NH Listens? No They Don't. They Tell!

NH Listens is running around the state training "facilitators" to advance a decidedly left wing agenda.  And why not?  The 'interim' directer of the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire--which runs NH Listens--is not only a well connected left winger, he doesn't even live in the granite State.

He lives in Maine.

And have you seen who he donates to politically?

Mallory, Bruce L Kittery Point, ME 03905 University of New Hampshire/Profess	SHEA-PORTER, CAROL (D) House (NH 01) CAROL SHEA-PORTER FOR CONGRESS	$250 primary	06/12/10
MALLORY, BRUCE L KITTERY POINT, ME 03905 UNIVERSITY OF NH/PROFESSOR	HODES, PAUL W (D) Senate - NH HODES FOR SENATE	$250 primary	03/09/10
Mallory, Bruce Kittery Point, ME 03905 University of New Hampshire/Provost	OBAMA, BARACK (D) President OBAMA FOR AMERICA	$250 general	09/06/08
Mallory, Bruce L Kittery Point, ME 03905 University of New Hampshire/Provost	SHEA-PORTER, CAROL (D) House (NH 01) CAROL SHEA-PORTER FOR CONGRESS	$250 primary	06/28/08
Mallory, Bruce Kittery Point, ME 03905 University of New Hampshire/Profess	OBAMA, BARACK (D) President OBAMA FOR AMERICA	$250 primary	03/06/08
Mallory, Bruce Kittery Point, ME 03905 University of New Hampshire/Profess	OBAMA, BARACK (D) President OBAMA FOR AMERICA	$250 primary	12/27/07

So we've got a guy from Maine who is an ardent left-winger, who invites nationally renown community organizers like Bill Ayers to the state, and runs a group of professional professionals from UNH, public employees of the state,  who actively train and then insert their "facilitators" between town boards, committees, and residents.

Is it just me or does it sound like this project is more interested in telling New Hampshire what it needs by using one of the oldest tricks in the book?.  Pitting trained professionals against amateurs.

I am reminded of a seminar in which a police officer and a lawyer tell you why you should always remain silent and ask for a lawyer, whenever you are likely to be questioned by law enforcement.  Years of cop shows have taught us to distrust people who "lawyer up' but the reason is actually very simple.  The police are trained experts at interviewing.  You, more than likely, are not.  It is therefore unfair for you to enter into any conversation which could lead you to accidentally incriminate yourself simply because you do not have the same skill-set as the person across from you.   And seeing as the outcome could result in your being under suspicion or even detained--literally denied your freedom--you should never engage law enforcement in such circumstances without a trained interviewer on your side of the table.

In the typical town meeting or board and committee format, the people elected or appointed may have better skills, or may feel like thy do, but at the end of the day they are accountable to you, your money and even your votes.  While there may be factors that give the town officials a turf advantage this is easily mitigated by the fact that these are still your neighbors.

NH Listens is not accountable to you, even when some of them are your neighbors, and is the social justice equivalent of the trained interrogator facing off against those with lessor skills.  The NH Listens 'facilitators' are taught how to use human nature, group dynamics, body language, interview and word choice to not just drive the discussion toward a pre-determined goal, but when possible to get the group to believe that they came upon the decision themselves.

Whether brought in my a board or committee member or elected official or not, they are not there to help you figure out what is best for your town, or your kids--in the case of Education, for example.  They are their to manipulate the conversation, and therefore policy, towards a set of preferred priorities that fit their political and social agendas.

Now this has been going on as long as man has used language, so the Carsey Institute at UNH, which runs NH Listens, is simply using these methods to help advance a decidedly progressive agenda by offering to "help' mediate discussions or debate so that people are convinced to arrive at policy decisions more geared toward their agenda than your own.  They are also increasingly found advising your town boards and committees, using their source pedigree - NH Listens and the Carsey Institute, to legitimize them in that role.

It behooves you to become aware of them and to find out if and what affect they may be having on your local government.

Examples?

From Tim Carter at Moultonboro Speaks wrote this regrading his experience with Dr. Mallory (the Democrat donor who runs the project) after an NH Listens session in his area.

Dr. Mallory asked me to call him after the meeting. I did, and we set up a subsequent face-to-face meeting. While sitting at the outside tables at Burrito Me in downtown Laconia, NH, Dr. Mallory wanted to know what I and the Tea Party felt about NH Listens.

I pulled out a print out of the home page of the NH Listens website. Right there was a list of their Board of Advisors - a veritable Who's Who of the most liberal people in New Hampshire.

My response was pretty simple. If I recall, I said something like, "Dr. Mallory, until such time as you put an equal amount of conservatives on your Board of Advisors as you have Liberals, NH Listens is suspect of advancing a liberal agenda."

Dr. Mallory denied that NH Listens used the Delphi Technique at the meetings they facilitate. But you know the old saying, right? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and squawks like a duck, then it's a duck.

As soon as he saw the print out of his website with this damning information he told his right-hand woman attending the meeting, "We need to remove that from the site." And sure enough they did. They completely remodeled the website and scrubbed away any reference to any person whatsoever on the site. That alone should cause you great consternation.

Why would such a public group hide who they are, who runs the group and how they get their funding to advance their agenda? When you visit the NH Listens About Us page, there's nothing there but smoke and mirrors.

Emphasis mine.

And he's right.  To this day you have to chase links back to UNH and the Carsey Institute to see the rouges gallery of liberals who are perpetrating this fraud; a procession of  professional professionals who just "know better."  And look at all the psychology "experts' that work at Carsey.  Expert experts in manipulating humans with psychology and social justice, who train people to help you agree with them or the goals of whoever has brought them in, all working under the cover of good intentions and their public University associations.

But they are literally 'from the government and here to "help" (r trained by them)...and they want to help you agree to the need for more and more government," or this and that program, even if it has a history of failure, makes no sense, or is simply ill-suited to your local circumstanced.

But they want to homogenize policy and link your towns up with wider ranging government programs that inevitably tie you to Federal programs as well.  But once you accept Federal money you accept their rules, and their oversight, regardless of what the "facilitators" have to say.  They are not there to be honest, they are their to politely manipulate you into agreeing with them and their programs and they are wheedling themselves into local boards and committees as consultants and advisers.

And they are or will be showing up at your town meetings.

You would do well to learn more about their methods, and how to spot it and counteract it.  You would do well not to trust their intentions.

If New Hampshire listens carefully they will discover that NH Listens is not about New Hampshire at all.

You are reading  "NH Listens? No They Don’t. They Tell!"   by  Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)

Steve has been recognized as the Americans For Prosperity Blogger of the month for December 2012

Stonyfield CEO In Line For Another Pile of Taxpayer Cash?

The question should not be if Stonyfield Dairy CEO and prolific Democrat donor Gary Hirshberg gets another pile of taxpayer cash, it should be “how much is he going to get?”  But whatever do I mean?

The University of New Hampshire has just been approved to receive a Department of Agriculture grant totaling $2.86 million dollars to “enhance the year-round capacity of northeast organic dairy producers to produce high quality component-enriched organic milk.”

Hirshberg is almost always on the receiving end of taxpayer funded public largesse.  In August of 2010 he was awarded $100,000.00 by Democrat Governor John Lynch and the State of New Hampshire as part of a job training program. 

Not long after Stonyfield was fingered by Senator Tom Coburn over the matter of a $700,000.00 Federal grant to the University of New Hampshire to study the environmental impact of organic dairy farms on the environment.  Who do you think just happens to have an organic Dairy Farm?  An organic dairy farm run by the Hirshberg’s but majority owned by Dannon /Group Danone, one of the largest food companies on the face of planet earth.

How big is Danone?

In May of 2011 Danone joined the OTC Markets Group Index.   Reuters posted the press release with the following company description.

One of the fastest-growing food companies in the world, Danone is present in over 120 countries on five continents. Its mission is to bring health through food to as many people as possible. In 2010 Danone had more than 160 production plants and around 100,000 employees, generating sales of Euro 17 billion, of which half were in emerging markets. The group holds top positions in healthy food through four businesses: it ranks no. 1 worldwide in Fresh Dairy Products, no. 2 in Bottled Water and Baby Nutrition, and is Europe's no. 1 Medical Nutrition Company. Listed on Euronext Paris, Danone is a component stock of leading social responsibility indexes including the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes DJSI Stoxx and DJSI World, ASPI Eurozone and the Ethibel Sustainability Index.

SOURCE OTC Markets Group Inc.

So with global sales of around $23.6 Billion dollars (€17 Billion), a company with $39 Billion (€28.1 Billion) in assets, which made about $2.6 billion (€1.87 Billion) in profits last year, just happens to own a dairy Farm in New Hampshire that is a scheduled whistle-stop for every available taxpayer funded Democrat party handout that comes along? 

Did you recall in paragraph one where I mentioned that the Hirshberg’s were major Democrat party donors?

Here’s a few of Gary’s Democrat droppings. And here’s another link with the last name spelled differently.  It’s quite a sum.  But he also donated to democrats from his work address here.

 This all pales in comparison to Meg Hirshberg, his wife.  Her name turns up an enormous history of Democrat giving.  Here are Meg’s Democrat donations as Margret, more as Meg, even more with a misspelled last name, and another one here.  And don’t forget Ethan Hirshberg, or how about Alex?  And then there’s the Stonyfield manager, Nancy Hirshberg.  Nancy donates healthy  sums to Democrats as well.   Could there be more?  This site doesn’t list small contributions so of course there’s more.  Anyone want to see if they donate to UNH as well? I didn’t bother.

So we’ve got serial Democrat donors (and Obama supporters) dumping huge amounts of cash into the state party and all manner of Federal level candidates and Democrat committees; Democrat donors who run an organic dairy and Yogurt company owned by a very profitable global food conglomerate.  In return they get or are repeatedly given access too large taxpayer funded grants, and despite having access to Danone’s massive global presence, they repeatedly suckle at the taxpayer’s teat, all during a massive recession.

So how much of that recent $2.86 million dollar UNH grant do you think will end up in the hands of the Hirshberg’s and Stonyfield Farm?  They shouldn’t get a dime, but I can guarantee they’ll get plenty.

Keep that in mind he next time a New Hampshire Democrat or the state party starts whining about handouts or crony corruption or corporatism.  Take a few minutes to come back and check the donor lists then ask the question again.  Why do Democrats keep directing money at Stonyfield when the company that owns it has billions in annual profits? 

Progressive Flatulence

So maybe the 700,000 taxpayer dollars given to UNH to advance the study of "organic farming" was not just a left wing exercise in global warming alarmist advocacy.  Maybe, just maybe, it was not meant to study cow farts. 

UNH is defending itself from such charges in a front page story in today's Union Leader--Senator Tom Coburn has pinged the project as the ridiculous abuse of federal funding that it is, even if it is for what they claim; improving 'dairy management' at large organic farms, like Stoneyfield here in New Hampshire.

Well what about that? 

Why are taxpayers fronting the bill for a study on "dairy management" for (or at, or to benefit) Stonyfield farm, run by  prominent New Hampshire Democrat donor Gary Hirschberg, which is majority owned by the billion dollar international private sector conglomerate Danone?  Danone could have easily spent its own money as R&D or donated the necessary funds to UNH for whatever research project they wanted. Why did taxpayers have to shell out for this?

And where is the states interest? Are we expecting an abrupt shift back to an agrarian culture because this appears to benefit the local profit center of a billion dollar company who should be more than able to handle their own 'Dairy management without help from you and I--beyond our choosing to buy their products of our own free will.

Or is it really all about cow farts and the fraud of global warming, and UNH is too embarrassed to simply admit it?

Image: UK Telegraph  (Picture is not in any way connected to the UNH research...though I suppose it could be.)

Cross Posted