Obstructing Action: Foundation Funding and U.S. Climate Change Counter-movement Organizations

This paper updates the analysis of funding of the Climate Change Countermovement from 2003 – 2010 to 2003 – 2018, doubling the time period of the previous analysis. Funding for the organizations in the CCCM has continually increased at a rate of 3.4% throughout the time period. The source of the vast majority (74%) of this funding cannot be identified. Where funding can be identified, it is dominated by contributions from a few large conservative philanthropies.

Chadbourne Gilpatric and Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Fateful Meeting

On January 11 1951 Chadbourne Gilpatric met with Wittgenstein to offer him, on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, funding for any forthcoming publications. Wittgenstein politely declined the offer as he did not believe his health would permit him to bring any projects to completion. The meeting is referred to in a letter from Wittgenstein to Norman Malcolm and is also recalled by O.K. Bouwsma. Bouwsma learned of it from conversations with Wittgenstein and by Gilpatric. However, it is also recounted in Gilpatric’s diary. Gilpatric’s account comprises the fullest account of the meeting. It has remained unedited, until now, and is here transcribed for the first time. Five years later on February 1 1956 Gilpatric submitted a report, entitled ‘Logician and Mystic’, to the Rockefeller Foundation This report adds detail to his original account and summarises the Rockefeller’s financial support of the posthumous publication of Wittgenstein’s work. It also sketches Gilpatric’s view of Wittgenstein’s work. Open Review until 2020-05-15

Triumphing over “Exhaustion,” 1963–1974

“She may be too tired to tour again,” announced a State Department official at a meeting to discuss Martha Graham’s 1962 tour. Performance shots of Graham’s sexually explicit Phaedra showed her as the aging protagonist in a long, bejeweled cocktail dress costume, with an extended leg inarticulate and bent, foot unpointed, its rounded, bunioned joints in evidence. Although she had used the cover of modernism to challenge the boundaries of sexuality with Phaedra on tour in 1962 in order to keep herself relevant, the strategy backfired. After touring for the Kennedys, the company performed at the Edinburgh Festival, and Graham came under congressional scrutiny for her work. In addition, foundation funding began to dry up as ageism enveloped Graham and modernism. After the assassination of Kennedy, Graham performed in London and Portugal with State Department support under Lyndon B. Johnson, but her failing physicality became a press refrain. With great reluctance, she retired and lapsed into an alcoholic coma. As the company struggled to survive, Graham recovered and retook control with Ron Protas. With renewed vigor, Graham tapped old contacts in Washington and staged fundraising events, drawing on her expertise with glamour and diplomacy. She obtained a tour under the Richard M. Nixon administration back to Asia, a primary area of diplomatic concern. After Nixon’s resignation, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger continued to support Graham, and she also latched on to the new first lady, Betty Ford, and left for Asia as the “First Lady of Modern Dance.”