Globalist Pierre Omidyar Announces YET ANOTHER Partnership with USAID (a.k.a. the CIA)(archive)

(archived from November 3, 2014)

by Scott Creighton

“Pierre is dedicated to social change and he will, deservedly, someday be acknowledged as the Rockefeller or Carnegie of our times.” Jeff Skoll

Over at New York Magazine, Andrew Rice has penned a rather sycophantic tribute to billionaire Pierre Omidyar apparently in an effort to help the Hawaiian oligarch do some damage control for his “brand” after the now famous split with Matt Taibbi (who is apparently going to keep his mouth shut about the real reason he left First Look)

Rebranding his First Look product is extremely important to Pierre because it would appear one of his next projects is nothing short of helping Google in remaking the “news” model that has been failing as of late because folks understand that the billionaires the MSM serve are the ones dictating the “news” we see and hear. That’s why Pierre and Glenn Greenwald are headed to a secretive invite-only conference on the subject hosted by Google and the Knight Foundation.

 

Greenwald says that he and Omidyar plan to finally meet later this month, when they will appear at a very different sort of gathering: an invite-only event called Newsgeist, co-sponsored by Google and the Knight Foundation. Billed as an “unconference,” it has no agenda other than “reimagining the future of the news.” Greenwald told me “top editors, executives, moguls, and founders” are expected to attend, including Dean Baquet of the New York Times. I asked the organizer from Google about other attendees and speakers, but he said he could disclose no further details, to “protect the privacy and security of our invited guests.” It seems that the Newsgeist is very hush-hush. Andrew Rice

With that said, let’s move on to Pierre’s recent announcement of his new partnership with CIA-backed USAID. We all know how the last one worked out with a brutal neoliberal technocrat oligarch assuming power in Ukraine and killing his own civilian population and now instituting legalized slavery on behalf of America’s “national interests”… this is something called the Global Innovation Fund and apparently the “innovation” is turning all the world into a neo-liberal, market driven hell-hole much like Georgia, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan and most recently, Ukraine.

Every September, for a siren-snarled week, much of midtown Manhattan surrenders to a pair of occupying powers: the United Nations and the Clinton Global Initiative. The U.N.’s annual General Assembly brings in the foreign excellencies and tin-pot dictators, but it’s Bill Clinton’s event that attracts the billionaires. This year’s edition, co-sponsored by, among others, a Greek shipping magnate’s wife and a Ukrainian oligarch, took place inside the barricaded Times Square Sheraton, where the Clintons made evangelical “calls to action” on issues like water scarcity and women’s empowerment.

One evening, in conjunction with CGI, Pierre Omidyar threw a reception across the street. Omidyar, the programmer who created eBay, is one of America’s richest men, a 47-year-old philanthropist intent on giving away the fortune he made when he was 31. He is on collegial terms with the Clintons and has been a partner in their charity work. His guests, sipping wine inside a vaulted glass atrium, represented foundations and banks, governments and NGOs, tech start-ups and McKinsey. Omidyar’s foundation had just unveiled a $200 million Global Innovation Fund, established in partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development. The announcement was timed to coincide with President Obama’s speech to the conference that afternoon on nurturing civil society. Andrew Rice

So what is the Global Innovation Fund that Omidyar was promoting in association with the globalist Clinton Global Initiative? Glad you asked…

“… a big partnership between the Omidyar Network and the development agencies of four national governments—Australia, the U.K., the U.S., and Sweden—that will invest tens of millions of dollars in “social innovations that aim to improve the lives and opportunities of millions of people in the developing world.”

Let’s just pause for a second and look again at the group of partners above, who’ve kicked in $250 million for the fund so far. In remarks at the news conference on Tuesday announcing the fund, U.S. AID Administrator Rajiv Shah called them “five of the most dynamic leaders in global development.” Inside Philanthropy

Yes, the fund is in partnership with the leading neo-liberal globalization leaders like Sweden, Australian the United States and more importantly, Britain. In fact, the fund will be based… wait for it… wait for it… in London.

The fund, which will be based in London, is looking for fresh ways to tackling problems that trump existing approaches. Inside Philanthropy

Apparently what they will be looking for are ways to run color revolutions that aren’t so easy to spot by people like myself. Ways to destabilize nations that aren’t yet on the dinner menu for various “national interests”

If his previous partnerships with USAID and the CIA are any indication, perhaps someone somewhere should start up a Global Innovation Fund Body Count website so we can all keep track of all the “freedom” Pierre and his “free-markets” bring the developing world in the next few years.

Here’s a little more from the Andrew Rice suck-up article:

The radicalization of Pierre Omidyar happened with jarring swiftness. In 2012, he advertised his proximity to Obama—he served on a presidential commission—by tweeting out a photo of Marine One hovering above the White House lawn. That same year, he responded to campaign-season viciousness by tweeting out a list hashtagged #RepublicansIRespect, citing figures like Robert Gates (a former CIA director) and Condoleezza Rice. He started the Democracy Fund, a foundation intended to promote moderation…

Julian Assange attacked the “big power” of First Look, calling Omidyar an “extreme liberal centrist” and questioning his suspicious visits to the White House… “Never before has such a vast trove of public secrets,” journalist Mark Ames wrote last November, “been sold wholesale to a single billionaire as the foundation of a for-profit company.”

Radicalization? In 2012? Pierre was practically a fixture in the White House back in those days and was partnering up with USAID to promote regime change in various countries across the world, specifically in Ukraine.

After all, according to records made available under Obama’s 2009 transparency commitment, Omidyar has visited the Obama White House at least half a dozen times since 2009. During the same period, his wife, Pamela Omidyar, who heads Omidyar Network, has visited 1600 Pennsylvania Ave at least four times, while Omidyar Network’s managing partner, Matthew Bannick, has visited a further three. In all, senior Omidyar Network officials made at least 13 visits to the White House between 2009-2013…

…While we can’t know what was discussed at the meeting – not least because a spokesperson for Pierre and Pamela Omidyar declined to comment for this story – it’s possible that Pamela Omidyar and Smith touched upon Omidyar Network’s future international investment plans. After all, before joining the NSC, Smith worked as chief of staff at USAID….

… Serbia, Georgia and Burma are, of course, all places where USAID-backed pro-US color revolutions were successful. And now we have Omidyar Network  investing in USAID’s newest overseas programs, “advancing U.S. national security interests” in USAID’s words. PANDO

So there is the mention of the Ukrainian oligarchs Pierre supports with his promotion of various color revolutions. Specifically, Pierre has been exposed for backing the fascist neo-Nazi aided one recently in Ukraine.

According to the Kyiv Post, Pierrie Omidyar’s Omidyar Network (part of the Omidyar Group which owns First Look Media and the Intercept) provided 36% of “Center UA”’s $500,000 budget in 2012— nearly $200,000. USAID provided 54% of “Center UA”’s budget for 2012. Other funders included the US government-backed National Endowment for Democracy.

In 2011, Omidyar Network gave $335,000 to “New Citizen,” one of the anti-Yanukovych “projects” managed through the Rybachuk-chaired NGO “Center UA.” At the time, Omidyar Network boasted that its investment in “New Citizen” would help “shape public policy” in Ukraine: Pando

It should be stated that back in 2009 the Omidyar Network openly admitted on their website that the CIA was a ‘partner” in their efforts. They listed them along with other various neo-liberal foundations. They have since removed any mention of that fact.

As of April 2009, Omidyar Network counts the following organizations as partners: Ashoka, Central Intelligence Agency, Comat Technologies, Creative Commons, Digg, DonorsChoose, Endeavor, Federated Media Publishing, GlobalGiving, Goodmail, GuideStar, Linden Lab (developer of Second Life global virtual community), Meetup, Metaweb, ModestNeeds, Opportunity International, PRBC, Prosper, SeaChange Capital Partners, Seesmic, Socialtext, Sunlight Foundation, Virgin Money, Wikia, World of Good. Wiki page on Omidyar Network

It’s possible someone inserted that little tidbit in there during an editing session on the Wiki page, that’s true. But it’s widely understood by folks who take the time to investigate such things, that USAID is a CIA front organization.

” In South Vietnam, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)provided cover for CIA operatives so widely that the two became almost synonymous.” Washington Post

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has promised to beef up financial aid for Ukraine’s pro-Western media outlets amid a mounting dispute between the West and Russia. Press TV

“In a number of countries, including Venezuela and Bolivia, USAID is acting more as an agency involved in covert action, like the CIA, than as an aid or development agency.” Marc Weisbrot

And keep in mind, USAID has a history of Black Hat ops as well:

“Guatemala: By 1970, USAID trained over 30,000 Guatemalan police to suppress local leftists, according to William Blum’s book “Killing Hope.” Just over a decade later, Guatemalan death squads under US-backed dictator Rios Montt unleashed a genocide on the Mayan peasants.” Pando Daily

— The Vietnam War: USAID trained police and ran civilian jails. USAID also participated in the “soft” side of the Phoenix Program — funding the failed“Land to the Tillers” program granting peasants small plots of land, a program that has a poor track record, but serves some important foreign policy/propaganda purpose every time it’s rolled out because it remains one of the most enduring boondoggles in the USAID kit. Pando Daily

“[I]n the early 1960s agents from the State Department, Green Berets, CIA, and USAID organized two paramilitary groups that would become the backbone of that country’s death squad system.”  Greg Grandin

When I write that Pierre Omidyar is a neo-liberal and he supports neo-liberal “free market” globalist ideology, I think it’s pretty clear what I mean, but how about this for further evidence: the Omidyar Network is invested in the privatization of public schools and looks to profit off that neo-liberal model in other countries:

Omidyar Network looks to new methods to improve the educational ecosystems in underserved communities. We support entrepreneurial models that bring high-quality, affordable schooling, pre-primary education, and vocational training to areas where such education and employment opportunities are scarce..

… Our work fosters policy and regulatory environments that encourage quality participation from all sectors and stakeholders, innovation, parental engagement and choice, and public-private partnerships.Omidyar Network

Why do I focus so much on Pierre’s neo-liberal “free market” ideology in this article about his partnering with USAID again?

Because ladies and gentlemen, USAID started the fascist neo-liberal movement and that comes straight from Milton Friedman’s own website:

The Chicago Boys were a group of young economists who participated in the exchange program between the Catholic University of Chile and the University of Chicago beginning in 1955. Some participants later attempted to bring the ideas of the Chicago School to the troubled economies of South America.

Between 1955 and 1964, the United States Agency for International Development financed an exchange program whereby personnel from the University of Chicago traveled to the Catholic University of Chile to improve its Department of Economics and Chilean students hand-picked by the Chicago staff received scholarships to study at Chicago. .. The students who returned to Chile from Chicago began “promoting free market economics…a protester interrupted his acceptance speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony in 1976. The protesters believed that Milton was supporting a fascist military junta; in fact Milton had only met Pinochet once..” Rose and Milton Friedman site

Following Pinochet’s military coup in 1973, Chile started the most extreme neoliberal experiment in the world. No exaggeration here. The Tea Party would pale with envy. Designed by the Chilean disciples of Milton Friedman, the so called “Chicago Boys”, it was applied systematically (with the help of a bayonet) from 1973 until its replacement by a center left coalition in 1990. Diane Ravitch

USAID helped create the Chicago Boys who were the neo-liberal hacks who dropped “the brick” of free-market ideology on the people of Chile after the CIA helped kill their elected president. What they installed was one of the most brutal dictators Latin America had ever seen in one Augusto Pinochet. Even the Rose and Milton Friedman site seems to admit that little fact. Pinochet was a PURE FASCIST.

Interestingly enough, Pinochet and the Chicago Boys also instituted the FIRST EVER version of what we now call “charter school systems”; for-profit, privatized public schools. Today, with Chile still run by those same Chicago Boys, the nation is the “most pro-market school system in the world” and this is the result:

Public school enrollment has dropped (and keeps dropping) from 80% in 1980 to 37% today. Aside from 7% of students in fully private schools, public and private institutions compete for the coveted per capita voucher.

Now, get this: two thirds of the 56% of private voucher (charter) schools are for profit, and they can charge on top of it to parents. Therefore, the richest ones mix their sons with their socioeconomic peers, the middle class with the middle class, and so on down to the poorest which go mostly to free public schools. Diane Ravitch

Class based education, paid for by the taxpayers. That’s “liberty” I suppose.

See how that all rounds out? Do you see how it all blends in neatly to form a more accurate view of the media mogul “hero” Pierre Omidyar? Kinda neat when that happens, isn’t it?

Someone tried to praise Mr. Omidyar but in many ways, if you pay attention to history, it isn’t really much praise at all:

“Pierre is dedicated to social change and he will, deservedly, someday be acknowledged as the Rockefeller or Carnegie of our times.” Jeff Skoll