ForBetterLife

I saw an ad for the Foundation for a Better Life on tv, so I thought, halfway through that it was some latter-day saints thing, but that it was odd since I haven’t seen any of those in a while. It was obviously christian of some kind by their aesthetic choices, and it gave a url, so off I went. Mushy meaningless crap on that website mostly. I wanted to know who was funding it. I don’t really like when the funding source isn’t very obvious.

Anyway, it turns out it’s some billionaire Qwest communications guy, Philip Anschutz. He apparently is extreme right wing, no surprise there. This article in OCWeekly is pretty informative.

Early in 2000, the fiber-optics giant encouraged employees to keep their retirement savings in company stock even as senior executives were bailing out, selling shares worth hundreds of millions of dollars. According to SEC filings, Anschutz unloaded 6.1 million shares during that period. Qwest peaked at $64 per share. Six months later, the same share was valued at $1.95. During that time, Anschutz netted $213.5 million in profit. To his credit, the 63-year-old billionaire was branded the greediest executive in America by Forbes magazine, the magazine that calls itself “the capitalist tool”, topping a list that included consensus vulture Gary Winnick, founder of Global Crossing.

Anschutz has already established one charitable fund, the Anschutz Foundation, that helps bankroll a choice selection of ultraconservative holier-than-thou organizations. If the Anschutz Foundation is any indication, your Star of Hope donation could go to the spectacularly anti-gay Colorado for Family Values (CFV). This Anschutz-funded group’s goal is to halt “the militant gay agenda.” Your donation could help spread the CFV doctrine that “pedophilia is a basic part of the homosexual lifestyle” or that “homosexuals freely admit among themselves the importance of child abuse.

That’s pretty cool. The FBL website is based on “shared values” with pages for each, as are the commercials. Some of which include, “compassion”, “courtesy”, and “diversity”. Ahh, if only the riffraff working class would follow these values more, as they clearly don’t apply to people like Anschutz, who apparently quotes Napoleon at meetings..

My personal favorite though is the wording on the FBL website

Good things are happening in the news. Discover positive news reports from all over the world on individuals making a difference in their market-segments.

Ha, boy, he’s sure one of the common people I suppose! Look how that black man hugs the white boy! I wish my market-segment was more homogenized and easy-going!

Here are some links:
The Guardian about the millennium dome

Denver Business Journal about movies

another useless “holier-than-thou” charity that they run