A call for humanism instead of philanthropic colonialism and conscience laundering

Picture at left from here

Peter Buffett, son of wealth-making Warren,  has an article in The New York Times critical of the clustering of philanthropy and what it can mean - what he calls philanthropic colonialism.  He tells the tale well.

Philanthropy is great but I really don't understand what we see in Australia with all these personal foundations.  Yet another nail in the coffin provided by the Americanization of Australia ... another form of the colonialism that Peter Buffet critiques?

We have some marvellous, knowledgeable, well-established not-for-profits in this country.  Why can't they be funded by the rich?  If the rich think they have financial skills to offer, suggestions to make, I am sure they would be welcomed.  Or would the n-f-ps say, from their knowledge base, well that's not exactly where the need lies or, perhaps, we have tried what you suggest but found from experience that this is not the way to go.  And then the rich might not like to be told that they're new found ideas are wrong, up the creek.  Buffett discusses this in a way when he describes people wanting to transplant templates as if time, place and culture were identical or didn't matter.  There are none so ignorant as those who think they know it all.

I do hope Buffet and his article get good coverage.  It is worthy of consideration.  You might also hop on the link to his name at the beginning of the article and 'like' his Facebook page.  Most of all, please consider.

What Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates are doing is marvellous.  I suspect that they are self-aware individuals in the philanthropic stakes.  I particularly love the fact that the Gates Foundation has funded mosquito nets - Made in Africa mosquito nets.  This is not a big scientific and medical triumphant style of philanthropy.  This is taking the simple and necessary and making it work - even to the point of providing employment.

The Gates Foundation appears to have a focus on practicality.  This is also evidenced in their relationship with the University of Queensland in relation to a $4 million international collaboration to improve sorghum productivity under drought conditions.  So let's hear it for philanthropy - but not the sort that is filled with self-aggrandizement.  Let's see a philanthropy that is developed on the basis of thoughtfulness as well as human connection with country, environment, and people.  I hope that what we see with thoughtful investment is a burgeoning of ideas, applications, solutions which are so successful that the ideas and the impacts take off to the extent that the name/s of the donor/s become/s are but by-lines in small font.  This then is the sort of stuff that heaven is made of.

The succession planning of rich and famous Australians - and the sick-making IPA

No. What I am posting below is not paid advertising.  The motto at The Network is "Freely, freely you have received.  Freely, freely give." No matter that Messrs Google & Co ply with advice on putting Adsense on my blog.

No - I am posting this for the snippets of insight it gives to an organisation I distrust and loathe: the Institute of Public Affairs.  The old adage suggests you will be judged by the company you keep ... and that is why I am posting this from The Monthly.   Rupert is an old man without a clear succession plan. Gina's succession plan seems to have come down to one - in spite of her family being somewhat larger. As for Andrew Bolt, Miss Eagle hopes there is no succession, planned or otherwise.

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THE MONTHLY JUNE 2013 HIGHLIGHTS

EDITOR’S NOTE The Institute of Public Affairs is a right-wing, free market–cheering think-tank that gets significant support from Gina Rinehart and Rupert Murdoch. No one outside of the IPA knows how much, but it’s a lot – enough, as Media Watch pointed out last Monday, for the IPA to spruik Rinehart’s distinctly anti free–market notion to create a special economic zone in tropical Australia.  In April, the IPA celebrated its 70th birthday at the National Gallery of Victoria with a dinner speech from the News Ltd chairman, whose father, Keith Murdoch, helped set up the Institute. Tickets were $495, or double that if you wished to meet the mogul. Tony Abbott was there, as was George Pell. News Ltd’s Agent 007 – and the apple of Rinehart’s eye at Channel 10 – Andrew Bolt, was MC. For his speech extolling the “morality” of free markets, Murdoch was presented with a drawing of himself as a knight in shining armour. Rinehart, too, was on hand, to receive the IPA’s “Leadership in Free Enterprise” award. Further prizes were auctioned off to help top up IPA funds. A tour of the Reagan ranch in Santa Barbara went to Rinehart, for $25,000, and a behind-the-scenes look at The Bolt Report was snapped up for the same amount by her daughter, Ginia (the loyal one). Guests other than the Rineharts were left to bid for a morning tea with Murdoch columnist Janet Albrechtsen and friends, or a visit to Murdoch’s Fox News studios in New York. Each sold for $20,000. One of the IPA’s chief laments has always been that a left-wing, latte-sipping, chardonnay-quaffing, politically correct intelligentsia is wrecking the country for the rest of the population. Coincidentally, this theme has also been the driving obsession of Murdoch’s other key voice in this country, the Australian. On 13 May, the two mouthpieces joined as one, with the IPA hosting the Melbourne launch of The Lucky Culture, a book by the Australian’s opinion editor, Nick Cater. The Lucky Culture is not exactly fresh, being more or less a slap-together of commentary pieces Cater has been flogging ad nauseam on his pages over the years. And the launch was the fifth in a week – were it a boat, you’d be suspicious: all that champagne against the bow, and still no one knows if the thing can actually float. Still, the chagrined old white men of the IPA shuffled in droves to hear Cater, an Englishman, affirm that generations of Australians were being over-educated to the point of disagreeing with them. Down with mass university enrolment; it only breeds leftist group-think. Australians have been dumbed-up, as it were – the country would be much better off if we’d all been left to think for ourselves, or, rather, if we’d all been left to let the old conservative elites continue to do the thinking for us. Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch continues to twiddle with our collective IQ via his daily tabloids in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin, Hobart, Cairns, Townsville, Geelong and beyond. With this in mind, the Monthly welcomes the arrival of the Guardian to Australia’s online media landscape. Call us stupid, but we reckon an educated readership isn’t such a terrible thing. John Van Tiggelen Editor

The Banned TED talk: telling people the rich with lower and lower taxes DO NOT create jobs

Shout it from the housetops, Networkers.  What so many of us know to be true is proven to be correct.  What conservative politicians across the globe are telling us is NOT TRUE.

Lowering taxes for the rich, the wealthy is not a good idea.  

The rich are not job creators.  

Apparently, this idea was a bit much for the TED people. It was too politically provocative it seems.  So they have banned it.  Oh, and by the way, can you please ensure you get the message through to Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb and Barnaby Joyce.  They don't seem to understand this basic fact.

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