| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Robert the NOLA Atheist" |
| Date: |
28 Mar 2005 09:57:44 PM |
| Object: |
Team Schiavo's deep pockets - Follow the Money |
Team Schiavo's deep pockets
Bill Berkowitz - WorkingForChange
03.28.05 - If you don't follow the ins and outs of the philanthropy
scene, you likely have never heard of the Philanthropy Roundtable. Jon
Eisenberg, a lawyer working on the Terri Schiavo case, wasn't familiar
with the organization either -- until a few months after he filed an
an amicus curiae brief in the Florida Supreme Court on behalf of 55
bioethicists and a disability rights organization opposing Gov. Jeb
Bush's action in trying "to overturn a court order to remove Terri's
feeding tube."
Eisenberg, who appeared at a Florida State University public debate
with lawyers for Gov. Bush and the Schiavo family two months after
filing the suit, was curious as to whether Pat Anderson, "one of
multiple attorneys who have represented" Terri's parents, Robert and
Mary Schindler, and Wesley Smith and Rita Marker, "two activists whose
specialty is opposing surrogate removal of life support from comatose
and persistent vegetative state patients," were doing this work on a
"pro bono" basis, as he was.
Through Internet searching, Eisenberg discovered that "many of the
attorneys, activists and organizations working to keep Schiavo on life
support all these years have been funded by members of the
Philanthropy Roundtable." For nearly thirty years, the Roundtable has
been providing a forum for right-wing philanthropists who, according
to the organization's Web site, are interested in "promot[ing] greater
respect for private, voluntary approaches to individual and community
betterment."
Schiavo 24/7
It appears that with their appeals exhausted, Terri Schiavo's parents
will now allow her to die in peace. While the hullabaloo over the case
will soon pass, we are bound to witness political aftershocks for
months, and perhaps years, to come. There are still angles for the
media -- especially the 24/7 cable news channels -- to pursue, and
rest assured that they will pursue them. But the Schiavo story has
reached its zenith and will slowly, repeat slowly, wind down.
What began as one family's tragic 15-plus-year story involving feeding
tubes and court rulings affirming that she is in a "persistent
vegetative state" with no hope of recovery, evolved into a media
spectacle of monumental proportions. In recent weeks, the cast of
characters grew exponentially, with folks totally peripheral to the
family and Terri's situation rushing into the spotlight.
Christian fundamentalists, who didn't believe that Michael Schiavo,
Terri's husband, had the right to have her feeding tube removed,
flocked to Florida -- although not in numbers that fundamentalist
leaders had hoped for. Was there any better video than that of
Christian fundamentalists falling to their knees in prayer outside
Woodside Hospice, in Pinellas Park, Florida, or children with duct
tape over their mouths holding up signs in support of Terri? And how
about the chutzpah of Bo Gritz -- the former Green Beret commander and
prominent member of a militant antigovernment movement -- who got
arrested while trying "to deliver a cup of water" to Schiavo?
There were state judges, appeal court judges, Florida's Supreme Court,
the US Supreme Court, and an assortment of lawyers and doctors.
Florida's Governor Jeb Bush got his "culture of life" swerve on for a
spell, and later slouched off to the sidelines. A gaggle of Florida
state legislators tried to pull off a series of cockamamie moves, but
they were rebuffed by their more common sense colleagues. Then there
were our so-called pro-life Congressional representatives, who
appeared daily on national television. Especially visible -- and
particularly unbearable -- was the embattled and ethically-challenged
Tom DeLay.
At one point, the President of the United States rushed back to
Washington from his Crawford ranch to sign emergency legislation aimed
at prolonging Schiavo's life. Was it a nasty Internet rumor that had
the president signing the order in his pajamas? Say that Michael
Jackson-type moment isn't so Scott McClellan.
The role of the Republican Party, which thought, and maybe still
thinks, the Schiavo case is a great political issue, was particularly
despicable. The Party issued a series of talking points that reeked of
cynicism. The Democrats -- except for a notable few -- were their
usual timid selves. A trip with Dorothy down the yellow brick road
might better serve the Democrats than Bert Lahr's cowardly Lion.
Randall Terry Leaves His Mark
The Most Obscene Intrusion by an Outsider Award, however, goes hands
down to Randall Terry, the founder of the radical antiabortion group
Operation Rescue and the President of the Society for Truth and
Justice. Terry was brought on board by Schiavo's parents, who hoped he
could mobilize Christian fundamentalist support for their daughter.
"Our family asked Randall Terry to come, and we gave him carte blanche
to put Terri's fight in front of the American people," Bob Schindler,
Terri's father, said. "He did exactly what we asked, and more. Randall
organized vigils and protests, he coordinated the media, he helped us
meet with Governor Bush."
As a family spokesperson, Terry spent much of his time demonizing
Michael Schiavo, claiming that he had deserted his wife and was living
in sin with another woman. Somewhere along the way, Randall Terry
misplaced his moral compass and lapsed into a persistent state of
memory loss. He forgot his own pathetic record on marital fidelity and
other "family values" issues: A few years ago, Terry deserted his wife
and children for a young woman that had worked on his failed
congressional campaign; last year, when Terry's son Jamiel revealed
that he was gay in Out magazine, Terry responded with a diatribe in
the Rev. Son Myung Moon-owned Washington Times, criticizing his son,
writing that: "He is no longer welcome in my home."
'Following the Money'
During Watergate, Deep Throat is said to have told the Washington
Post's investigative reporters that in order to understand the
scandal, they had to "follow the money." Of all the many questions
that have emerged from the Schiavo story, the issue of just where
"conservatives" get the money to pursue their quixotic/theocratic
dreams has gotten little play.
"In the Schiavo case," wrote one of Michael Schiavo's lawyers, Jon
Eisenberg, following the money "leads to a consortium of conservative
foundations, with $2 billion in total assets, that are funding a legal
and public relations war of attrition intended to prolong Terri's life
indefinitely in order to further their own faith-based cultural
agendas."
In an early March piece for The Recorder (The Terri Schiavo Case:
Following the Money), Eisenberg explained how his curiosity about the
opposition's legal team(s) surfaced a few months after filing the
brief while appearing at a public forum with several lawyers for Team
Gov. Bush and the lawyers for Terri's parents:
"[Among] those supporting Gov. Bush's position were Pat Anderson, one
of multiple attorneys who have represented the Schindlers, and Wesley
Smith and Rita Marker, two activists whose specialty is opposing
surrogate removal of life-support from comatose and persistent
vegetative state patients. I found myself wondering: 'I'm doing this
pro bono; are they?'"
Eisenberg discovered that "many of the attorneys, activists and
organizations working to keep Schiavo on life support all these years
have been funded by members of the Philanthropy Roundtable." According
to Eisenberg,
"The Philanthropy Roundtable is a collection of foundations that have
funded conservative causes ranging from abolition of Social Security
to anti- tax crusades and United Nations conspiracy theories. The
Roundtable members' founders include scions of America's wealthiest
families, including Richard Mellon Scaife (heir to the Mellon
industrial, oil and banking fortune), Harry Bradley (electronics),
Joseph Coors (beer), and the Smith Richardson family (pharmaceutical
products)."
Eisenberg uncoverred the fact that "Schindler lawyer Pat Anderson 'was
paid directly' by the anti-abortion Life Legal Defense Foundation,
which 'has already spent over $300,000 on this case.'" The Alliance
Defense Fund, which is involved with the Life Legal Defense
Foundation, "collected more than $15 million in private donations in
2002 and admits to having spent money on the Schiavo case 'in the six
figures,' according to a recent article in the Palm Beach Post,"
Eisenberg writes.
According to Eisenberg, "Wesley Smith and Rita Marker also work for
organizations that get funding from [Philanthropy] Roundtable
members," particularly the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. "Smith
is a paid senior fellow with the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based
think tank that advocates the teaching of creationist 'intelligent
design' theory in public schools... .Marker is executive director of
the International Task Force on Euthanasia [and Assisted Suicide],
which lobbies against physician-assisted suicide. In 2001, Marker's
organization received $110,390 from the Randolph Foundation, an
affiliate of the Smith Richardson family. "
Philanthropy Roundtable members "also played a role in financing the
Bush v. Schiavo litigation":
"The Family Research Council, which uses its annual $10 million
budget to lobby for prayer in public schools and against gay marriage,
filed an amicus curiae brief in Bush v. Schiavo supporting Gov. Bush,
at the same time its former president, attorney Kenneth Connor, was
representing the governor in that litigation... .
"Another amicus brief backing Bush was filed by a coalition of
disability rights organizations that included the National
Organization on Disability and the World Institute on Disability. The
former received $810,000 between 1991 and 2002 from the Scaife Family
Foundations, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, and the JM
Foundation; the latter received $20,000 in 1997 from the JM
Foundation."
The Washington, DC-based Philanthropy Roundtable -- a conservative
counterpart to the mainstream Council on Foundations -- was initially
operated under the aegis of the Institute for Educational Affairs
(IEA), an organization founded in 1978 by two seminal figures of
conservative philanthropy, William Simon and Irving Kristol. The IEA
now operates as the Madison Center for Educational Affairs.
According to the Philanthropy Roundtable Web site, the organization
"... is a national association of more than 600 individual donors,
corporate giving representatives, foundation staff and trustees, and
trust and estate officers. Its Associates include donors who are
involved in philanthropy on a professional basis, as well as
individual donors for whom giving is a serious avocation.
"The Roundtable is founded on the principle that voluntary private
action offers the best means of addressing many of society's needs,
and that a vibrant private sector is critical to generating the wealth
that makes philanthropy possible. Its work is motivated by the belief
that philanthropy is most likely to succeed when it focuses not on
grand social designs, but on individual achievement, and where it
rewards not dependence, but personal initiative, self-reliance, and
private enterprise -- in other words, where it seeks to expand, rather
than restrict human liberty and opportunity.
"The Roundtable attracts independent-minded donors who understand
that philanthropy is difficult to do well. In addition to offering
expert advice and counsel, the Roundtable puts donors in touch with
peers who share similar concerns and interests. Roundtable Associates
thereby gain access to the full range of ideas and approaches to
giving and information on what works and what doesn't.
"The Roundtable is strongly committed to donor intent and to
helping philanthropists ensure that their intentions will be adhered
to in the long- term administration of their foundations and trusts.
As an organization dedicated to serving donors' needs, the Roundtable
represents a unique resource for those who want to make the most of
their giving."
The Philanthropy Roundtable's (PR) Board of Directors reads like a
Who's Who of the world of right wing philanthropy. The Board includes:
Chairman Daniel S. Peters, the president of the Ruth & Lovett Peters
Foundation; Vice Chairman Heather Richardson Higgins, the president
and director of the Randolph Foundation; Secretary and Treasurer
Joseph S. Dolan, the executive director of the Achelis and Bodman
Foundations; Kimberly O. Dennis, the executive director of the D & D
Foundation and director of the National Research Initiative at the
American Enterprise Institute; Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and a
senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution; Michael W. Grebe, the
President and Chief Executive Officer of the Lynde & Harry Bradley
Foundation, and James Piereson, the Executive Director of the John M.
Olin Foundation.
According to Media Transparency, between 1993 and 2003 the
Philanthropy Roundtable received over $4.3 million from such
right-wing foundations as the Roe, Earhart, John M. Olin, Lynde and
Harry Bradley, the William E. Simon, and Randolph Foundations. Grebe's
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has been particularly generous,
giving the Roundtable nearly $1.5 million, all of which was earmarked
"to support general operations."
The January/February 2005 edition of the organization's bi-monthly
publication, Philanthropy -- which according to a Right Web profile
"highlights cases of individuals and organizations that are making a
difference by using the private sector" -- features "Foundations and
Public Policy," a transcript of a discussion that was held at PR's
recent annual meeting in Palm Beach between Piereson and Rebecca
Rimel, the president of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
In recent days, Michael Schiavo has effectively and credibly pointed
out the hypocrisy of mostly right-wing politicians and organizations
that have injected themselves into his wife's case. But Schiavo's
concern is nothing new. During an October 27, 2003 interview with
CNN's Larry King, Schiavo told him that the Schindler's had offered
him $700,000 "to walk away."
King: They have that kind of money?
Schiavo: They get money from the right-wing activists. The right wing
-- the right-to-life groups.
King: The right-to-life group was willing to pay you $700,000 to walk
away?
Schiavo: Right.
(c) 2005 Working Assets Online. All rights reserved
http://www.workingforchange.com/printitem.cfm?itemid=18796
"[The Bill of Rights is] designed to protect individuals and minorities against the tyranny of the majority, but it's also designed to protect the people against bureaucracy, against the government." -- Judge Lawrence Tribe
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