A Tottering Technocracy

Here and in Europe, the financial meltdown exposes the hollowness of our elites.

by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review
August 9, 2011

We are witnessing a widespread crisis of faith in our progressive guardians of the last 30 years. These are the blue-chip, university-certified elite, employed by universities, government, and big-money private foundations and financial-services companies. The best recent examples are sorts like Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, Robert Rubin, Steven Chu, and Timothy Geithner. Politicians like John Kerry, John Edwards, and Al Gore all share certain common characteristics of this Western technocracy: proper legal or academic credentials, ample service in elected or appointed government office, unabashed progressive politics, and a free pass to enjoy ample personal wealth without any perceived contradiction with their loud share-the-wealth egalitarian politics.

The house of a John Kerry, the plane of an Al Gore, or, in the European case, the suits of a Dominique Strauss-Kahn are no different from those of the CEOs and entrepreneurs who were as privately courted as they were publicly chastised. These elites were mostly immune from charges of hypocrisy or character flaws, by virtue of their background and their well-meaning liberalism.

The financial meltdown here and in Europe revealed symptoms of the technocracy’s waning. On this side of the Atlantic, Geithner, Orszag, Summers, Austan Goolsbee, Paul Krugman, and Christina Romer apparently assumed that some academic cachet, an award bestowed by like kind, or a long-ago-granted degree should give them credibility to advocate what the tire-store owner, family dentist, or apple farmer knew from hard experience simply could not be done — borrow or print money on the theory that insular experts, without much experience in the world beyond the academy or the New York–Washington financial and government corridor, could best direct it to productive purposes.

But now they have either left government or are no longer much listened to — and some less-well-certified accountant will be left with the task of finding ways to pay back $16 trillion. Abroad, at some point, German clerks and mechanics are going to have to work a year or two past retirement age to pay for those in Greece or Italy who chose to stop working a decade before retirement age — despite all the sophisticated technocratic babble that such arithmetic is reductive and simplistic.

In the devolution from global warming to climate change to climate chaos — and who knows what comes next? — a small group of self-assured professors, politicians, and well-compensated lobbyists hawked unproven theories as fact — as if they were clerics from the Dark Ages who felt their robes exempted them from needing to read or think about their religious texts. Finally, even Ivy League and Oxbridge degrees and peer-reviewed journal articles could not mask the cooked research, the fraudulent grants, and the Elmer Gantry–like proselytizing about everything from tree rings and polar-bear populations to glaciers and the Sierra snowpack. A minor though iconic figure was the truther and community activist Van Jones, the president’s “green czar,” who lacked a record of academic excellence, scientific expertise, or sober and judicious study, assuming instead that a prestigious diploma and government title, a certain edgy and glib disdain for the masses, and media acclaim could permit him to gain lucre and influence by promoting as fact the still unproven.

Higher education is no longer affordable for many families, and does not guarantee well-rounded, well-educated graduates. A university debt bubble, in Fannie and Freddie fashion — together with the rise of no-frills private online certificate-granting institutions — is undermining traditional higher education. The symptoms are unmistakable: tuition spiraling far ahead of inflation; elite faculty excused from teaching to publish esoteric articles in little-read journals; legions of poorly compensated part-time instructors and graduate-student assistants subsidizing the privileged class; political orthodoxy as an unspoken requisite for membership in the club. An administrator is deemed successful largely for promoting “diversity” — rarely on the basis of whether costs stabilized, graduation rates increased, the need for remediation declined, or post-graduation jobs were assured on his watch. This warped system, which grew out of the bountiful 1960s, is now a vestigial organ, an odd-looking thing without an easily definable purpose. When will the bubble burst? If the four-year university cannot ensure its graduates that they will necessarily have a better-paying job and know more than the products of an upfront credentialing factory, why incur the $200,000 cost and put up with the political indoctrination?

Kindred media elites in Europe and the United States lauded supposed technocratic expertise without much calibration of achievement. Indeed, to examine the elite media is to unravel the incestuous nature of power marriages and past loyal service to heads of state. Those who praised Obama as a god or attributed their own nervous tics to his omnipresence or reported on his brilliant policies often either had been speechwriters to past liberal presidents, enjoyed family connections, or were married to other New York or Washington journalists or powerbrokers. Their preferences about where to send a kid to school, where to vacation, and what to think were as similar to those they reported on as they were foreign to those who were supposed to listen to them. Like wealthy people in the Middle Ages who bought indulgences instead of truly repenting their sins, the more our elites preached about egalitarian politics for the fly-over upper middle classes, the less badly they felt about their own mannered conniving for privilege and status.

A generation ago, we were supposed to be grateful that a few gifted and disinterested minds were digesting our news for us each day on cash-rich ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, and PBS, and in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, summarized periodically on weekend network discussion groups and in newsweeklies like Time and Newsweek. Now the market share of all these enterprises is shrinking. Some exist only because of government subsidy, rich parent companies, or like-minded wealthy benefactors.

The technocratic pronouncements from on high — that Barack Obama was “sort of GOD,” or at least “the smartest president in history”; that a Harvard-trained public-policy wonk alone knew how to save us from a roasting planet — are now seen by most as laughable. An education-age Reformation is brewing every bit as earth-shattering as its 16th-century religious counterpart.

There are also generic signs of the technocracy’s morbidity. It deeply distrusts democracy, most recently evidenced by John Kerry’s rant that the media should not even cover the Tea Party, and by the European Union’s terror of allowing the public to vote on its intricate financial bandaging. It is no accident that technocratic journalists love autocratic China — with its ability to promote mass transit or solar panels at the veritable barrel of a gun — while hating the Tea Party, which came to legislative power through the ballot box.

So the elites’ furor grows at those who seek and obtain power, exposure, and influence without the proper background, credentials, or attitude. How else to explain why a Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin earns outright hatred, whereas a Mitt Romney or John McCain received only partisan disdain?

There is an embarrassing lack of talent and imagination in the last generation of the technocrats. One banal memo about a “tea-party downgrade” or a “jihadist” takeover of the Republican party is mimicked by dozens of politicians and journalists who cannot think of any more creative phraseology. Calls for civility are the natural accompaniment to unimaginative slurring of those outside the accustomed circle. When Steven Chu exhorts us that gas prices should match European levels or assures us that California farms will blow away, should we laugh or cry? Do learned attorneys general call the nation “cowards,” refer to fellow minority members as “my people,” or really believe that they can try the self-confessed terrorist architect of 9/11 in a civilian court a few yards from the scene of his mass murder? Was Timothy Geithner really indispensable in 2009 because other technocrats swore he was?

We are living in one of the most unstable — and exciting — periods in recent memory, as much of the received wisdom of the last 30 years is being turned upside down. In large part the present reset age arises because our political and cultural leaders exercised influence that by any rational standard they had never earned.

The George Soros’ Media

By Dan Gainor
Fox News
May 12, 2011

When liberal investor George Soros gave $1.8 million to National Public Radio , it became part of the firestorm of controversy that jeopardized NPR’s federal funding. But that gift only hints at the widespread influence the controversial billionaire has on the mainstream media. Soros, who spent $27 million trying to defeat President Bush in 2004, has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets – including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC and ABC.

Prominent journalists like ABC’s Christiane Amanpour and former Washington Post editor and now Vice President Len Downie serve on boards of operations that take Soros cash. This despite the Society of Professional Journalists’ ethical code stating: “avoid all conflicts real or perceived.”

This information is part of an upcoming report by the Media Research Centers Business & Media Institute which has been looking into George Soros and his influence on the media.

The investigative reporting start-up ProPublica is a prime example. ProPublica, which recently won its second Pulitzer Prize, initially was given millions of dollars from the Sandler Foundation to “strengthen the progressive infrastructure” – “progressive” being the code word for very liberal. In 2010, it also received a two-year contribution of $125,000 each year from the Open Society Foundations. In case you wonder where that money comes from, the OSF website is www.soros.org. It is a network of more than 30 international foundations, mostly funded by Soros, who has contributed more than $8 billion to those efforts.

The ProPublica stories are thoroughly researched by top-notch staffers who used to work at some of the biggest news outlets in the nation. But the topics are almost laughably left-wing. The site’s proud list of  “Our Investigations” includes attacks on oil companies, gas companies, the health care industry, for-profit schools and more. More than 100 stories on the latest lefty cause: opposition to drilling for natural gas by hydraulic fracking. Another 100 on the evils of the foreclosure industry.

Throw in a couple investigations making the military look bad and another about prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and you have almost the perfect journalism fantasy – a huge budget, lots of major media partners and a liberal agenda unconstrained by advertising.

One more thing: a 14-person Journalism Advisory Board, stacked with CNN’s David Gergen and representatives from top newspapers, a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal and the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster. Several are working journalists, including:

• Jill Abramson, a managing editor of The New York Times;

• Kerry Smith, the senior vice president for editorial quality of ABC News;

• Cynthia A. Tucker, the editor of the editorial page of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

ProPublica is far from the only Soros-funded organization that is stacked with members of the supposedly neutral press.

The Center for Public Integrity is another great example. Its board of directors is filled with working journalists like Amanpour from ABC, right along side blatant liberal media types like Arianna Huffington, of the Huffington Post and now AOL.

Like ProPublica, the CPI board is a veritable Who’s Who of journalism and top media organizations, including:

Christiane Amanpour – Anchor of ABC’s Sunday morning political affairs program, “This Week with Christiane Amanpour.” A reliable lefty, she has called tax cuts “giveaways,” the Tea Party “extreme,” and Obama “very Reaganesque.”

• Paula Madison – Executive vice president and chief diversity officer for NBC Universal, who leads NBC Universal’s corporate diversity initiatives, spanning all broadcast television, cable, digital, and film properties.

• Matt Thompson – Editorial product manager at National Public Radio and an adjunct faculty member at the prominent Poynter Institute.

Once again, like ProPublica, the center’s investigations are mostly liberal – attacks on the coal industry, payday loans and conservatives like Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. The Center for Public Integrity is also more open about its politics, including a detailed investigation into conservative funders David and Charles Koch and their “web of influence.”According to the center’s own 990 tax forms, the Open Society Institute gave it $651,650 in 2009 alone.

The well-known Center for Investigative Reporting follows the same template – important journalists on the board and a liberal editorial agenda. Both the board of directors and the advisory board contain journalists from major news outlets. The board features:

• Phil Bronstein (President), San Francisco Chronicle;

• David Boardman, The Seattle Times;

• Len Downie, former Executive Editor of the Washington Post, now VP;

• George Osterkamp, CBS News producer.

Readers of the site are greeted with numerous stories on climate change, illegal immigration and the evils of big companies. It counts among its media partners The Washington Post, Salon, CNN and ABC News. CIR received close to $1 million from Open Society from 2003 to 2008.

Why does it all matter? Journalists, we are constantly told, are neutral in their reporting. In almost the same breath, many bemoan the influence of money in politics. It is a maxim of both the left and many in the media that conservatives are bought and paid for by business interests. Yet where are the concerns about where their money comes from?

Fred Brown, who recently revised the book “Journalism Ethics: A Casebook of Professional Conduct for News Media,” argues journalists need to be “transparent” about their connections and “be up front about your relationship” with those who fund you.

Unfortunately, that rarely happens. While the nonprofits list who sits on their boards, the news outlets they work for make little or no effort to connect those dots. Amanpour’s biography page, for instance, talks about her lengthy career, her time at CNN and her many awards. It makes no mention of her affiliation with the Center for Public Integrity.

If journalists were more up front, they would have to admit numerous uncomfortable connections with groups that push a liberal agenda, many of them funded by the stridently liberal George Soros. So don’t expect that transparency any time soon.

Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on FaceBook and Twitter as dangainor.

Philanthropic Journalism?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation not only funds Genetically Modified Organisms and massive vaccination campaigns.  It also spends billions of dollars funding the media to help them spread its message.

By Luis R. Miranda
The Real Agenda
February 23, 2011

As if the fact most of the main stream media is owned by a few corporations and bailed-out by the government were not bad enough, a new kind of media ownership has sprung to life.  According to a report from the Seattle Times, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation not only funds environmental polluters such as Monsanto, or inoculates thousands in the third world.  After all that money is spent, there are still billions left to devote to influencing media outlets.

In an article dated February 19, 2011, the Times informs the public about how the Gates Foundation effectively bankrolls many main stream media productions in powerhouses like ABC, PBS, The New York Times and the Guardian. The organization donates billions every year to fund advocacy and policy programs, and a lot of this monies end up as payments to main stream media companies.  The payments are rarely or never disclosed.

Although from the outside the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation appears to be a problem solving organization, the truth is that inside it works for the promotion of globalist programs such as vaccination campaigns, population reduction, production and development of genetically modified mosquitoes and the polarization of the society.

The Foundation’s supposed philanthropic objectives are masked with carefully chosen language that is then used in the disinformation pieces put put on the media.  It all ends being a nasty mixture of Gates’ dollars and biased journalism.  Many in the media environment are currently asking whether these payments are heavily influencing the media’s handling of  issues and how the Foundation’s interests are being advanced.

In addition to financing news reports, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is known for paying for the training of journalists to teach them how to present the organization’s interests to the public and many times how to advocate for its objectives.  Instead of presenting THE NEWS, reporters are financed to present carefully crafted talking points to the audiences.

“We’re not dealing with a lively discussion among players,” says Mark Miller, professor of media, culture and communications at New York University. “We’re dealing with one gigantic entity … that seems to be very skilled at promoting its agenda.”  On top of funding the media, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently purchased 500,000 shares of biotechnology giants like Monsanto, which is actively pursuing the creation and production of experimental vaccine nanotechnology, supporting the development of genetically modified mosquitoes.

“As big as the foundation is, there is no single area we work in where we can remotely succeed without other partners and actors,” said Mark Suzman, head of policy and advocacy for the foundation’s global-development programs. “Even if we were to satisfy ourselves that the Gates Foundation were utterly benign, it would still be worrisome that they wield such enormous propaganda power,” said Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media, culture and communications at New York University.

“We’re trying to do everything we can to make sure people understand not just the need, but the opportunity, to make a huge difference in the lives of millions of people around the world,” said Joe Cerrell, who oversees the foundation’s policy, advocacy and communications work in Europe. “For us, it’s about making sure that these stories get told.”  “It would be naive to believe big-money foundations don’t play the same game that corporations and other special interests do,” said Marc Cooper, assistant professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. “I don’t find that inherently troubling.”

Among some of the latest beneficiaries of the Foundation’s cash are:

  • The International Center for Journalists, that got nearly $6 million for a program that pairs veteran journalists with news organizations in Africa.
  • At PBS’ NewsHour, Suarez said a $3.6 million Gates grant has allowed him to cover stories that would otherwise have been out of reach, such as river blindness in Tanzania and Mexican programs to improve nutrition among the poor.
  • Grants including $3.3 million to Public Radio International, $5 million to NPR and $1 million to Frontline. Grumbling among media observers peaked late last year when the foundation for the first time teamed up with major for-profit operations such as ABC and the Guardian.
  • ABC received $1.5 million to fund overseas travel for reports on global health and development.

The Seattle Times received a $15,000 Gates grant through Seattle University for a series of stories on homelessness in 2010.

Airport Scanners Pose a Radiation Risk

popsci.com

A group of scientists from the University of California-San Francisco is worried that a new generation of airport security scanners could present a cancer risk, NPR reports. But skeptics say people flying at 30,000 feet are already bombarded by cosmic rays, so a brief trip through an X-ray machine on the way to the plane is a drop in the radiation bucket.

After the “underwear bomber” incident on Christmas, the Obama administration ramped up deployment of advanced scanners that can spot explosives or weapons, NPR says. Some 1,000 new machines will be in use by the end of next year, roughly half of which are X-ray back-scatter scanners. The machines, which can look beneath passengers’ clothes, expose passengers to ionizing radiation for about six seconds.

So far, much of the concern about the scanners has come from privacy advocates — the scanners produce a detailed image of a person’s body without clothes. But David Agard, a biochemist and biophysicist at UCSF, says they may present a health risk, too. He wrote a letter last month to Obama science adviser John Holdren, asking for a more thorough review of the scanners’ potential health risks.

“Ionizing radiation such as the X-rays used in these scanners have the potential to induce chromosome damage, and that can lead to cancer,” Agard says in the letter.

The scanners’ potential harm comes from the low energies at which they operate. Most of the energy is delivered to the skin and immediately underlying tissue, Agard writes. If the dose were distributed throughout the entire body, it would be safe, but a targeted dose to the skin is too high, he says.

Certain people might be at a particularly high risk of cancer from radiation exposure, including the elderly; a small percentage of people with DNA anomalies, who represent about 5 percent of the population; HIV and current cancer patients; and children, Agard says.

But the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Army Public Health Command and researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory have said the machines are safe, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

NPR quoted an FDA radiation specialist who said the scanners put out far less radiation than what passengers get from cosmic rays. He told NPR one screening would be equivalent to spending four minutes in the air.

But Agard attacks that assumption, too, saying cosmic rays and chest X-rays are absorbed by the whole body. X-ray scanners that deposit their energy into the skin represent a different dose, targeted to a certain area, and their effects are not as well understood, he says.

David Brenner, head of Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research, also expressed concern about the scanners during a recent a congressional hearing. He said the government should invest in millimeter-wave scanners, which have no known radiation risks. They produce images using radio waves rather than X-rays, and the TSA says the images are comparable in quality to the X-ray scanners. The cost is comparable, too, according to NPR.

The government has prepared a response to Agard’s concerns, but he hasn’t gotten it yet, according to NPR. Agard says further studies are needed.

“After review of the available data we have already obtained, we suggest that additional critical information be obtained, with the goal to minimize the potential health risks of total body scanning,” he writes.

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