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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   36642 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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Since people are unfamiliar with Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, one of the world's larger NGOs (it has a staff of about half Gates's foundation), but given their mode of operation - writing policy proposals and then helping governments carry those policies out, seems to be one of the more influential.

I asked Claude to clean up a transcript of a video by 'Academic Agent', but it veered off into summarizing in the later half. Did a pretty good job I think. Here's a what Guardian, who are about as far away ideologically as you can get from AA wrote about "McKinsey for world leaders"-some source's approving descriptions of TBI- last year.. There's broad agreement on what it is and what it does.

"The Triple Shakedown" (note that it's a non-profit, so , salaries are modest - the top management clears $1.2 million or so. Blair is allegedly working for free)

A lot of people say it's a struggle to see who really has power in our current system - there's so much obscurity. But I believe it is not that obscured, and we have enough information to give us a rough map of how it works.

I'll use one network here involving Blair, but there are a number of other versions I'll explain. Let's start first with the CIA and other intelligence services. We know for a fact that these intelligence services have to find a way of laundering money back through the system. Historically, the CIA has washed their funds through big multi-billion dollar foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller.

These are private institutions with pretty opaque balance sheets. They have to report some things, but it's pretty easy for intelligence services to hide funds. For example, if there was a billion dollars in the Ford Foundation unaccounted for, who would say it came from the CIA rather than the endowment left by Henry Ford 100 years ago?

It's well known that they do this. If you follow the arrow from the CIA to one of these big foundations - I've used the Gates Foundation as an example, but many others exist - they publish and disseminate information online about what these foundations spend money on. There's a book called "The Transgender Industrial Complex" showing how many foundations were behind various social causes. A lot of money gets moved through these foundations, and it's all chalked up as charitable, philanthropic endeavors.

People might say, "Look at Bill Gates - he's a multi-billionaire who gives a lot of money to good causes." But you have to see where that money ends up. In this case, I've shown it landing at the Tony Blair Institute, which is the biggest of all the NGOs, but there are many others. On the Tony Blair Institute website, there used to be a link to all their partner organizations - it's one big network of NGOs, with money moving between them.

The money in the Gates Foundation isn't just from the CIA. Some comes from Bill Gates himself, some from Microsoft. Because they're private, they don't always have to declare exactly where the money comes from. They produce annual reports, but much of it remains opaque.

An organization like the Tony Blair Institute has a presence in over 150 nations with over a thousand employees worldwide. What do they do? They come up with white papers and policy proposals that offer governments off-the-shelf solutions. They might suggest to the UK government solutions like digital ID, embracing artificial intelligence, facial recognition technology, digitizing the economy, or adopting public-private partnerships. If you watch these organizations long enough, what starts as a white paper proposal ends up as government policy five or six months later.

Blair and similar organizations then suggest the government will need consultants - because politicians don't have the technical know-how. They offer their own expertise or recommend friends who can help implement these policies. This creates a cycle where money flows from foundations to NGOs to government contracts, often benefiting the same networks that proposed the initial policies. It can work multiple ways - sometimes the government gives a contract to a tech firm, who then needs expertise, and they circle back to people like Blair.

Here it veered off into summarizing.

The speaker argues this happens across various issues: digital ID, AI, climate change, sustainable technology solutions. These organizations are essentially selling "solutions as a service" to governments, with lucrative contracts at every stage. The people involved typically have elite backgrounds in security, cybersecurity, technology, government, and public health. During the COVID pandemic, this entire network was involved in vaccine rollout. The money eventually cycles back in complex ways. An American corporation like Microsoft pays taxes, some of which might end up back with intelligence services or the military-industrial complex.

The speaker also highlights how this network operates internationally. Using foreign aid budgets, governments like the UK provide money to developing nations with strings attached - expecting investments in digital infrastructure, public health, security, or sustainable development. When these governments say they lack expertise, organizations like the Tony Blair Institute step in, offering consultancy and recommendations that often involve contracts with specific tech or pharmaceutical companies.

The speaker concludes by saying this should be illegal. He sees it as a clear conflict of interest that the same person can advise governments, recommend policies that become implemented, and then profit from those implementations. In his view, this is a multi-billion dollar operation happening in broad daylight, affecting not just Western countries but governments worldwide.

It's a beautiful system. It'd be even nicer if it actually worked, however, Blair, for all the political talent he has leaves devastation in his wake. Maybe he's improving the situation in Africa, Kazakhstan or in Saudi Arabia, but mostly it seems like a big grift to me.

An organization like the Tony Blair Institute has a presence in over 150 nations with over a thousand employees worldwide. What do they do?

According to NGO-world gossip, large amounts of cocaine. Known for being something of a "party shop" by industry standards.

So how does one go about getting a job at this sort of place? Asking for a friend.

Most common is probably either have a nepo-in or study IR at a prestigious university, work in international aid / development for a big western government or the UN for a few years, then move over.

They like you to have experience working with government / NGOs abroad, and to speak at least one foreign language.

Steering the world is hard work. Makes sense they party hard!

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