Looking at the Tides Foundation and the Tides Center

In my last post I shared the school-age geared video that portrays Americans as nasty consumers and capitalists who are killing the world, killing other people, killing our kids for profit, etc. I still can't believe anyone would show that thing in school. I wanted to find out a bit more about the group that sponsored the video, the Tide Foundation, so I went on an Internet search... easy to do these days .

One thing that amazed me is how much information is out there and how long people have been looking at this group and others like it. It took the current crisis for some of us to wake up and pay attention to what's been going on for years and years and years and... How many kids have grown up being spoon-fed this crap? Is it too late to put some balance back into our world?

People like me, who aren't college-age or in that 'cool age' range any longer, aren't going to have a whole lot of influence on the generations coming up now. It's frustrating, as I'm sure it was frustrating to my parents and that "older generation" who didn't know what they were talking about, at least to my way of thinking, when I was in my teens, college-age, 20's... In fact, it wasn't until I went into business for myself that I started waking up to the realities of the world. We're fighting Hollywood, generations of progressive activists, college professors, teachers who'd show the "Stuff" video from my last post...

We can, however, influence those in Washington who are making decisions that will change the world our kids live in.

We're in the midst of a battle for the soul of our country. We're behind. We've been going about our lives, trying to raise our families and taking care of day-to-day business. Now, if we're going to protect all that our country really stands for, we have to get off our butts and get involved. We have to write, call, blog, and maybe show up at local tea parties, take pictures and show we're out there.

Here in my little conservative county (Fayette County, Georgia), it's kind of easy to sit back. After all, we have so-called conservative representatives at all levels. What's the point in telling them we want them to do what they're already going to do? Not much other than to let them know we support their efforts. However, that doesn't mean we can't contact others, that we can't contact our relatives and friends and try to get them energized. We can blog, we can network, we can work a bit harder with our children. There's always something we can do. You just have to put down the TV remote and move to the computer or pick up the phone for an hour every once in a while... Easy stuff.

Here's what I found on the Tide Foundation and Tides Center in the event that any of you are interested:

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Wade Rathke of ACORN fame is listed as being on the 2008 Board of Directors...

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Tides Foundation & Tides Center
P.O. Box 29907
Building 1014, San Francisco, CA 94129
Phone 415 561-6300 Fax 415-561-6301 Email info@tides.org

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From Activistscash.com:
http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/225

...Now comes the Tides Foundation and its recent offshoot, the Tides Center, creating a new model for grantmaking -- one that strains the boundaries of U.S. tax law in the pursuit of its leftist, activist goals...

...The list of grantees who eventually received these funds includes many of the most notorious anti-consumer groups in U.S. history: Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Environmental Media Services, Environmental Working Group, and even fringe groups like the now-defunct Mothers & Others for a Livable Planet (which used actress Meryl Streep to “front” the 1989 Alar-on-apples health scare fraud for NRDC)...

...Among the most unbelievable “projects” of the Tides Center is something called the Institute for Global Communications (www.igc.org). IGC is a clearinghouse for Leftist propagandists of all stripes, including living-wage advocates, anti-war protesters, slave-reparations hucksters, and a wide variety of extreme environmentalists. In February 2002 Orange County Register columnist Steven Greenhut called it “a network of the loony left” that “has to be seen to be believed… One alert posted in an IGC member conference calls for financial support for the Earth Liberation Front… Another message warns readers against cooperating with the FBI.” ...

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Sourcewatch:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tides_Foundation

Founded in 1976, the Tides Foundation has provided more than $300 million in funding for what it calls "positive social change ... We define 'progressive' as creating a positive impact on people's lives in ways that honor and promote human rights, justice, and a healthy, sustainable environment." It awards grants in the following issue areas...

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Note: "Progressive" = Democrat in most circles... or liberal... and you'll note the "social change" phrase in here:

Tides Brings Visionaries Together to Contemplate the Progressive Future
http://www.alternet.org/story/91750/
Tides, the unique hybrid philanthropic institution headquartered at the Presidio in San Francisco, will host its third "Momentum" gathering next Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, July 20-22, at the swanky W Hotel in the South of Market area of San Francisco."Momentum" is an invitational gathering of progressive donors and advocates focused on cutting-edge ideas and innovative practitioners in the social change field. "Momentum" aims to create a "forum where some of the most creative minds in the progressive community come together to challenge, inspire and energize each other."...

...DH: What are your criteria for new and innovative? Are there people who have brilliant ideas but nobody knows who they are? Anybody come to mind that you've got coming that you want to talk about?
DP: Well, you know Rob Johnson; you know his background with (George) Soros and the Senate Finance Committee. He'll explain the mortgage crisis. Most of us don't really understand what happened. Rob developed a slide show, which explained how the banks got themselves into this mess. That's one example.Then, there's a young man, Eboo Patel, who is a Rhodes Scholar, grew up in suburban New Jersey. He wrote a book called Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation about fundamentalists. He grew up as a Muslim in America. As we know, Arabs and Muslims are the new bad guys in our movies, the new pariahs in many social categories. Patel believes that reconciliation or dialogue across religious lines is a really essential part of what needs to happen to change some of our attitudes. He's a really interesting guy, and he founded the Interfaith Youth Core. ... He's very thoughtful about what the American experience uniquely has to offer....

Note: I popped over to Momentum to see who spoke, find out a bit more about it. Wow, what an eye opener. It highlighted for me just how big the divide between the right and left really is... and took me back to my younger days when I thought this kinda stuff was cool... I still believe in taking care of our planet, responsible consumerism, etc., but there's balance and then there's balance. Just scanning down the list of topics and descriptions gives a real good snapshot of how the Tides groups and friends view America: http://www.momentumconference.org/speakers/index.html

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Capital Research Center (2003 pdf):
http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/x3797262231.pdf

Found out that ABC canceled a story by John Stossel on environmental extremism after being pressured by The Tides Foundation (per this article).

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This is an excellent 2003 article in FrontPageMagazine:

How Ford Funds the Left
http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=18201
By: William Bacon
FrontPageMagazine.com Thursday, May 15, 2003

One of the most disturbing realities in American society today is that the Ford Foundation, which is supposed to represent the love of America and of American values, finances the far Left. Ford is especially financially generous, for instance, to radical entities such as the anti-War, neo-Com movement. It also provides substantial grants to the Tides Foundation and its sister non-profits: The Tides Center, Thoreau Center for Sustainability, Groundspring.org, the Tsunami Fund, Tides Canada Foundation, and Highwater, Inc., a for-profit real estate firm that manages Tides’ properties including its home office in San Francisco’s Presidio.
The story of what Tides actually does with its wealth is one that is rarely told or heard of.
It is time to tell it...