The Role of Philanthropy and Foundations in Thwarting Black Liberation

The Race for the Bottom

Al Jazeera (2021)

Film Review

This is an excellent documentary about the role of wealthy philanthropists and their foundations in thwarting the battle end institutional racism. Filmmakers make the point that “insurrection” that stormed the Capitol on Jan 6 didn’t start with Trump: that it was decades in the making.

Narrated by prestigious African American historians and academic, the begins with efforts by Carnegie and John D Rockefeller to steer newly freed slave into manual labor training that would keep them in agriculture and in the South. In 1903, Congress authorized the Rockefeller foundation to create General the Education Board. The latter would set standards for rural public schools, as well as universities and medical schools for the next 50 years. In 1910, the Flexner report, funded by Carnegie Foundation, recommended the closure of five black medical schools. In severely restricting the supply of Black doctors, the move also reduced access to medical care for Black patients.

The rise of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s would lead to a new wave of philanthropic funding, aimed at preventing the Black “insurrection.” The Ford Foundation, the source of significant funding to Black Studies, Black Art and Black higher and post graduate education, used it to split the African American community by create a Black liberal elite. I was very surprised to learn the the Black Panther Party received Ford Foundation funding for their free school breakfasts, medical clinics, eye programs and sickle cell foundation.

The film also mentions the role of George Soros’ Open Society Foundation in funding Black Lives Matter.

The rise of the Black Power movement, as well as women’s and gay rights movements in the late sixties and seventies would also trigger a white backlash, giving rise to a host of conservative foundations and think tanks (eg Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, Walton Family Foundation, DeVos Family Foundation). The work of these foundations (along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) would lead to a sustained attack on public schools through the (publicly funded) charter school movement, as well the training and appointment of conservative judges and an electoral coalition that would elect Donald Trump in 2016.

The film can be viewed free at https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-big-picture/2021/2/11/a-race-for-america

Swedish Covid 19 Management: A Documentary

Covid, Tango and the Lagom Way

Directed by Claudia Nye (2020)

Film

This documentary was made by an Argentinian expatriate (and tango aficionado) who lives in the UK and is tired of being branded a right wing fanatic for questioning the benefit of social lockdowns. It She decided to visit Sweden, one of several countries (including Taiwan and Japan) that decided not to lock down their population.

She conducts a fairly long interview with Dr Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s head epidemiologist, as well as interviewing Swedes she meets on the street.

In the absence of lockdown legislation, most Swedes over 65 chose to remain at home. Those with “comorbidities” that make them more vulnerable to severe COVID complications (eg obesity, diabetes, kidney/heart/lung disease, pregnancy) also voluntarily self-isolate. Although many Swedes now work from home and several universities have shut down, most schools and businesses have remain open and practice social distancing.

According to Tegnell, the Swedish government has no statutory powers over the Swedish Public Health Agency. The latter holds sole responsibility for enforcing public health measures.* As a general rule, the agency places responsibility on individual citizens to make good choices about protecting their own and others’ health. This contrasts with the US and other Europeans countries, whose governments (according to Nye) treat their constituents like children.

Tegnell indicates that Sweden’s COVID policy is consistent with the Swedish “Lagom” (translated “not too little, not too much”) way, which values balance above all else.

Nye goes over the COVID statistics with Tegnell At the time of filming (late 2020), 872 Swedes had died as a direct result of COVID 19 infection, and 5,813 and died “with Covid.” According to Tegnell this means they tested positive for COVID before dying from other causes.

In tracing total Swedish mortality over the last three decades, Nye finds the Sweden follows roughly the same curve as other European Countries. In fact, both Swedish and British epidemiologists agree that COVID mortality outside the 65+ age group is extremely low.

Nye also compares Swedish mortality data with that of nearby Finland and Norway. Overall mortality for 2019 and 2020 is roughly the same, with Finland and Norway experiencing a spike in mortality in 2019 (due to a a really severe influenza season) and Sweden (which experienced negligible influenza deaths in 2019) experiencing its mortality spike in 2020.

---

*This changed in January 2021, when the Swedish parliament gave itself statutory powers to impose lockdowns.

Plant-Based Diets: Pluses and Minuses

Eating You Alive: One Bite at a Time

Directed by Paul David Kennamer Jr (2018)

Film Review

In essence, this documentary is a series of glowing testimonials from patients who reversed life threatening illnesses by switching to an organic whole food plant-based (ie vegan) diet. Although the film is disappointingly short on research evidence, the list of illnesses overcome with this diet is extremely impressive: end stage pancreatic cancer, lupus, stage 4 metastatic ovarian cancer, stage 4 renal cancer, severe heart disease, dementia, rheumatoid arthritis, breast cancer, cervical cancer, uterine cancer, malignant hypertension, type II diabetes, and morbid obesity.

Although I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of any of the patients (who include Penn the magician and the actor Samuel L Jackson), I had reservations about some of the film’s basic premises. Given its heavy emphasis on obesity and type II diabetes, I was surprised it made no mention of insulin resistance or dysfunctional gut bacteria as triggers for obesity. In my experience, patients with insulin resistance are far more likely to lose weight on a high fat ketogenic diet. The latter is also extremely helpful for treatment-resistant seizures.

Unfortunately some of the doctors advocating for plant-based diets also make statements that aren’t strictly accurate. For example, decades of research has totally debunked the myth that consuming large amounts of cholesterol causes high blood cholesterol levels. It is now established that cholesterol is part of the body’s normal defense against inflammation, that the main cause of high cholesterol in otherwise “healthy” people is inflammation caused by excess dietary sugar. See How Sugar Really Affects Your Cholesterol

I was also concerned about the way featured doctors trashed olive and coconut oil as major culprits in cardiovascular disease and cancer. Numerous studies suggest otherwise.

The statement one of the doctors makes about no prior human culture relying on meat-based diets (as most of the industrialized world does at present) is simply untrue. Both the Massai people of Africa and the Inuit people of the Arctic traditionally ate 100% meat-based diets. Likewise all hunter gatherer societies relied on occasional meat in addition to a routine diet of fruits and vegetables.

I was also concerned that the doctors featured saw no need to caution viewers about limitations of a 100% plant-based diet in terms of specific key nutrients: Vitamin B12, zinc, iron (in menstruating and pregnant women), Vitamin D and omega 3. Most of the doctors I know recommend their vegan patients take supplements providing these nutrients. Pregnant women following a vegan diet also need to be monitored closely to ensure their protein intake is adequate.

The full film can be viewed free at https://tubitv.com/movies/475193/eating-you-alive

 

 

Facebook’s Filipino Sweatshops

The Cleaners

Directed by Hans Block and Moriz Riserwick (2018)

Film Review

This documentary concerns the atrocious working conditions of the thousands of “content moderators” who work for Filipino contractors Facebook hires to censor posts violating “community” standards. At the time of filming, Facebook had approximately 20,000 content moderators worldwide. In 2018, the Philippines site was the largest. Although local content moderators are forbidden to discuss their secretive work, some of them became so distressed about their working conditions that they leaked details of their to German filmmakers.

Back then, so-called “cleaners” were only required to delete all content related to child pornography, terrorist violence (including beheadings) and cyber bullying. As part of their training they had to memorize the names and flags of all Mideast terrorist groups. They also received explicit training in pornography and the types of sex toys.

As of 2018, the only images they reviewed were those flagged by Facebook users as objectionable. Required to review 25,000 images or videos a day (one every 8 seconds), each cleaner was only allowed three errors a month. Among content shared with filmmakers were the iconic photo of Vietnamese children in flames following a napalm attack (deleted because one child was naked), the infamous painting depicting Trump with a small penis (Facebook shut down the user’s account for demeaning the POTUS) and an image of an ISIS beheading carried out with a kitchen knife (deleted for extreme terrorist violence).

One content moderator speaks of watching a livestream of a hanging, afraid to delete the video before the act was completed because it would be counted as an error.

As the sole providers for large extended families, many Filipino content moderators are extremely reluctant to quit a good paying job. In fact, one hangs himself after three unsuccessful requests to be transferred out of his unit (which specializes in self-harm).

Public library members can view the full film free on Beamafilm.

 

Hunting Hitler: Reality TV as Psyops

 

Reality TV Masquerading as History.

 

I recently came across the 2015 History Channel series Hunting Hitler. Season 1 starts off plausibly enough. Seizing on 700 pages of FBI files declassified in 2104, former CIA officer Bob Baer leads a team of former Seals and special operations officers in amassing physical evidence to verify dozens of recorded witness sightings of Hitler in South American  in 1945-48. The series makes no pretense of presenting an accurate historical record. In fact, it appears the History Channel’s main objective (helped by dramatic voice overs and atmospheric music) is to glorify the hyper macho physical and technological supremacy of US (semi-legal) special operations activities.

 

Baer draws the tentative conclusion that Nazis supporters most likely faked Hitler’s suicide, while he himself escaped from his underground Fuhrerbunker. The hypothesis Baer offers is that the former dictator used a series of underground tunnels to evade invading Russian troops and took one of ten flights that left the former Tempelhof Airport on April 21, 1945  carrying Nazi war criminals abroad.*

 

Both the FBI files and the Baer’s physical evidence make a superficially plausible case that Hitler’s plane could flown to fascist Spain (under Franco), continuing to Argentina via U-boat (submarine).

 

Baer maintains the evidence supporting Hitler’s escape is much stronger than that supporting his suicide. Because loyal Nazis burned his corpse, the only physical remains invading Soviets found were a partial skull (which remains in Russia) and a partial jawbone and teeth (which remain in the Ukraine). In 2009, the Russians allowed a Connecticut archeologist to perform DNA testing on the skull fragments, which revealed its former owner to be a female.

 

Unfortunately, the Hunting Hitler series makes no mention whatsoever of the jaw and teeth, which, verified as Hitler’s in 1945 by his dentist, his dental hygienist and his dental x-rays. This information was in the public domain in 2015 when the History Channel aired Season 1 of Hunting Hitler.** See https://historian-at-large.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-hitlers-teeth-or-death-of-dictator.html

 

A recent DW documentary entitled The Death of Adolf Hitler: History of a State Secret tells the sad story of the hygienist, who the Soviets arrested and sent to a labor camp for ten years. Yet even this strongly anti-Soviet DW documentary neglects to explain why the dental work was so easy to identify: namely the special gold bridge his dentist had made for the dictator.

 

It does, however, delve deeply into Stalin’s repeated claims that Hitler was still alive and had escaped to Argentina via Spain. The latter would trigger massive investigations by US, UK and French intelligence, as well as hundreds of reports from all over the world related to Hitler sightings in South America.

 

To its credit, Hunting Hitler does make reference to the “Rat Line,” a scheme whereby the Catholic Church and Red Cross assisted hundreds of Nazi war criminals to escape from Germany to Argentina and other South American countries. The tunnels Baer’s team uncovered leading to Templehof Airport, the Spanish monasteries that hid Nazi war criminals, the 46 missing U-boats and the elaborate secret Argentinian hideouts filled with Nazi paraphernalia all provide important insight into the Rat Line’s actual operation.

 

I find it really interesting that former CIA operative Baer (and the History Channel) choose to focus on an individual (Hitler) with no known historical role in post war fascist regimes in South America. Especially given the prominent role other Nazi war criminals played in South American cocaine networks and death squads. For example Klaus Barbie in Colombia (see Klaus Barbie: America’s CIA Cold War Cocaine and Death Squads) and Otto Skorzeny in Bolivia (see Mae Brussell: The Nazi Connection to the JFK Assassination)

 

---

*The Russians would capture central Berlin on May 1, 1945.

 

** Hunting Hitler Season 2 focused on additional from CIA, MI6 and Russian, German and Argentinian government authorities. Season 3, which premiered in December 2017, investigated Nazi weapons of mass destruction. Season 4, scheduled to air in 2018, was canceled.

 

Hunting Hitler can be viewed free at https://play.history.com/shows/hunting-hitler/season-1/episode-1

 

The Death of Adolf Hitler: History of a State Secret can be viewed free at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QSXKDCFh7o&bpctr=1606277048

The Case for Universal Income

The Cost of Living: Do We Need a Basic Income

Directed by Shayne Blackwell and Wayne Welsh

Film Review

This documentary examines various argument, pro and con, for a Universal (Unconditional) Basic Income.

Britain’s highest profile UBI advocates are journalist George Monbiot and the late anthropologist David Graeber. The main arguments they (and others) offer are

• Britain’s extremely high levels of extreme poverty and destitution, despite being the fifth richest country in the world.
• The systematic dismantling of Britain’s welfare system (over the last four decades).
• Growing food poverty levels among Britain’s working poor.
• An aggressive speculative property market,* a major driver of inequality.
• The need to free up working class Brits to perform work not considered “employment” (child and elder care, higher education, and voluntary work).
• The protection a UBI provides against exploitative treatment by employers (employers are forced to provide better working conditions when employees have the freedom to say no.
• Ongoing loss of jobs do to automation and offshoring and relocation of manufacturers overs.

Although the documentary was released prior to the 2020 COVID crisis, the economic crisis triggered by global lockdowns has only accentuated the dismal working conditions of the world’s working poor.

The main arguments used against UBI are that that it’s “too expensive” (meaning it would lead to higher taxes and/or debt); that would encourage laziness by removing the incentive to work); and that it would cause inflation.

David Graeber (author of the History of Debt) points out that that the “too expensive” argument stems from a misunderstanding of where money comes from in modern society. At present, in most countries other than China, governments allow private banks to issue 98% of the money in circulation as loans. This includes loans to government to cover budget deficits.

Graeber stresses that allowing banks to create and control our money supply is a political choice. There is nothing to stop government from issuing their own funds to cover their deficits (as both Lincoln and Roosevelt did).

Ironically (as becomes clear in the film), people who endorse the “laziness” argument assure us they would continue working despite receiving a UBI – it’s just other people who would quit working.

Prior experiments with UBI in Indian and African communities produced decreased a decrease, rather than increase, in inflation. The additional community income caused an increase in goods and services in the economy. This, in turn, tended to drive prices down.

---

*A Universal (Unconditional) Basic Income is a system under which government provides regular, permanent cash payments to each citizen, regardless of their income or work status.

**In the UK, as in the US and New Zealand, the primary cause of housing inflation is a monetary system that allow banks to focus most of their money creation in the housing market (rather than the productive economy) without any effort to regulate the amount created.

Public library members can view the film free at Kanopy. Type Kanopy and the name of your library into your search engine.

 

3D Printing: Increasing Profits While Eliminating Jobs?

Printing Out the World

DW (2020)

Film Review

This documentary literally gushes over 3D printing, which in my mind makes great leaps in eliminating both manufacturing and warehouse jobs. Increasingly the wealthy elite refer to large scale job elimination as the Fourth Industrial Revolution or the Great Reset. While aspects of this new technology are both fascinating and exciting (especially for billionaires seeking to increase profits), I find it concerning the film fails to mention the social impact of the mass elimination of jobs.

Recent advances mean that current 3D printers are much faster and less energy intensive than early models. This increases the probability that more manufacturing will return to the industrial North from the Third World, leading to shorter supply chains and eliminating the need for warehouses. Using 3D printing makes it possible to produce spare parts as they are needed, increasing the lifespan of a wide variety of machines. This new technology also has the potential to eliminate overproduction, a traditional bugbear of the capitalist economic system.

The filmmakers visit a major German 3D printer manufacturer and Radius, their US counterpart.

At present 3D printing is used to produce a variety of plastic parts for Airbus, significantly reducing the weight of their aircraft, thereby increasing their fuel efficiency and reducing their carbon emissions. 3D printing is also used to produce soles for Addidas shoes. Although Adidas is headquartered in Germany, the soles (which are printed in Germany) have to be shipped to Asian factories for assembly. 3D printing is also used to produce cellphone cases.

Although most 3D printers use built-up layers of liquified plastic (a major environmental contaminant) in the products they make, it’s also possible to 3D print products out of aluminum and carbon fiber. It’s also possible to 3D print with biodgradable plastic made of cornstarch.

In India, there are projects that recycle the PET from plastic bottles into plastic filaments used to 3D print sung;asses and other produces.

 

2005: New Zealand’s Right Wing Populist Moment

The Hollow Men

Directed by Alister Barry (2008)

Film Review

This documentary, based on leaked emails cited in Nicky Hager’s 2006 book of the same name, the delivers a blow-by-blow account of New Zealand’s 2005 election campaign. In that year, pro-corporate New Right champion Don Brash nearly became prime minister via shrewd “populist” anti-Maori, anti-welfare, Islamaphobic campaign messaging

The film mainly focuses on Australian political consultant Bryan Sinclair (whom Brash hired as a personal assistant) and Australian social research strategy group Crosby Texter (which adapted the shrewd negative campaigning style of Bush advisor Karl Rove) in crafting deceptive political messaging to make Brash’s his pro-corporate ultra-right wing leanings appear mainstream.

The infamous Orewa speech Brash delivered in January 2004 was based on a cynical  Crosby Texter strategy to boost poll ratings by tapping into white resentment towards Maori.

In a second Orewa speech in January 2005, Brash blamed New Zealand’s “entrenched” social welfare system for increasing crime and domestic violence. Because National had already won over all the country’s rightwing biggots, it produced only a slight improvement in National’s polling.

Likewise a July 2005 Whanganui speech aimed at stoking Islamophobic sentiments produced only a slight temporary polling blip

The two most egregious events of Brash’s 2005 campaign were a Washington DC visit in which he promised a National campaign victory would see New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy “gone by lunchtime” – and the secret collaboration between the Brash campaign and the NZ Christian fundamentalist group Exclusive Brethren. Although their religious beliefs forbids them to vote, Exclusive Brethren are allowed to campaign and lobby for parties with a compatible moral perspective.* In 2005, they spent nearly $2 million on leaflets attacking both Labour and the Green Party. Because the leaflets made no mention of the National Party, this expenditure fell outside the party’s electoral spending cap.**

Despite polling six percentage points above Labour the day before the election, National ultimately lost to Labour by one seat.

Nicky Hager published The Hollow Men on November 21, 2006. Nine days later Brash resigned as National party leader.

---

*The Exclusive Brethren opposed Labour’s proposed civil partnership legislation (because it extended to gay couples). Although Don Brash initially supported it, he reversed himself on learning it could help him win votes among Christian fundamentalist.

**Brash’s campaign team rewrote the leaflet to ensure it didn’t violate NZ electoral law.

Public library members can view the film free at https://beamafilm.com

Denial: An Unlikely Path to Sexual Transition

 

Denial: The First Step to Acceptance

Directed by Derek Hallquist (2016)

Film Review

This is a very unusual documentary. I assumed it would profile the climate denial movement, but it does so only very indirectly. The film is actually a very touching profile of the filmmaker’s father, the obsessive compulsive CEO of a Vermont electrical utility who makes the difficult decision at age 50 to transition to female.

David Hallquist, whose Vermont Electricity Cooperative runs on hydropower, has been an industry pioneer in promoting the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. In the film, his wife and adult children struggle with his decision to become female. It features clips from the therapist they work with. The latter helps other family members fully understand and work through their feelings of denial.

For me, the most intriguing segment of the film concerns Hallquist senior’s diagnosis of state 3 prostate cancer. When his oncologist recommends castrations (which has a 90% success rate), he’s almost gleeful to be relieved of the difficult decision whether to move from occasional cross dressing to full hormonal transition.

 

 

 

 

The Reality of Class Society in the US

People Like Us: Social Class in America

Directed by Andrew Kolker and Louis Alvarez (1999)

Film Review

Produced in 1999, this video long predates the systematic destruction of the middle class that began following the 2008 global economic crash. Thus many of the observations it makes about social class are no longer strictly accurate.

Nevertheless the claim that that bias against working class people is the last acceptable prejudice* still rings true – as does the filmmakers’ premise that separation into social classes (eg preppies and dorks, nerds, goths, ghetto and other losers) begins in high school. The assertion that the vast majority of working class Americans consider themselves “middle class” seems less relevant with the galloping poverty the US has experienced over the last 12 years.

I am also skeptical of the filmmakers’ claim that all Americans feel more comfortable surrounded by members of their own social class. After 32 years of working professionally with people across all social classes, I’ve always agreed with sociological studies describing a district working class culture** placing high value on community, extended family, loyalty and emotionally intimate relationships. I’ve also found that working class people tend to have better social skills – owing in part to childhoods spent playing in the street (while rich children attend piano, dancing and soccer lessons) and in part to greater ease expressing strong feelings.

In contrast, I’ve found that competitiveness, status seeking and difficulty expressing strong emotions turn social relationships in society’s upper echelons into somewhat of a mine field.

I’m also leery about the way filmmakers emphasize style of dress (with rich people wearing more expensive designer labels) in distinguishing rich from low income Americans. For some reason they totally fail to acknowledge the current trend (starting in the mid-80s) for wealthy Americans to affect a grunge/punk dress style.

For me, the most interesting part of the film concerns a battle in Burlington Vermont over a city council decision to favor a locally owned food coop over a Shaw’s chain supermarket. It was interesting to see the city’s working class residents express their lifelong frustration with their more well-to-do counterparts trying to impose their tofu-oriented lifestyle on them. In the end, the coop won the permit but began stocking white bread to appease Burlington’s working class.

I also found the section on social class in the Black community extremely enlightening.

---

*Eg, Hillary Clinton referring to them as “deplorables.”

**See Working Class Culture

Anyone with a public library card can view the film free on Kanopy. Type “Kanopy” and the name of your library into your search engine.