Ken writes:

> Your sentence is ambiguous; does "it's relatively well known" refer to the
> Institute or to the alleged connection?
>
> Evidently the connection is not well known because the op-ed you include
> says [that] Robert Park guesses that it's the petroleum industry,
> not Rev. Moon.

That editorial was written just shortly after the petition was first sent
out, when the facts were still unclear. As events later unfolded, the
connection with the Unification Church with the "Oregon Institute of Science
and Medicine" became more clear, although both organizations did everything
they can to keep their connection secret.

But as in all current far-right campaigns, a great many deep-pocket donors
(timber, petroleum, religious organizations, etc.) find common cause and
intermingle their funds, even if they wouldn't like their associations to be
made public. The Rev. Moon cannot fund all of these activities by himself,
but he is actively involved in a surprising number of them.



> I woudn't get too hung up on the funding, though.  Your rant on the
> Unification church is no more convincing than those who put all the
> blame on "the Rockefellers" or "the Jews" or "the vast right-wing
> conspiracy". It's more important to concentrate on the facts.

Funding is everything. As Lyndon Johnson used to eloquently say, "If you have
a man by his balls, his heart and mind will soon follow." If you understand
an organization's funding sources, especially these conservative "Institutes"
funding sources, you will generally understand the context and subtext of
their research, such as it is.

In determining that funding, the OISM states on its opening web page:

========================================

The Institute is supported by donations and the independent earnings of its
faculty and volunteers. It does not solicit or accept tax-financed government
funds.

The Institute has six faculty members, several volunteers who work actively
on its projects, and a large number of volunteers who help occasionally. It
owns a 10,000 square foot building located in a rural setting about 7 miles
from the town of Cave Junction in southern Oregon. This building includes a
5,000 square foot laboratory and library used for the Institute's research
and educational work. This facility and a good complement of research
equipment are the Institute's principal physical assets. The Institute has no
debts and a policy of incurring none.

========================================

To add to the murkiness of that statement, "Capitalism Magazine" wrote of
OISM's massive (and completely misrepresentative) petition campaign: "The
petition is being circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine,
an independent research organization that receives no funding from industry."

   --http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/2001/january/env_sevenfacts1.htm

This absence of funding from either competitive, peer-reviewed scientific
grants, which is the normal course of credible scientific funding in the US,
or from openly acknowledged industrially funded research, makes the OISM as a
debt-free, self-supporting entity a truly extraordinary organization.

The OISM's primary product are misinformation and propagandistic political
tracts. There's no rant in that statement; it's simply their track record.

Wirt Atmar

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