened to. Any attempt to penetrate this alternative progressive reality will be ignored or met with blank incomprehension, patronising pity, flat denial, or bitter attack.
There isn't an easy answer. I escaped because I managed to admit my delusions to myself, but it was a slow and painful process. I can't say that someone 'got through' to me, it was basically just a realisation that people don't work the Marxist way and never will, and nor should they. As SadButMadLad said, I grew up. Now it seems to me that people are not encouraged to grow up and take responsibility for their own actions. The State is everything and everything is the State.
"a sizable essay on dialectical materialism"
Despite needing a dictionary I'd still have read it :-)
"Now it seems to me that people are not encouraged to grow up and take responsibility for their own actions."
Too true and exactly what Gage was doing with the help of the media.
I've just been reading about how the common man bought freedoms from the local lord, hundreds of years ago. Things like the right to be tried by a locally appointed person or the right to own the fruits of their labour. For a short while the people experienced something close to freedom and then the guilds grew in power and created a whole new set of rules to prevent people doing their own thing. Instead of the individual prospering they insisted the guild came first. We seem programmed to alternate between hierarchical and socialistic domination.
On the bright side, the BBC gloomily admitted that if the country didn’t reject consumerism and capitalism after the recession, we weren’t going to. Even the riots were all about grabbing more stuff and nothing to do with freeing the oppressed masses. Russell Brand’s climate march was so poorly attended that even he only Youtubed his attendance. Vivienne Westwood is being pressed over the tax arrangements of her company. You just can’t get the revolutionaries these days.
"Despite needing a dictionary I'd still have read it :-)"
Heh, well, here you go then :)
Dialectical materialism and progressive groupthink
Disclaimer: this is a very superficial and simplified overview of one part of Marxist theory, but I hope it may be useful in explaining why the left is what it is and does what it does.
Marx believed that all things undergo constant but systematic change, for instance, seed to plant to seed to plant ad infinitum. At any given moment, there is an 'opposition' or 'contradiction' between the present existence and the future existence and this opposition promotes the change, pulls it along the path. So the seed in its essence 'desires' to move along its path and become a plant, but when it's a plant it's no longer the seed, hence the plant contradicts or is in opposition to the seed. The plant in its essence desires to move along the path and make seeds, but the seeds are not part of the plant, they are its future existence and in opposition to the plant's present existence. If there is a change in essence at any point along this onward movement, much greater change can occur. So, for example, way back in history a mutation - a change in essence - caused a grass plant to produce seeds which became wheat, a transforming change out of the old system of grass to grass seeds to more grass into a new system of wheat to wheat grains to wheat and so on. Wheat can be viewed as a new and more complex (higher) form, and the history of life shows that the mechanism of evolution always moves life from lesser to greater complexity and from lower to higher forms. This transformative change is a natural law of material existence.
Further, he believed that life, the universe, and everything, including human societies, could be broken down and defined as a series of systems and systematic processes with complex interconnections and interactions between constants and variables within each system and between different systems. If these systems with all their connections and interactions could be properly analysed and understood, interventions could be used at specific times or places to promote 'spontaneous' transformative change.
Humans are the highest and most complex form of life, and able to evolve socially (spiritually) as well as materially. There is therefore constant change in societies, driven by the desire to evolve from the brutish simplicity of our ancestors through our imperfect and unjust present and onwards towards a bright and perfect future (ie communism). No society or system can provide perfect freedom now, so there is a constant potential, a contradication between non-freedom and freedom, which pushes for this evolutionary change. This manifests as the class struggle, and communism would happen spontaneously if it wasn't that the bourgeoisie and the aristocrats constantly suppress and oppress the proletariat and prevent their onwards and upwards evolution.
Obviously, we're not separate from the existing system, so it was required that a subsystem be created inside it with the intention of disrupting and diverting the main system to produce the conditions necessary for the great leap forward. The entryist tactics of Militant and other groups were designed to do exactly that, impose change on the system from within, effectively be a spanner in the works.
Everything the left does must be viewed through this prism of systems and parts and the method of achieving the desired change. If you haven't read it before, I strongly recommend reading the first report for the Club of Rome, Limits to Growth. It's pure Marxist dialectics, breaking the world down into systems and variables for analysis. The whole global cooling/warming/climate change/sustainability thing comes out of that. It was all built on Marxism from day 1.
Going back to the original point of this thread, my first comment was flippant, but it is essentially true. These people are useful idiots, not understanding what they're doing but assisting in the implementation of the Marxist plan anyway. They really believe - as I did back in the 80s - that what they’re doing is for the best and therefore right, and as soon as the masses understand that, everyone will be glad and happy and there won’t be any more need for persuading or enforcement or taxation or nudging or whatever, because everything will be decided by common acclamation of the masses and agreed with loud hurrahs and no dissenting voices.
Ok, I exaggerate slightly, but the important bit is “as soon as the masses understand”.
That was the point of the Militant Tendency’s attempted subversion of the Labour party and all other Marxist/socialist organisations' entryist activities. As already said, intervention is needed in the current system in order to stimulate evolution to the next level. This must happen from a spontaneous (worldwide, we were Trotskyists in Militant) revolution by the proletariat. But the proletariat must be educated in order to rise up. The only reason they don’t rise up is that they haven’t been educated yet to understand that it’s both what they really want and what must happen in order to bring about true freedom and justice and equality for all. This education was the tool to change the system.
The left is streets ahead of the right when it comes to propaganda and the use of entryist subversion. Ultimately the Militant Tendency failed, at least on the face of it. But in fact, our work and that of other socialist organisations paid off very well. Whether Blair and Brown knew it or not, they and many others have followed the International Socialist agenda, and now we have the vibrant, tolerant, open, free, welcoming, multicultural EUtopia which I’m sure you all enjoy so much. Cameron is carrying it on, naturally, aided and abetted by Clegg and most of the rest of the EU-phile Westminster mob.
Just think of all those nice shiny, happy words: sustainability, justice, open-mindedness, fairness, compassion, equality, inclusiveness, freedom, etc ad nauseam. (Leave aside the fact that the meaning of the words has been distorted. They sound good to the man on the street, which is all that's required.) Anyone who speaks out against the progressive way is put automatically on the defensive, because obviously no sensible, sane, kind, normal sort of person could be against all these good things. Therefore you must either be mad, evil, or being paid by someone to do it (possibly all three). The persistent idea that all sceptics are in the pay of big oil/coal comes directly out of this mindset, and it's why the accusation will never lie down and go away, no matter how much evidence you adduce against it. They really believe it.
And that is the real problem in getting through to them. Evidence is worthless. Everything is relative, everything is open to interpretation, words don't mean what you think they mean. Truth is something over and beyond reality and no longer needs to have any connection with facts, and the left has a monopoly on it. The left is right, and everyone else is so wrong that they shouldn't even be listened to. Any attempt to penetrate this alternative progressive reality will be ignored or met with blank incomprehension, patronising pity, flat denial, or bitter attack.
Along with this, the left have been inculcated into the idea that all things have their place in a system and once you've categorised and labelled something, it's in its place and can be analysed as a known variable. So you have the proletariat, bourgeoisie, aristocrats, progressives, blacks, LGBTs or whatever the current acronym is, rednecks, climate deniers, and so on. Each group has its set of values, beliefs, and thought patterns, and is assumed to act at all times in accordance with these and therefore predictably. Any member of a group who acts not in accordance with what they're supposed to do is viewed with horror and/or disbelief, as above. Blacks in America who didn't vote for Obama, for instance. Linked to that is the belief that if everyone is equal, everyone will be the same, and this is an important factor, because they genuinely don’t comprehend that there can be any other way for a compassionate, just, everything-else-good society than for everyone to be the same and think the same.
This progressive (was ever a word so twisted away from its original meaning?) point of view is so all-pervasive that most people are not even aware of what's been inculcated into them. Also they've been led to believe that this transformative change will be simple and straightforward - people just need to understand and then they'll change and go along with the left and it will all be sweetness and light. What they are in fact doing - and this is where I start to sound like a tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theorist, if I didn't already - is unwittingly helping to prepare the ground for a complete destruction of the capitalist system: family breakdown, community breakdown, nation breakdown, economic collapse to the point of non-recovery, followed theoretically by the masses rising up to take control and society spontaneously evolving to communism.
Actually, Marxism has itself been perverted (inevitably). The masses have been educated, but not about the class struggle and the need for revolution. Instead they're encouraged to remain in a permanent state of infantilism, to believe that the State is everything and everything is the state. X has no job and 10 children? The government will give him money, your money, and so we pay more and more in taxes, but it's progressive taxation because it's combating child poverty. Bad thing Y happens when you're out eating a meal? You don't need to develop common sense or use your instinct for self-preservation, there should be regulation preventing it, and so you end up with the utter craziness of warnings about nut content on peanut packets, or Macdonald's open to being sued because they didn't print a warning on their cups that coffee is hot. Terrorism threat from Z? The government will protect you, all you have to do is open up all your private data and allow intensive surveillance of your every waking moment. The UK has more CCTV cameras per head of population than Russia, yet this is supposed to be the free country while Putin is an evil dictator! Little by little over the years, local, national and supranational governments (EU, UN) have acquired more and more power, with less and less accountability, and like the proverbial frog in the pot, most haven't noticed or even really thought about it.
As a result, what will happen is that the furthest the masses will rise is to demand that someone, ie the state, does something, leading to the imposition of the new Socialist order by the enlightened and protected few at the top. And if they cannot convert you, they will kill you, or at least make your life such a misery of fear and deprivation that you won't have the strength or spirit to resist. The Red Terror, the purges, the dekulakisation and the Gulags in the Soviet Union, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution in China; the KGB, the Stasi, the Cheka - in socialist software those weren’t bugs, they were features.
I notice the UN isn't even being coy about Agenda 21 any more, with Christiana Figueres actually saying that their intention is to break down the existing economic systems and create a new world order (http://www.unric.org/en/latest-un-buzz/29623-figueres-first-time-the-world-economy-is-transformed-intentionally).
Apart from Agenda 21, other things worth looking at, in no particular order: the origin of the Club of Rome, the Balaton Group, the World Future Forum, Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School, the history of what is now the EU and particularly the concept of engrenage, Common Purpose, Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, Diana West's book "American Betrayal".
At least in the UK and most of the EU, the whole progressive leftist thing has become a self-propelled juggernaut, rolling inexorably onwards, crushing as much dissent as it can, and weakening any other opposition to render them negligible. My only hope is in sheer human bloodymindedness and the refusal of some people to lie down and be crushed.
I agree with most of what you write but I think that just as we see red soaking through society, they see blue soaking through it too. Ultimately we’re turning purple. Ha, ha, UKIP. Party lines almost mean nothing at all these days except through habit. The public (with maybe the exclusion of Scotland) is not as easy to divide up into their politics and are either ambivalent or more likely confused about which side to support. eg Not limiting immigration is seen as a Left wing or Green policy but the average voter of any political colour doesn’t really like the idea. The people who do, are either hiring, marrying or so wealthy that the only immigrant they’ve ever met was an awfully nice chap who has his own chain of businesses and/or got a first at Oxbridge.
I’ve had intelligent people tell me that importing people to pick strawberries improves the wealth of the country. What? After tax credits, health care, schooling for their kids, housing benefit, infrastructure and ultimately pension? Those are bloody lucrative strawbs. The same people sneered faintly at me when I asked of the Euro ‘but isn’t a country’s ability to devalue it’s currency one of the few ways they can avoid stagnation?’ They get so tied up with the concept they forget to do the basic maths. There are Conservatives and Labour within this group. There are Labour and Conservative voters who oppose them. Almost everyone wants to preserve a free healthcare and the same people admit that we can’t pay for everything.
The relative equanimity that the British public handled austerity is actually a measure of how much they’ve grown up. Deep down they knew that the 80s and 90s were decades of selling the family silver, borrowing and refusing to count the cost. Sadly I still don’t think they realise the scope of how badly left and right let us down by blowing money on stuff we can’t afford. However the public do want a government that will look after the pennies and frankly stunts like huge foreign aid budgets are the exact opposite of what they want to hear.
Both Labour and Conservatives flip, flop on policies, hoping to attract the undecided… the truth is they merely drive off those they used to have in the bag. I like to call it the M&S flaw (where they ignore their existing food customer base in search of youngsters who wouldn’t be seen dead in their clothes and if they ate the food they wouldn't fit either). It's been so long that people have forgotten that the public didn't vote Maggie out, they voted out Major. Blaire got in pretending it was possible to throw money around and be a leader for a financially sound country. Brown made them think of gruff Scottish common monetary sense. Turns out they were wrong and would have swung decisively to the right but they ould see that Cameron is no real Conservative. He's just another liberal elite with a blue jumper.
Janets & TinyCO2: I am slowly catching up with these posts, and yours are particularly perspicacious, and give sound backing to the clumsy warning I have attempted to offer in a later thread (“And early leaving present”). I do hope that the usual soundness of mind that the British have shown for centuries will eventually prevail, despite the atrocious attempts of social manipulation that has been going on.
We're a frog in warming water at the moment. Only time will tell if we'll jump.