The Tangled Web He Weaves...
Who is Behind David Icke’s
‘Freedom Foundation’?
by Will Banyan (December 2009)
Illustrations by Ashhley M. Verkamp :: ashleyverkamp.com
Author’s Note: This is an extended and slightly revised version of an article, which originally appeared in PARANOIA (Issue 46) Winter 2008. In subsequent correspondence with the author, a seemingly incensed David Icke dismissed the original article as a “joke” and “crap,” but conspicuously declined to refute any of the points made. But David Icke has since discontinued the Freedom Foundation, seemingly without explanation, and has restricted access to the original link announcing the Foundation on his website. I therefore leave it to readers to make their own judgement as to accuracy or otherwise of the following…
“Tall oaks from little acorns grow”, David Everett – quote used for title of Samuel Bronfman’s book ‘… from little acorns…’
The Story of the Distillers Corporation – Seagrams Limited (1970) and the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation website, http://www.bronfmanfoundation.org/.
“Today’s mighty oak is just yesterday’s nut that held its ground”
– David Icke, The Biggest Secret (1999), p.x.
Mocking David Icke’s judgment has long been the sport of various wags in the mainstream media. Back in 1991 he memorably came to grief on BBC1 when Terry Wogan punctured his seemingly confident façade. “But they’re laughing at you. They're not laughing with you”, Wogan told the savant in the turquoise shellsuit, who had until then had apparently assumed the studio audience was actually behind him.
Since then Icke has even managed to attract ridicule from his fellow conspiracists, most notably following the launch of his reptilian thesis all guns blazing, convinced that he alone had happened onto the truth. The “biggest crock to be foisted on the public in many moons”, declared an incredulous Jim Keith, after reading The Biggest Secret (1999) Icke’s modest magnum opus on the reptilians. Icke’s reptilian theories were “garish drivel” and “nonsensical fabrication,” wrote William Jasper of the John Birch Society (2004, p.20). Despite some testiness, Icke insists such criticism has been water off a duck’s back. He has learned to ignore the scorn of others.
Such defenses are definitely an asset as Icke continues to feed perceptions that his judgment is suspect. Mid-way through 2006 Icke announced on his website that he had been forced to take legal action against long-time collaborator Royal Adams, who had apparently attempted to take control of all Icke’s publications in the United States. This was an ironic turn of events given that Icke had dedicated one of his most recent books, Infinite Love is the Only Truth, Everything Else is Illusion (2006), to Royal Adams for his “magnificent work” in keeping his books “in circulation.” Icke had also dedicated The Biggest Secret “To Royal, for all his great work in America.” To have misjudged the trustworthiness of a close collaborator for so long is quite a feat, but in his efforts to deal with this thorny legal issue Icke seems to have made another blunder.
Going to court is costly, even for a man who seems to believe the world we live in is, in fact, a hologram. So Icke has asked for money from his supporters to help with his legal costs. Towards the end of February 2007 Icke’s fundraising took an interesting new turn with the following announcement (this link is now restricted but a link to the original announcement can be found here):
Wednesday, 21 February 2007
THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION
FUNDING THE TRUTH INSTEAD OF THE SYSTEM
This is the educational foundation that allows American taxpayers to donate to David Icke’s work and have it deducted from their tax bill.
Here is the chance to reduce the amount you pay to government to fund control and war and instead support someone working full-time for up to 12 hours a day to expose those behind the global conspiracy to enslave us all.
Your donation will help David to expand further what he does and prevent those who wish to silence him from doing so through attacks on his ability to continue financially.
The Freedom Foundation is supported by the International Humanities Center, a not-for-profit tax-exempt charitable organization under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. All charitable contributions made by US citizens are tax-deductible.
To make a donation please click here …
Or you can send a cheque payable to
The Freedom Foundation, c/o International Humanities Center, PO Box 923, Malibu, California, 90265.
Thank-you for all your help and support
Icke’s appeal seems harmless enough, even a worthy cause if you find his insights compelling, provided we put aside any reservations we might have about providing monies to a “tax-exempt charitable organisation.” Under the cover of the International Humanities Center, legally a public charity that is not required to reveal the identity of its donors (Randall & Randall 2003, p.2), Icke seems to have created his own tax-exempt foundation. This would seem to be quite a radical act for Icke given that tax-exempt foundations were first identified as a tool of New World Order conspirators back in the 1950s by the Congressional Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations (Reece Committee). According to that Committee:
In the international field, foundations, and an interlock among some of them and certain intermediary organizations, have exercised a strong effect upon our foreign policy and upon public education in things international. This has been accomplished by vast propaganda, by supplying executives and advisors to government, and by controlling much research in this area through the power of the purse. The net result of these combined efforts has been to promote 'internationalism' in a particular sense - a form directed toward 'world government' and a derogation of American 'nationalism.'
Numerous researchers drew on that report and the book Foundations: Their Power and Influence (1958) written by the Committee’s general counsel, Rene Wormser, to conclude that tax-exempt foundations were an insidious influence. John A. Stormer’s path-breaking None Dare Call It Treason (1964), for example, devoted an entire chapter to explaining how “the money of American capitalists – Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Guggenheim, etc. – has largely financed those working for the establishment of a ‘new world order’” (p.173).
Icke, though, appears to have given the International Humanities Center (IHC) – which administered his Freedom Foundation – his seal of approval, and given his record of opposing the “Illuminati” most supporters would be confident that the IHC meets his exacting standards. Nevertheless, in lieu of any detailed explanation from Icke assuring us of the IHC’s suitability, it is surely prudent to ask some questions about the IHC. Such as: what are its objectives? Who runs it? What does it do? And where does it get its funding? This short paper will attempt to answer these questions and hopefully cast some light on the organisation that provided fiscal support (i.e. the tax-exempt status) to David Icke’s “Freedom Foundation.”
See No EvilOn the face of it the IHC appears to be a worthy organisation with a less than sinister purpose. According to its website, the mission of the IHC is to “work with other independent nonprofit organizations and sponsored projects that are devoted to a vision of ecological and humanitarian stewardship that benefits all of creation.” Ultimately the IHC seeks to “reverse the current situation of pollution, disease, and disconnection by focusing efforts on creating a civilization that is centered upon love, peace, and natural harmony.”
According to its recently issued Operations Manual, the IHC was established in 1988 as a “fiscal sponsorship program that deploys education, services and ecologically responsible technologies to the benefit of the general public.” The primary function of the IHC is to provide financial and administrative services to “grassroots projects.” As a 501[c](3) nonprofit public charity, donors can be sure of retaining their tax-exempt status when they give money to a specific project via the IHC. In return the IHC levies an annual “Fiscal Sponsorship Fee,” of either $200 or 5% of the donations received by a member, whichever is larger.
But upon looking closer one discovers a few interesting facts that would have surely piqued the interest of an analyst of Icke’s calibre. Consider the IHC Board, a rather eclectic group of individuals, which is also legally the board of Icke’s Freedom Foundation. The IHC’s Financial Director, Catherine Carroll, was a co-founding director of the Renaissance Foundation, a “leadership organisation,” according to its website. One of its sub-programs is the “Renaissance Women” a group “whose goal is to give women an alternative voice from radical feminism.” Back in 2000 this was realised as “support for George W. Bush,” though we were assured this support was not given as a collective, but as “individuals” (WorldNetDaily, Aug. 2, 2000).
Board member Katherine O’Flahtery was once a trouble-shooter for Wal-Mart logistics; and the IHC Operations Director, Dave Sanders, before going green 15 years ago, spent 17 years as a contractor for the US Department of Energy, the US Department of Defense and GE-Nuclear. IHC Executive Director Steve Sugarman, a professional psychologist, emerges as a former Executive Director of the Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), Co-Founder of the Bolsa Chica Stewardship Group and as the author of The Blueprint for Planetary Evolution.
Sugarman’s grand plan, The Blueprint for Planetary Evolution, is an intriguing work. Prepared partly as a response to the events of 9/11, Sugarman presents his Blueprint as a “holistic picture” of the “emphases and fronts of the ecosocial movement…in the context of the present world situation.” That present world situation Sugarman presents as a “catastrophe,” the “sixth extinction crisis” to have hit the Earth, though in this case it is “altogether human-caused, and happening at a phenomenal pace.” Sugarman’s solution to this crisis is to embrace the values of “Deep Ecology,” which in practice means creating a “bioregional” society by breaking up cities into “ecovillages.” In this “ecosocial” utopia of “planned communities” the global economy would be supplanted by “regional economies.” Many international institutions, such as the WTO and IMF, would become defunct and the multi-national corporations would be broken down into local entities.
For people who like to throw themselves, or sharp objects, at the barricades that surround most Group of Eight, FTAA, IMF and World Bank meetings nowadays, this “ecosocial” agenda would seem very familiar and quite admirable. Readers of Icke’s collected works would also note some similarities. It was not that long ago when Icke had first entranced many readers with his account of the conspiracy hatched by a “Luciferian consciousness,” that Icke offered his solution of “World Cooperation” in which national governments would be eliminated and replaced by a hierarchy of organisations: neighbourhood councils, community councils, community forums, regional governments and finally a “world forum” (1994, pp.276-78). And it was only 19 years ago, during his salad days as the national spokesman for the UK Green Party, that Icke advocated breaking up multi-national corporations into “smaller, less powerful units on at least a national and ideally a regional basis” (1990, pp.80-81).
Perhaps the least palatable aspect of Sugarman’s vision is his grim advice on the global population problem. According to Sugarman a “decrease in global human population is absolutely necessary.” In fact Thomas Malthus’ warnings about the dangers of overpopulation are “proving to be correct” with “[w]ar, hunger, disease and ecological devastation...the order of the day.” Exactly how this problem is to be resolved, Sugarman does not say, but he insists that a “conscious effort to stabilize the current level of human saturation is necessary,” after which a “steady decrease can be implemented.” Of course Sugarman warns that he is “not suggesting this will be easy” and is unlikely to be popular, but the message is clear: there are too many people for Sugarman’s liking and this problem must be dealt with.
To seek assistance from an organisation under the direction of a man who seems to advocate such an agenda would seem courageous, especially if one had warned previously about the how the panic over the “overpopulation crisis” owed much to the machinations of the sinister Club of Rome and the Rockefeller-founded and funded Population Council (Icke 1997, pp.176-9). But it is easy if you once publicly embraced that agenda yourself, as Icke did in his previous incarnation as Spokesman for the British Green Party:
Once again humankind has a choice to make. We can be sensible and limit our numbers voluntarily or we can go on until nature does it for us with disease and hunger. That will be deeply unpleasant for those around at the time…and the time isn't too far off (Icke, 1990, p.87).
And if you continue to show in your writings and other utterances that you haven’t quite let go of the idea that there’s too many people in the world, as Icke has done in both editions of And The Truth Will Set You Free:
It is plainly true, as the New World Order promoters say, that there is a limit to the number of human beings who can live on this planet. You can't argue with that because when there is a human being for every square foot of the Earth, there will be clearly too many. So there are limits (Icke, 1997, p.165; 2001, p165).
At this point one might argue that the personal views and curious backgrounds of the members of the IHC board, though intriguing in some respects, should have no bearing on Icke’s decision to use its services. Some may even argue that what Icke is doing is no more controversial than putting his money into a bank. Everyone does it and that does not mean one is privy to or complicit in the agendas and machinations of the bank’s board or its key shareholders. But such an analogy does not stand. The IHC is not a bank and Icke is not a mere customer, seeking a loan or a good place to deposit his earnings. His Freedom Foundation is part of a select group of 235 projects or “member groups” supported by the IHC.
The IHC provides a specific service, namely providing tax-exempt status, fiscal sponsorship, and program incubation to its member groups, most of which are too small to manage themselves. Indeed, the IHC presents itself as an “incubator for nonprofit projects focused on establishing a kinder, more harmonious experience for people and planet.” However, as the IHC makes abundantly clear on its website, it does not provide this service to any potential nonprofit project that knocks on its door, but only to those “dedicated people and projects that share this mission” (emphasis added). This is further reflected in the selection process where, after the application is submitted:
Once your project is reviewed and deemed in alignment with our charter, we'll take the process to the next level, which is where we'll interview you, and the principal members of your team, as desired. After all, it's your project and your vision. We simply need to be assured that you are serious, and prepared to manage it.
Well Icke’s project was obviously deemed to be “in alignment” with the IHC’s mysterious charter and now they are helping him out.
In Esteemed Company
Before joining the IHC, Sugarman was Executive Director of Social & Environmental Entrepreneurs. Like the IHC, the SEE is a “public charity” which provides start-up guidance and other services to its member groups. The SEE describes its mission as being to “empower, encourage and catalyze individuals to facilitate progressive change in areas of social justice and ecological restoration.” The SEE Program was created in September 1994 by the EarthWays Foundation as an affiliate organisation. The Earthways Foundation was established in 1988 by Andrew Beath, a successful corporate real-estate developer who turned his attention to social justice and environmental philanthropy some twenty years ago. Beath is currently Executive Director of EarthWays and Chairman of the Board at SEE.
The objective of EarthWays, according to Beath’s emotional letter on the Foundation’s website, is to “find a deeper understanding of our relationship to the natural world” and to “restore an appropriate balance” between our economic needs and the environment. At EarthWays “We are crying for a vision that all living things can share,” claims Beath, wistfully quoting the singer Kate Wolf. “From this inward crying,” he continues, “comes personal awareness that gives direction to our desire to take action. Personal transformation is the first step to global change.” Readers, who find these sentiments not only similar but as appealing as David Icke’s various metaphysical ramblings, can presumably find more insights in Beath’s book Consciousness in Action.
EarthWays’ financial connections are quite interesting. In 1998 EarthWays received $50,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation (1998 Annual Report, p.86) for its role as an organizing partner of the 1999 World Festival of Sacred Music - an event billed by its organizers as way to “transcend borders of all kinds-linguistic, national, cultural, ideological, racial and religious.” The Rockefeller Foundation gave EarthWays a further $42,837 in 2000 to film the festival (2000 Annual Report, p.69); and in 2002 it granted EarthWays $100,000 to help with the costs for the 2002 World Festival of Sacred Music (2002 Annual Report, p.27). EarthWays also received funding from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which donated “$10,000 or more” between 2002 and 2004 (RPA, 2005, pp.16-17). Exactly how much and for what, we do not know; the RPA very helpfully gives only one grant category: “$10,000 or more.”
Another EarthWays project, The Atomic Mirror (TAM), also falls under the Rockefeller philanthropic umbrella. TAM uses “the creative arts (films, writing, music, images, performance, ceremony) to reveal the consequences of the nuclear age, and to inspire people to take action for a nuclear free world.” In 2005 TAM was a participant in The People Speak: America’s Role in the World, a nationwide discussion series launched by the United Nations Foundation (created by Ted Turner in 1998) in 2003, with additional backing from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Brookings Institution. The People Speak presents itself as an “an educational campaign designed to engage young people on the global issues that will shape their future” including poverty reduction, global health and climate change.
As for the SEE, which granted IHC member-groups $338,689 in 2003 and $143,568 in 2004, we do not know where its funds ultimately come from as its website does not include those details. Moreover, few of its member groups bother to reveal their sponsors, other than to indicate they are part of the SEE.
As for the Rockefeller connection, it appears to have jumped the SEE and landed in the IHC. In its 990 form for 2005, the seemingly inoffensive Philanthropic Collaborative (New York) is identified as donating $40,000 to IHC member groups. A search on the Internet reveals the Philanthropic Collaborative to be an offshoot of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, itself a non-profit offshoot of Rockefeller Financial Services (Strom 2002). Established in 2002, Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisers created the Philanthropic Collaborative so its clients can “make gifts inside and outside the United States, participate in funding consortia, and operate nonprofit initiatives.” The RPA board not only includes three Rockefeller family members: Clayton Rockefeller, Sharon P. Rockefeller and Steven C. Rockefeller, Jr.; but also includes a Marnie S. Pillsbury, a CFR member, Executive Director of the David Rockefeller Fund and “philanthropic advisor to David Rockefeller,” according to a press release on the RPA website.
Such connections would not matter, except that Icke has previously denounced the Rockefeller family as “reptilian full-bloods” (1999, p.45) and the “bloodline branch managers in America…who, quite provably, decide who is going to be President” (ibid, p.190). Icke is also on record describing the Rockefeller Foundation as a “tax-exempt New World Order front” (1997, p.133), as well as claiming that it set CIA policy (ibid, p.285), and has funded research into computers capable of mind control (ibid, p.374). And it was Icke who once warned that the Rockefeller Foundation is part of an “endless web of interconnecting groups” that interlocks with the Illuminati and other sinister organisations (1999, p.263). In fact, Icke has claimed, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund and the Rockefeller-connected Mellon Foundations have “poured millions into the environmental campaigns and pressure groups” to create the modern green movement (1997, p.243). Despite going to such trouble to reveal all these alarming “facts” about the Rockefeller dynasty, Icke seems unperturbed that some of his fellow IHC member-groups are receiving funds from that same source.
Also, in amongst the plethora of seemingly fringe environmental and social justice projects it counts as members, the SEE provides support to groups with strong Establishment connections. Consider, for example, the seemingly innocuous Truman Security Forum (TSF), an outfit which was a SEE member-group from 2006 through to 2008, when it was superseded by the Truman National Security Project (TNSP). The TSF described itself as a “non-partisan, national security institute dedicated to creating a strong principled alternative to conservative national security policies.” The Executive Director of the TSF (and now of the TNSP) is Rachel Kleinfeld, a Rhodes Scholar, a former consultant to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Blue Fund, a body dedicated to securing corporate support for the Democrats. On the TSF’s seven-member Board of Advisers, we find Leslie Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and two relics of the Clinton Administration, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Perry.
By Icke’s standards the TSF is also suspect. Icke claims that Rhodes Scholars, such as Kleinfeld, are “selected by the Brotherhood,” in accordance with their “genetic history,” to be “indoctrinated into the ‘world government’ Agenda.” In The Biggest Secret, Icke notes the “remarkable” fact that most Rhodes Scholars “return to their own countries and enter positions of overt or covert power” (1999, p.218). TSF Advisor Madeline Albright is a “Brotherhood initiate” and the “High Priestess of US politics” who “knows about the US government mind controlled slaves and supports that policy” (1999, p.340). Her colleague, former President of the CFR, Leslie Gelb is easily condemned given that the CFR controls the administration of the United States, especially its foreign policy” and that its goal is “to introduce world government” (1997, p.85). While Perry, identified by Icke as a Bilderberger (1999, p.267), belongs to a secretive organisation that Icke claims is part of “a highly effective network of manipulation which comprises a very significant element of the secret government of the world” (1997, p.138). True, the TSF is not an IHC member-group, but given the strong SEE-IHC interlock, in the form of Sugarman and half a million dollars in grants over 2003-04, one would think that such an association would have given Icke reason to pause before moving into the IHC’s embrace.
A Scaly Hand Out
Another donor of interest on the IHC’s 990 Form for 2005 is the Tides Foundation, which donated $55,000. Although, according to its own records the Tides Foundation actually gave nearly $90,000 in grants to three IHC members: $20,000 to the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools; $64,000 to Voter Action; and $3,700 to WildPlaces. According to the IHC’s 990 Form for 2006, Tides has shown greater generosity, making two separate donations to IHC member groups of $100,000 and $145,000. But what is the Tides Foundation?
Founded in 1976 by Drummond Pike, a former activist, the Tides Foundation styles itself as a vehicle for “positive social change through philanthropy,” organising donors to in the cause of “strengthening community-based nonprofit organizations and the progressive movement through innovative grantmaking.” Critics, though, charge that the Tides Foundation’s actual purpose is the less than transparent business of enabling the big foundations to anonymously fund various radical and controversial groups that they would otherwise prefer not to be publicly associated with. As Ben Johnson explains his book 57 Varieties of Radical Causes:
Tides allows donors to anonymously contribute money to a variety of causes -- and thereby avoid public accountability for their donations. The donor simply makes the check out to Tides and instructs the Foundation where to forward the money. Tides does so, often keeping as much as ten percent of the total amount for “charitable advisory fees.” This allows high-profile individuals to fund extremist organizations by “laundering” their money through Tides, leaving no paper trail (Johnson 2004).
The San Francisco Bay Guardian made a similar observation in a 1997 article:
Wealthy patrons give big chunks of money to Tides - and their names are kept confidential. The Tides donation is completely tax deductible. But the donor can discreetly designate an organization that he or she wants to see receive the money - and Tides will pass the donation along, minus a small administrative fee. Often, the recipient group doesn’t know where the money really came from. And there’s no way for the public to find out either (quoted in Cohen 2006, p.2).
A look at the top funders of the Tides Foundation gives a sense of this. According to Activist Cash, the top funder was the Pew Charitable Trust, which provided Tides with $118 million between 1990 and 2002. Other key Establishment foundations also contributed: the Ford Foundation provided $36 million between 1989 and 2005; George Soros’ Open Society Institute donated $15.7 million (1997-2003); the Rockefeller Foundation gave $2.9 million (1993-2002); $2.3 million came from the Carnegie Corporation (1992-2002); the Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave $1.9 million in 1993-2003, plus a further $250,000 in 2005; Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers gave $372,300 (1997-2001) and the Rockefeller Family Fund donated $175,000 (1991-2001). Between 1995 and 2001, the Tides Foundation also received some $6 million from Heinz Endowments, the foundation run by Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Senator John Kerry, the Skull & Bones man who ran against George W. Bush in 2004.
Tides has used this money to help fund a variety of organisations, ranging from protest organisations such as the Ruckus Society, through the Council for American Islamic Relations, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Greenpeace. In 2006 the Truman Security Forum received $50,000 from the Tides Foundation; and of course Tides has given generously to a number projects under the wing of the International Humanities Center.
Any reader of David Icke’s books would know the origins of the Tides Foundation’s money alone would make it a suspect institution. Most of these foundations, claims Icke, form part of the “network of so-called tax-exempt foundations started by the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford families, which help to fund the New World Order plan” (Icke 1997, p.67). But to make matters more interesting is the fact that sitting on the Tides Foundation’s Board of Directors is a Joanie Bronfman.
Bronfman is described in glowing terms on the Tides website and in its Annual Reports, as a “long-time advocate for social justice and donor activism.” The real point of interest is that Bronfman has been identified by various sources as an “heiress to the Seagram whiskey fortune” (Noah 2001) and as a member of the “Old Money…Bronfman family” (Marcus 1989, p.266). A professional “wealth counsellor,” Joanie Bronfman has also established herself as an expert helping the rich overcome the malicious social practice of “wealthism.” She explained this hitherto undiagnosed condition in her 1987 PhD thesis, The Experience of Inherited Wealth: A Social-Psychological Perspective:
The Tides Foundation website notes that Joanie Bronfman had previously “served on the boards of Tides Canada and the Threshold Foundation, where she was a founder of Threshold's Social Justice Committee.” Tides Canada has made its contribution to our future by distributing copies of Al Gore’s doom-laden PowerPoint presentation on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth” to schools in Canada.
The co-founder and former board member of the Threshold Foundation – which describes itself as “a progressive foundation and a community of individuals united through wealth, who mobilize money, people and power to create a more just, joyful and sustainable world” – was a Jeffrey Bronfman. According to the Vancouver Sun (Feb. 10, 2001) Jeffrey is the “second cousin to Edgar Bronfman Jr. and grandnephew to Seagram's dynasty founder Samuel Bronfman.” He is also an enthusiast for ayahuasca, the hallucinogenic substance found in South America; which, coincidentally, David Icke experimented with in 2003, as he relates with considerable earnestness in Tales From The Time Loop.
Incidentally, the Threshold Foundation provided financial support for publication of the Atomic Mirror’s 2003 and 2004 Annual Reports; and Drummond Pike of the Tides Foundation, was on Threshold’s Board of Directors in 2004-2005 (2004 Annual Report, p.27). One should also note that in 2008 the Threshold Foundation made a grant of $25,000 to the Election Defense Alliance, an IHC member group. Another bit of trivia is that Jeffrey Bronfman and SEE Chairman Andrew Beath were both donors to the Nonviolent Peaceforce in 2007, according to that organization’s Annual Report (pp.2-3). It’s a tight network…
Again for the average punter this would all seem to be a trivial matter, except that David Icke has repeatedly attacked the Bronfman family of Canada, the founders of the same Seagrams liquor company. If we sample his many writings we find the Bronfman family described as: an “underworld family” (Icke 1997, p.290); “a reptilian bloodline and very close to the Rothschilds” (Icke, 2001, p.387); one of the Illuminati’s “key bloodlines” (Icke, 2001, p.410); and as the “Illuminati Bronfman family” (Icke, 2003, p.411). More significantly Icke has claimed that it was “the Bronfmans, through various front organizations and stooges” who were behind a global campaign to suppress his books and speaking tours (Icke 2001, p.387). But now it seems that David Icke is not bothered by the IHC member groups who have received grants from a foundation with a Bronfman on its board…
The Plot Sickens
Not long after the first version of this article went to print at PARANOIA, the IHC finally released its 990 Form for 2006. The list of contributors was again very interesting, to put it mildly. Topping the list was a Laurance Rockefeller, who donated directly and via Rockefeller & Co., a total of $899,000 to the IHC. As Laurance S .Rockefeller had in fact died in 2004 at the age of 94, we can surmise that this massive contribution was either a posthumous grant from his estate or it came from his own son, Laurance (“Larry”) Rockefeller Jr.
Laurance S. Rockefeller was one of the five Rockefeller brothers, the sons of John D. Rockefeller Jr., himself the only son of John D. Rockefeller Sr., the founder of the Standard Oil fortune. Given his pedigree and range of interests, including environmentalism and UFOs, Laurance S. Rockefeller had naturally attracted the ire of David Icke. For example, in And The Truth Will Set You Free (p.167), Icke claimed that it was at Henry Kissinger’s suggestion that President Nixon had:
named Laurance Rockefeller (TC, CFR, Bil) to lead a special commission on population growth. This recommended in 1972 that population control be introduced in America (i.e. among the 'lesser' stock).
In the same book (p.300) and also in The Biggest Secret (p.484), Icke observed that “UFO ‘research’ in the United States has been funded by Laurance Rockefeller.” A fact Icke cited to support his contention that the Brotherhood was at that time apparently intent on “playing the extra-terrestrial card.” Furthermore, Icke also named Laurance as one of those Rockefellers who were responsible for the “manipulation of the United States and the wider world” (p.267).
As for Larry Rockefeller Jr, Icke has had nothing to say about him, despite his parentage or strong interest in conservation matters. Currently Larry Rockefeller is an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Perhaps his main claim to fame (or infamy, depending on one’s point-of-view) is his role in the rise of Democrat Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama. According to a report by Executive Intelligence Review (published by Lyndon LaRouche), back in 2004:
a national environmentalist entity created and managed by the Rockefeller family endorsed Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator with little national reputation, in his race against other Democrats in his Democratic primary race for United States senator.
The League for Conservation Voters announced they would "launch a new TV spot, titled 'Rising Star,'" which would run regularly "through Election Day in the Chicago media market. The League's press release boasted that the promotion was expensive: "the ad buy is a significant, six-figure purchase."
In the 2003-2004 campaign season (according to the Center for Public Integrity), the League also paid $297,867 to the political consulting firm of David Axelrod, which was managing Obama's campaign. Axelrod and his firm AKP Message and Media shaped Obama's political image and today manage the Obama Presidential campaign top-down.
The League of Conservation Voters was founded by Laurance S. Rockefeller and his close associates. Among the current directors of the League are Larry Rockefeller, son of Laurance (who died the year of the Obama Senate campaign); Wade Greene, counselor to the Rockefeller family; Donald K. Ross, strategist for the Rockefeller family's environ mental and foundation activities; and Theodore Roosevelt, IV, partner of Felix Rohatyn at Lehman Brothers. Roosevelt is the League's honorary chairman and a long-time leader of the group.
As for Rockefeller & Co, the source of some of Larry Rockefeller’s generous giving to the IHC, according to its website, it was established in 1882 by John D. Rockefeller Sr. to manage “his family’s assets.” Since 1979 Rockefeller & Co has evolved into “an integrated investment and wealth management firm with a diverse client base,” with total administered assets of $30 billion. Not quite small beer…
In 2002 Icke was highly critical of crop circle researcher Colin Andrews, for accepting a grant in the “five figure range” from Laurance Rockefeller to conduct research into the crop circle phenomena. According to Icke, by becoming involved with the Rockefellers, it was obvious that Andrews’ research was “going to lead somewhere that suited them and their agenda.” For good measure he added this historical tidbit:
The official congressional investigation into the Rockefellers tax-exempt "foundations,” which fund the projects of the New World Order, documents how the outcome of "research" was agreed before the Rockefellers handed over the cheque to START the research.
Icke then made it clear that he did not trust the outcome of Andrews’ research because of the Rockefeller connection:
Now I am not saying that Colin Andrews has been knowingly deceitful here for a moment. But I am saying that Laurance Rockefeller, who also finances UFO "research,” does not pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund an outcome that doesn't suit him. The Rockefellers are 100% Illuminati. So does anyone think that they want the public to know what the crop formations really are?? My goodness. And it is this Rockefeller-funded research that has produced Colin's answer to the mystery. I think I'll wait just a little longer to be so definite, if you don't mind, Col.
In view of this bold assertion by Icke, the temptation to apply the same standard to him is certainly overwhelming, though it might be unfair given that Icke himself does not seem to have been the recipient of Rockefeller money. But it would be right to ask if Icke is happy with the company he keeps, given Larry Rockefeller’s massive grant to IHC member groups – a contribution clearly in the six figure range.
And yet another donor, but this time not mentioned at all on the IHC’s 990 form for 2006, is the Rockefeller Family Fund. Incorporated in 1967 by Martha, John, Laurance, Nelson, and David Rockefeller, the RFF describes itself as having “worked at the cutting edge of advocacy in such areas as environmental protection, advancing the economic rights of women, and helping citizens hold public and private institutions accountable for their actions.” The Rockefeller family remains intimately involved in the fund: Emily Rockefeller is a Vice-President; Rockefeller family members sit on the Executive Committee, Finance Committee, Nominating Committee and the Program Committee; four Rockefellers are trustees; and David Rockefeller is the RFF’s Honorary Trustee. According to its 2006 Annual Report, the RFF’s Citizen Participation and Government Accountability Program gave the IHC $30,000 for its Voter Action Program (p.9), and a further $20,000 was provided by the Effective Democracy Fund, a donor-advised fund managed by the RFF (p.18). Voter Action, which remains an IHC member-group, has continued to receive RFF funding, including another $30,000 in 2007, and $40,000 in 2008.
In view of these Rockefeller connections to the IHC, it’s worth noting a few other trivial convergences. The aforementioned SEE Chairman Andrew Beath, for example, not only founded an organization that sought and obtained money from the Rockefeller Foundation, but has also given to similar discrete causes as the Rockefeller philanthropic empire. Beath and Rockefeller Financial Services were among the donors to the Sacred Earth Network, as reported in the SEN Newsletter (Winter 2001). Beath and the late Laurance Rockefeller also both turned up as donors to Evolve, a program of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution (FCE), during Evolve’s January 2000-May 2003 fund-raising period. Of course, this is not evidence of a Rockefeller-Beath alliance, only of shared concerns…
It is also worth noting that much like the Tides Foundation; the IHC does not disclose all its donors. On its 2006 990 form, for example, there are $4.88 million in total program expenses out of $4.91 million in contributions. Yet the source of only $1.75 million in contributions is actually identified. The source of the other $3 million is unknown. Most of it may be very small donations from individuals as ordinary as you or I, but others are just as likely to be somewhat larger and from groups and individuals with agendas of the power-elite, like those from Rockefeller Family Fund. Another issue is that even though the IHC gives a detailed breakdown of how much its programs receive, there are no indications as which donors funded specific programs. In all, the transparency of the IHC is minimal.
Tangled in a Tangled Web…
David Icke is not the first researcher to warn of the insidious influence of the tax-exempt foundations. As noted earlier, the pioneering work on this issue was done by the Reece Committee in the 1950s and brought to a larger audience from the 1960s onward by a diverse range of authors including: Kent and Phoebe Courtney (1962, pp.19-26); Alan Stang (1968, pp.115-123); William P. Hoar (1984, p.74); Gurudas (1996, pp.21-22); Jim Marrs (2000, p.53) and most recently, Daniel Taylor (2008) of Old-Thinker News. This work has been expanded upon by other researchers, such as Bob Feldman at Left Gatekeepers.com, who have tracked links between the leading foundations and the environmentalist and progressive movements in the US. Such research has established foundation support to a range of progressive standard-bearers, from The Nation through to Noam Chomsky.
What is remarkable in this instance is that Icke must be the first of the much-maligned members of the conspiracist camp, if not one of its most radical thinkers, to actually go from attacking that network to joining it. The question for Icke’s many admirers is why has this happened? It would be tempting to attribute this to an oversight on his part, perhaps attributable to the stress of his recent court case. Except that this is not the first time Icke has worked with the IHC. Back in 2004 there was the David Icke/Metta Arts Project, which involved Icke giving a series of lectures in the US, the funding for which was controlled by the IHC. Moreover, it has been alleged by one source that soon after this event Icke was informed by a concerned supporter that the IHC had a Rockefeller connection. In response Icke apparently insisted that the connection was of little consequence and, anyway, he was no longer dealing with the IHC.
If true, this alleged dismissal of the IHC’s Rockefeller connection by Icke would be heartening to all those individuals Icke has happily smeared over the years because of their alleged links to “Illuminati” organizations. The widely despised Richard Warman, for example, a long-time antagonist of Icke, was once written off as a Bronfman “stooge” because of such links. It is worth recalling how compelling Icke’s evidence was to back this explosive allegation: first, Warman was a member of the Ontario Green Party, which works out of Toronto “one of the global centres of the Illuminati and one of its key bloodlines, the Bronfmans”; and, second, Warman “worked closely” with the Canadian Jewish Congress, which was “founded and funded by the Bronfman family” (Icke, 2001, pp.410-411). Not surprisingly, the compulsively litigious Warman took legal action against Icke, seeking $1 million in damages for, among other things, the defamatory claim that he was “controlled by someone else.”1 The outcome of that legal dispute is unknown...
Another target of David Icke’s generous ire that should take comfort is his contender in the by-election for the seat of Haltemprice and Howden (held in July 2008), is former Conservative MP David Davis. In a lengthy piece on his website, in midst of his own ultimately unsuccessful campaign (David Icke’s share of the vote was 0.46% or 110 votes), Icke queried the sincerity of Davis’ campaign, asserting that it was “looking…more like yet another a Neocon scam.”
As with his attack on Warman, Icke’s evidence was exceptionally convincing. First, Icke revealed that Davis was been endorsed by, of all people, Ed Vaizey, the Conservative MP for Wantage and Didcot. For Icke it was clearly outrageous for Davis, running on a campaign of opposing Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s“Big Brother” plan to detain terrorist suspects for 42 days without charge, to accept Vaizey’s support. The reason? Vaizey was a member of the Henry Jackson Society:
The Big Brother society that Vaizey now claims to oppose in his support of fellow Conservative, David Davis, has been justified by the very war on terror that was instigated by members of the very Henry Jackson Society that Vaizey has been promoting from its creation in 2005.
The Henry Jackson Society, Icke breathlessly informed us, is in fact:
a Neocon operation, the British version of the Project for the New American Century, and it has precisely the same goals – the creation of an Orwellian global state and world domination through military force, technological surveillance, and the control of food, water and all resources.
More amazing evidence of the “scam” related to Davis’ other supporter, Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, who had once been sponsored by the Hart Group on a “fact-finding” visit to Iraq when he was the Conservative spokesman on Homeland Security. After detailing its interests in various biometric and electronic identification and surveillance technologies (but not its support for Brown’s 42-day detention policy), Icke declared the Hart Group to be a “classic Illuminati bloodline operation ... involving the aristocratic Spencer, Churchill and Sinclair families.”
Of course, to be difficult, one can point out that Icke presents no evidence that Davis himself was a member of the Henry Jackson Society or that Davis was in the direct pay of the “Illuminati” controlled Hart Group. For Icke, though, the conclusions we should draw from these associations are all too obvious:
They reckon you can judge people by the company they keep and on that basis alone the stand by Davis looks less and less one of principle – unless he is being duped himself [emphasis added].
The Company Icke Keeps…
It would of course be unfair to draw any unsavory conclusions about David Icke’s Freedom Foundation merely because the IHC has clearly acted as a conduit for Larry Rockefeller’s generous grants or the considerable largesse of the Tides Foundation or the more modest contributions of the Philanthropic Collaborative (Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers) or even the trifling amounts provided by the Rockefeller Family Fund. It would surely be a case of guilt-by-association to find fault with Icke’s arrangement with the IHC on the basis of this evidence. Nevertheless, one must grapple with three indisputable facts:
- Icke has stated repeatedly and explicitly in his books and lectures not to trust tax-exempt foundations, especially those connected to the Rockefellers and Bronfmans;
- In 2005 and 2006 the IHC received on behalf of its member groups almost $1 million from Rockefeller philanthropic sources and $335,000 from the Tides Foundation; and
- The IHC, until very recently, administered both Icke’s Freedom Foundation and Pamela Icke’s Fly With Me Productions.
This opens the door to other, less palatable explanations for Icke’s recent arrangement with the IHC, ranging from the sinister to the cynical. Is Icke now in the pay of the very forces he now claims to oppose? Has he been co-opted? Or do Icke’s actions indicate that he no longer believes what he says? Has Icke been duped? Or even that the powers-that-be that Icke rails against with such vigor are actually totally ignorant of or just indifferent to his very existence? Given Icke’s record of publicly opposing the “Illuminati” in its innumerable guises (and disguises), and the fact there is no evidence that Icke has received any funding from the Rockefellers or Bronfmans either directly or through his Freedom Foundation – thus far – such suggestions may seem outrageous. But through the act of seeking assistance from the IHC, seemingly without regard to its easily discovered connections, Icke does much to foster such conspiracy theories. The crux of matter, though, is quite simply that according to the very standards and methods that Icke frequently applies to condemn others as participants in a diabolical millennia-long global conspiracy; he leaves himself wide open to the very same charges through his recent association with the IHC.
In 2007 David Icke’s Freedom Foundation received a total of $112,090 in donations; we can safely assume - for the moment - that most, if not all, of those tax-exempt donations came from the same sort of people who eagerly buy his books and DVDs, and who joyfully attend his marathon lectures. However, sometime during 2009, Icke very quietly removed the link to the Freedom Foundation from his website (only subscribers can access it) and disbanded it discontinuing his relationship with the IHC, leaving few traces of its existence, except for those who dig deep enough. Icke may well insist there was nothing sinister in his arrangements, perhaps; but his silence on this issue might suggest otherwise… P
References
Bonner Cohen, “The Price of Doing Business: Environmentalist Groups Toe the Line,” Foundation Watch (Capital Research Center), July 2006.
Kent & Phoebe Courtney, America’s Unelected Rulers, Conservative Society of America, 1962.
Gurudas, Treason: The New World Order, Cassandra Press, 1996.
William P. Hoar, Architects of Conspiracy: An Intriguing History, Western Islands, 1984.
David Icke, It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This: Green Politics Explained, Green Print 1990.
David Icke, The Robots’ Rebellion: The Story of the Spiritual Renaissance, Gateway Books, 1994.
David Icke, …and the truth will set your free: The most explosive book of the 20th century, second edition, Bridge of Love, 1997.
David Icke, The Biggest Secret: The book that will change the world, Bridge of Love, 1999.
David Icke, Children of the Matrix: How an interdimensional race has controlled the world for thousands of years – and still does, Bridge of Love, 2001.
David Icke, …and the truth will set your free: The most explosive book of the 20th century, 21st century edition, Bridge of Love, 2001.
David Icke, Tales from the Time Loop: The most comprehensive expose of the global conspiracy ever written and all you need to know to be truly free, Bridge of Love, 2003.
David Icke, Infinite Love is the Only Truth Everything Else is Illusion: Exposing the dreamworld we believe to be ‘real’, Bridge of Love, 2006.
David Icke, “Box Swappers… ‘Awakened’ to a Different Box,” David Icke Newsletter, December 23, 2007.
David Icke, “Election Update: The ‘Big Brother’ By-Election Is Beginning To Stink: Why are ‘Neocons’ behind the Big Brother State supporting David Davis in his ‘opposition’ to the Big Brother State,” David Icke website, http://www.davidicke.com/content/view/14317/48/
International Humanities Center, Project Operations Manual, IHC, PO Box 923, Malibu, CA, 2007
Willam F. Jasper, “Conspiracy Realities,” The New American, August 23, 2004.
Ben Johnson “Tides Foundation and Tides Center” (excerpted from 57 Varieties of Radical Causes), September 2004, http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/
George E. Marcus, “The Making of Pious Persons within Contemporary American Notable Families: On Old Money: The Mythology of America's Upper Class by Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr.,” Sociological Perspectives, (Summer, 1989).
Jim Marrs, Rule By Secrecy, HarperCollins, 2000.
Timothy Noah, “Pathologies of the Idle Rich – Part 3,” Slate, March 12, 2001.
Gretchen Randall & Tom Randall, “The Tides Foundation: Liberal Crossroads of Money and Ideas,” Foundation Watch (Capital Research Center), December 2003.
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Orders of Magnitude: 2002-2004 Report, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, 2005.
Alan Stang, The Actor: The True Story of John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State 1953 to 1959, Western Islands, 1968.
Stephanie Strom, “Rockefellers Starting Service for Would Be Philanthropists,” New York Times, April 29, 2002, p.B3.
Endnote
- It is hoped that the discerning reader will be able recognise that identifying the flaws in Icke’s attack on Warman does not amount to an endorsement of Mr Warman’s morally flawed crusade against Icke. Icke’s anger at Warman’s tactics was justified, though his assumptions about what motivated Warman were poorly sourced, hence the significant damages demanded in the lawsuit. Unlike Warman’s recent lawsuits against a group of Canadian bloggers – for only $50,000 a piece – we can presume that he was confident that the processes of discovery that the larger claim allowed would not bear out Icke’s more extravagant claims. Some excellent critiques of Warman’s objectives and tactics can be found on the blogs of Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant. For an enlightening profile of Warman see Charles Gillis, “Righteous Crusader or civil rights menace?,” Macleans, April 9, 2008.
Addenda: The Dangers of Dot Connecting
On the Fly With Me Productions home page on the IHC website, Pamela Icke gives fulsome praise to David Icke’s superior analytical abilities: “He is the Dot Connector!” Yet, it would seem that through his arrangements with the International Humanities Center, David Icke has left himself open to the charge that some of the “Dots” are actually connected to him, though we identify such links at our own peril. This was demonstrated in the 23 December 2007 edition of his newsletter, where Icke inveighed against a group he labels “box swappers”:
These are the most deluded of all people because they are so totally programmed that they think they are 'out of the box' when they have simply exchanged one for another. There is none so deluded as the prisoner who thinks he's free. Such people are everywhere, but they seem to be most blatant in the conspiracy 'research' arena.
Icke gives as examples of this devilish mindset a number of incidents involving individuals who have accused him of working for British Intelligence. Deploying his superior insight into the human condition Icke diagnoses a personality disorder on the part of those who make such obviously ludicrous claims about him and his motives:
The abuse and desperation to undermine others at every turn has nothing to do with the greater good, nor exposing people who secretly work for the system. It is about feeding their own arrogance and ego, both of which are simply masks for their own inadequacies. Because they will not face themselves, or rather their programming, they are condemned to repeat it and project it on others to protect their own deluded sense of identity - 'I am a good guy fighting for truth' [emphasis added].
Although Icke seems to embrace the principle that some charges might stick – to others:
That is not to say that people should not be exposed when the evidence is there, of course they should.
He clearly rejects the idea that anyone who accuses him could possibly have a leg to stand on:
But evidence is irrelevant to these self-appointed Thought Police. Another box-swapper is apparently trying to connect me to the Rockefellers, a deeply sick and satanic family that I have been exposing for nearly 20 years. Sometimes it's like living in Fairyland.
Most readers have by now spotted some winged creatures… As for Icke, he comes with a strong reputation as one who has resisted the temptation to accuse fellow conspiracists of being shills for the enemy. And if he were to do so, we can be sure Icke would assemble considerable evidence, and not merely recycle poorly sourced allegations from other lesser researchers. Unfortunately, others have not been as careful and reserved as David Icke. Consider another prominent theorist who made the following allegation against the John Birch Society in 2000:
[Vice President Dan] Quayle grew up in Paradise Valley, near Phoenix, next door to Robert Welsh [sic], the man who started the John Birch Society. This claims to be against the New World Order, but is, in fact, at it's top level, an exercise in damage limitation and a "fishing" operation to attract out of the shadows those who know about what is going on.
In launching this scurrilous attack on the John Birch Society the author of this piece presented exactly no evidence. This same “box swapper” performed a similar job on the hapless Laurence Gardner, presenting “evidence,” supposedly from impeccable sources that this author of genealogical pseudo-history was in fact “a shape-shifting reptilian who took part in Satanic human sacrifice rituals…” The “evidence” was no more than the word of two individuals of dubious standing to say the least – nothing more compelling to prove the physical reality of this unique phenomenon was offered – but our intrepid “box swapper” confidently declared Gardner’s apparent attempts to deny the existence of the reptilian shape-shifters to be “classic disinformation.”
Most recently our cowardly “box swapper,” obviously driven by the selfish needs of his ego, declared that there would be a concerted effort to discredit him:
My journey, in all its expressions, has taken me to the brink of massive breakthroughs into the mainstream of public attention and I am well aware that plans are in place to do everything possible to discredit me and my information in the months and years ahead. It goes with the territory, especially the more effective you become, and some of it may well be channelled through some surprising sources (emphasis added)
Such is this person’s sense of self-importance he is convinced there are actually “plans in place” to “discredit” him!
Of course the “box swapper” who authored each of these attacks is in fact David Icke, evident in his willingness to smear most of his critics as puppets of the powers-that-be. It would seem that according to his own analytical methods even he has not conquered the needs and wants of his own ego.
©2009 Will Banyan. This article first appeared in PARANOIA Magazine (Issue 46) Winter 2008. Will Banyan has a graduate degree in Information Science and is a writer specializing in the political economy of globalization. He has worked for local and national governments, international organizations and the private sector. He is currently working on a revisionist history of the New World Order and an analysis of the War on Terror. Banyan's six-part series, "Rockefeller Internationalism" and four-part series "A Short History of the Round Table" were published in Nexus. His article "Outflanking the Nation-State" appears on the Paranoia website, and research papers "The Invisible Man of the New World Order: Raymond B. Fosdick" and "The Proud Internationalist: The Globalist Vision of David Rockefeller" appear at: www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/third_section.html. He may be reached at banyan007@rediffmail.com.
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