William Schambra Takes Questions at Tactical Philanthropy

Sean:

On Wednesday, I will be posting my interview with William Schambra. As we did with the Paul Shoemaker interview, Bill will be available to answer questions, respond to comments, etc. So remember to check in on Wednesday and join the conversation.

Update

Robin Goodfellow has kindly volunteered to Pre-Screen Questions for Bill Schambra in the Comment Section below. Please feel free to leave as many as you like.  We don't want to spring these on Bill by surprise.  Let us give him time to work out his answers and/or workarounds.

Update II

Sean's Podcast with William Schambra has now been posted.  Lively comment section.

Comments

[Robin Goodfellow]

Schambra questions pre-screened here:

Is it preferable/necessary to whet one's whistle before one blows it? Just wondering.

OK. But please do not use slashes. We are working with computers for Puck's sake. And we know you are wondering. This adds nothing. Rhetorical devices impede flow. Whet? ::sigh::

APPROVED

[Phil]

Is there a link? Couldn't find one in your comment. Where are the questions being pre-screened?

[Robin Goodfellow]

Hello, Phil. I am showing initiative by pre-screening them myself right here. Presumptuous, I know, but since I provided the question, I felt it would be alright. You'll each have to pre-screen your own.

Caution! Remove at your own risk:

"Un-pre-screened questions have a life of their own."

-- Bush Doctrine Public Event Guide, page... well, it's pretty much the whole dam thing.

[bUM fREE]

I can vouch for Mr. Goodfellow. He is recently sober and trying to move on to diligent. Give him a break.

[Phil]

Question for Screening: What is the proper role of a fat-cat funded think tank in a just society?

[Phil]

Question for Screening: Mr. Schambra, in your 2006 Peformance Evaluation, how did you do? What were your Improvement Opportunities? And what have you done in 2007 to boost your rating? By the way, who does your Evaluations? Are they done internally at Hudson, or are they done directly by the staff at Bradley Foundation?

[Phil]

Question for Screening: "Bill many consider you the best conservative think tank thinker on the subject of philanthropy. What sacrifices have you had to make coming up through the conservative system as a legitimate PhD in political science? What was the hardest thing you ever had to do to please a funder? What ethical dilemmas arise in your line of work? What career advice would you give to an anspiring think tank thinker just graduating from college?

[Phil]

Questions for Screening: "Bill, we hear alot today on both sides of the aisle about 'political return on investment' in think tanks. If I were a funder with $1 mil to invest in The Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal, what kind of political, personal, or financial return could you provide? What kind of return have you provided to other wealthy funders? Can you give me their names so I can check with them on their satisfaction with your trustworthiness, performance, reliability, etc?"

[Robin Goodfellow]

People, people!  Just remember, if you do not pre-screen your own, you will be robbing yourself of your own initiative. Do not borrow your neighbor's pre-screening methods, that is the same as not pre-screening your own, and please, use the standard yellow pads provided, it's simply more expedient for pre-screening support staff. Thank you.

Oh.

Here is the official stamp:

.b>.i>APPROVED./b>./i>

Cut and past the above into your post, replace the periods with left-angle-brackets (the caps-comma key on many keyboards.) Congratulate yourself on a job well done!

[Phil]

Thank you, Sir.

[Sean Stannard-Stockton]

I would hope that people of all points of view will consider listening to the interview before formulating questions and then asking questions that have some bearing on the interview topics.

You could also throw rhetorical bombs while giggling in the background, but that somehow strikes me as the equivalent of kids playing doorbell ditch and thinking they're getting one over on the grownups.

[Phil]

Don't wimp out, Sean. Either you play Bill or he plays you. That is his job. The issue being raised by the grown kids in Carnival masks is - "Who frames philanthropy?" To frame that question in antic guise is a deadly serious gesture, one given far more thought, than you are suggesting. At stake is not only reputation, mine among others, not only career, mine among others, but democracy. Civility, the frame of good manners, all that is fine, to be weighed in a balance. On the other side is corruption in high places, growing plutocracy, and the role of the think tanks in selling this country out. You will not challenge Bill. You would not dare and don't know how. Yet, you must choose whether to link here. That is a political, personal, and ethical decision. Check the man in the mirror. See what mask you are wearing, who you are, what you are pretending to be.

As Bill said, in a hatchet job he did on Rebecca Rimel, head of Pew, "Welcome to the NFL. Remember to bring your helmet."

On sources for the guys in masks, read the Beggars Opera. This is not playground level. What Gay did to Walpole, then Prime Minister, is what we are doing to Bill. Walpole found it amusing. I am sure Bill will too. Satire is rough justice. Its sources go back to the great dancing god, Dionysus, whose worshippers in moments of divine madness hunted sacrificial victims through the forest and decorated the trees with gobbets of flesh. Belittle satire at your own risk. We are playing, indeed. Serio Ludere. Serious play. We are creating a theatrical frame in which forbidden truth can appear - better satire than tragedy, though they are related genres of ritual sacrifice, scapegoating, and the purification of a polity tainted by corruption, and healed through art. I don't sell this. I am not rewarded for it. It hurts me more than it does Bill.

Got it? The history of satire will be on your mid-term exam.

[Phil Anthropoid]

Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of good with falsehood,
For the good or evil side

I've brought my thyrsus. Who will lead us in the dance?

[Phil]

The Happy Tutor is so drunk he isn't up to it. In his absence, I will do what I can for the fine old traditions of artistic parrhesia.

[Phil Anthropoid]

Huzzah! Huzzah! HUZZAH!

[Phil]

Thank you, Phil A. Slow hands clapping is better. Form a circle. A ritual slaying is in order. From that, society is purged and healed. All in ritual form, of course. That is the function of the great gift we call art.

[O Lucky Man]

Once knew a knife thrower who did some whet work. He could sketch your outline like a dream.

[Phil]

A surgeon would be a better analogy. Of course satire is a Roman mode and surgery in those days did not involve anesthetic. Ego-reduction surgery is as painful today as when Horace first practiced it over 2,000 years ago. But we are dealing with the moral health of a person, and ultimately of a nation. No pain, no gain.

[O Lucky Man]

Forgot to pose my answer in the form of a question:

In the clip, who is the "liberal" and who is the "conservative"? Are these roles historically fluid?

.b>.i>APPROVED./b>./i>

(Sorry, Goodfellow, no left angle brackets on this keyboard.)

[Phil]

The Enemy is a cypher. Communists, terrorists, Jews, Muslims, liberals, invaders from outer space. The key to having a virulent party is designating and demonizing an enemy. Carl Schmidt made a political philosophy of it. The state exists not to provide justice, but to conquer enemies. Thus, as in your clip, the enemy is also a secret ally or paramour. Without the enemy the demogogues party fall apart. I am hoping Shambra is willing to throw some knives our way. I can play the role of the liberal-man-lady aroused by Bill's swaggering, arch-conservative macho bluster. That in turn should make Bill hot too. No reason he cannot indulge his feminine side from time to time. We can hug after the knife throwing contest.

[Catherine]

Mr. Schambra:

Thank you for taking time to be interviewed by our favorite morals tutor - and for your willingness to respond to questions.

My questions focus on the role of government money and credit in our society, including in philanthropy.

First, let me add some background. In the mid - 1990's, laws went into effect that required "covered agencies" of the United States government to report audited annual financial statements. To date, numerous agencies, particularly the Department of Defense (DOD), and the government on a consolidated basis have failed to comply.  In the process, DOD, NASA and HUD have reported undocumentable adjustments to balance their books of over $4 trillion. For more detail and documentation see The Missing Money.

What this means is that government finances are being managed in significant violation of constitutional requirements. Given the very significant amounts going missing, we are watching the equivalent of a financial coup d'etat. This is particularly disturbing given the likelihood of securities fraud by the US Treasury and housing agencies necessary to finance such extraordinary sums. See, for example, the Financial Times article regarding the differences in US and foreign reports on outstanding debt:  Discrepancies in America's accounts hide a black hole by Daniel Gros

At the same time, the most well funded media enterprises and think tanks have been silent on the disappearance of extraordinary sums of money.

My questions are as follows:

1. Where is all this money going?
2. What have you and the Hudson Institute done to illuminate this situation and the impact on our society?
3. To what extent are your board members and donors and their sources of income and capital gains dependent on keeping silent?
4. Is a discussion of constitutional principles relevant when constitutional finance is out the window?
5. Given the long-term refusal of the federal government to comply with the US Constitution and basic laws of spending and disclosure, has the time come to revisit the idea of consortium of private banks serving as the lead depository for the federal accounts and manager of the Exchange Stabilization Fund while they also control monetary creation and policy?

Your thoughts on these matters are most appreciated. Again, thank you for your participation,

Catherine

[bUM fREE]

Yoicks.

The White House Has a Manual for Silencing Protesters and Demonstrations
July 14 2007

...The document also recommends drowning out protesters or blocking their signs by using what it calls "rally squads." It states: "These squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators. The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (USA!, USA!, USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site."

The document offered advice on how to recruit members for such squads: "The rally squads can include, but are not limited to, college/young republican organizations, local athletic teams, and fraternities/sororities."...

You can't make this stuff up. (But like Goodfellow, you can certainly try.)

[Phil]

Thanks, blogged it.