[Vision2020] Re: A Swan Dive ?

[Andreas Schou]

> FIRE does not have the appearance of being in the
> business of assassinating the character of "people on the left," and if Swan
> was leadiing them down the primrose path then perhaps it is now Swan's turn
> to feel FIRE's heat.

While it's an art, not a science, one of the best ways of figuring out
the ideoloigcal bent of an organization is by looking not at what they
say, but from whom they get their money. So let's take a look at their
funding sources:

Their two largest foundation granters are the Sara Scaife Foundation
and the Carthage Foundation. Both are controlled Richard Mellon
Scaife, the right-wing funder of the American Spectator and legendary
chairperson of Hillary Clinton's "vast right-wing conspiracy."

There's also the Earhart Foundation. FIRE is (sort of) out of the
Earhart foundation's granting area. Mostly, Earhart grants money
directly to social scientists. You'll remember him as the guy who
donated most of the money to fund libertarian economist Hayek's work.
He also funds right-wing newspapers on campuses and anti-gay research
and spent $115,000 dollars last year in an attempt to blame Communism
on Gnosticism*.

Its other large funder, the John Templeton Foundation, is another
right-wing outfit that mostly specializes in funding creation
scientists. It also puts out the Templeton Prize for progress in
religion. Templeton, likewise, was an American Spectator funder.

Look at its funding sources. It's all people who've decided that their
personal philanthropic mission is the persecution of liberals. Would
it really be any great surprise to find out that their grants were
going toward the purpose of persecuting liberals?

As far as I can find, there are no large

-- ACS

* This is, apparently, the thesis of a Earhart-founded study from the
University of Louisiana.

Their single largest granter is the Earhart foundation, providing  The
Earhart Foundation

The Sara Scaife foundation, one fo the network of