- Every
day, as I cringe, observing the fleshing out of the BushCo / neocon
vision for America-- the selling off of the environment, the
de-regulation and selling off of the commons that we all should own
and share, the erasure of centuries old freedoms and rights, the
throwing away of long valued international relationship assets, I keep
telling myself and anyone who will listen that the left desperately
needs to take the think tank route that the right has been so
successfully taking for decades.
-
- While
it may not have been screamingly obvious even two years ago, we
now know that the right's think tank program must be recognized as the
most powerful political weapon on the face of the earth, and more
important, in the US.
-
- The
right has spent more money on think tanks than they have on elections.
The left has spent next to nothing. This must change if the left is to
have any hopes of taking back the White House and Congress.
There's an article in this
Sunday's NY Times, The
Young Hipublicans, on
the new conservative students, how there are all these right wing
organizations cultivating them. Where do you think these organizations
come from, and who funds them? BushCo has very strong backing of many
religious groups. The right wing think tanks worked long and hard to
nurture those relationships, to create the sales pitches which sold the
right's policies to the religious groups as compatible.
The goal of the right
wing think tanks is to bring about a conservative
"devolution." To make that happen, they come up with goals
for what they want to accomplish-- policies, actions, legislation,
organizations to be formed, demographic groups to be converted to allies
and supporters of the policies. There are five or six of these think tanks
that have been doing this work for up to thirty years and now we know.
Their work is fabulously effective.
- It's
clear that on its own, the democratic party is drowning without a
paddle-- no big picture vision, no robust policy positions, not
agreement amongst the leadership, no clear leaders who reliably draw
respect and inspire.
-
- Potential
democratic candidates have no depth or platform to offer to a people
who would be thrilled to embrace something, anything that would make
them feel good and safe getting on a democratic bandwagon. But we
don't have that. We don't have any great goals. We have
criticism of Republicans. We have fixer-upper health care plans. We
have criticism of George Bush. We don't even have good answers to the
mantras the right wing talk show hosts repeat to attack and put down
liberals and liberal ideas-- class war, communism, socialism, tax and
spend, wimpy, big government-
We need answers for each label
and criticism but we need much more. We need a dynamic, courageous, tough
platform that calls for a combination of solutions and visionary bridges
to the future-- bridges which will inspire hope and pride in America--
pride that comes from building and creating, from bringing people
together. And we must do this knowing that we are fighting in a cold war
against a right wing enemy that is doing all it can to create fear and
contempt and enmity for our ideas and our very persons. Listen to
Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Sliwa, Wiener-- they all refer to Liberals with
such venomous contempt. It's not hard to imagine them encouraging
listeners to go out and shoot us, to beat us up, to ruin our businesses.
Yet, we must not go down to their level. We must be tough, and refuse to
accept their lying, their labels, their distoritions and outright
fraudulent statements and claims. But we must take the high road.
- We
desperately need for the wealthy, liberal individuals and
foundations to come forward now to put up serious seed money for a
group of think tanks that will build the policy platforms, the
multitude of organizations needed to go out and turn the public around
to see the reasons why the progressive view is the way to go.
We cannot depend on
corporations to do this. They will support republicans in democrats'
clothing. It may be necessary to take money from outside the US. Since
these think tanks are non-partisan-- not specifically supporting
democrats, republicans or greens-- there is no reason why private money,
foreign money cannot be contributed to help build them up.
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-
We're talking about needing
at least $50 million in the first year, and eventually, $100 million a
year, just to catch up with the right wing think tanks. This will enable
us to create organizations which support progressive state legislators,
organizations that develop local college and high school chapters,
organizations that develop within all the different religious groups.
The progressive conscience and ethic should be very attractive to
principled members of all varieties of religion.
I'm not sure the progressive
think tanks are built for this job either. When the rifle was built, it
wasn't like you could retrofit bows and arrows to be converted in
rifles. The existing progressive think tanks do good works by focusing
on specific causes and issues. This is almost diametrically opposed to
what we need in the new think tanks that will take on the Cato
Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, and Project for a New
American Century (PNAC).
But it would probably be
valuable and useful for some of the leaders of those think tanks to play
participatory roles in the new think tanks that must be formed. If we
look at the founding members of the PNAC, we see former elected and
appointed officials and we see publishers. So we might do well bringing
together publishers of leading and cutting edge progressive media--
print, electronic, internet.
One resource the left has,
an advantage over the right, which we don use effectively is
support from the world of celebrities. The right has the support of a
handful of macho actors who play war roles, a senile former Moses, and
some redneck country singers and that's about it. It would make sense to
involve the Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandons, Danny Glovers, Dixie Chicks,
Martin Sheens and others who are willing to work as team
members towards building a progressive think tank "engine"
that has a five, ten and twenty year plan of growth and development, and
full implementation of campaigns which capitalize on their celebrity.
This could include getting out the vote campaigns, ad programs to
persuade young voters that is cool, even sexy to be a progressive, that
true strength lies in the courage of convictions, in kindness, in
responsibility....
But this will all take
serious money. If each person who voted for Al Gore contributed two
dollars, that would be plenty. If just two percent of the
50,996,064 people who voted for Gore contribute twenty five dollars, and
the progressive foundations match it, we'll have Fifty Million dollars.
If France and Germany and Japan and Russia kick in $25 million
each, then the $100 million will be reached.
This can be done. It must be
started. Perhaps if the leading progressive media carry this message, or
a message like it, there will be enough support to make it happen. Good
people who can do the work are ready to start. They're not trying to get
rich. There's no doubt that once the structure starts to form it will
develop and grow to something that is better and bigger and stronger
than the "death star" think tank engine the right wing has
built.
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-
If you are reading this,
then you are a good place to start. How much can you afford to give to
help get this off the ground? Who do you know you can talk to or email
who can contribute ten times or one thousand times more than you? Talk
to her, or him. We need to make this happen if we are going to take back
America and democracy. We need to do it now.
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-
Willing to Get things
started? Contact me, not with money, but with your commitment. If enough
people start, then we can get things rolling. Rob@opednews.com
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