"When it comes to 'winning' political battles, ultimate success results less from who's doing the right thing and more from whose view of reality dominates the battlefield. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the millions effectively spent by conservative think tanks have enabled them virtually to dictate the issues and terms of national political debates."
Robert Bothwell, President, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP)
The top 20 conservative think tanks in the United States spent $158 million in 1996 and as $1 Billion for Ideas asserts, spending will likely exceed $1 billion between 1990 and 2000. The 20 policy institutions included in the study more than doubled their budgets since 1992. "To put the $158 million spent by the groups in perspective, the Republican Party raised and spent $138 million in 'soft money' contributions in 1996, $20 million less than the conservative policy groups profiled in the report," said Callahan. 1999 National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP)
$1 Billion Dollars for Ideas: Conservative Think Tanks in the 1990s by David Callahan
One amazing fact is that the conservative spent more on these think tanks than they did on soft money contributions to the Republican party. That money is going somewhere.
Project for New American Century (PNAC); Oil as Power; US Imperial/ Corporate Presence in Mideast Mother Jones Magazine
Right Wing Philanthropy and the Billion Dollar Think Tanks
by Robert Kutner, the American Prospect
NPR interviews relating to PNAC, including one with William Kristol
Right Wing Philanthropy and the Billion Dollar Think Tanks by Robert Kutner, the American Prospect
The
neos and paleos duke it out at home David Frum
Anti-War; a page with a wealth of info on the PNAC
Moving A Public Policy Agenda: The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations This is a must read.
First, they departed from grantmaking norms in the philanthropic sector by funding extremely aggressive and ideological institutions routinely committed to influencing budget and policy priorities. Two-thirds of their grant dollars -- $210 million out of $300 million total -- went to organizations and programs pursuing policy agendas based on the privatization of government services, deep reductions in federal anti-poverty spending, industrial deregulation, and the transfer of responsibility for social welfare to state and local government and the charitable sector.The top five conservative multi-issue public policy groups in the NCRP study including Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy operated on $77 million in combined revenues in 1995 compared to $18.6 million of their eight political equivalents on the left. Liberal and mainstream funders remain standing on the sidelines of public policy debate while government and nonprofit social programs -- many foundation-created -- are dismantled. "Conservative funders see themselves as part of a larger movement to defeat 'big government liberalism' and fund accordingly, but mainstream foundations prefer to make modest, on-the-ground improvements in specific neighborhoods. As a result, mainstream foundations increasingly operate within the larger policy assumptions and parameters that conservative funders help shape," according to report author Sally Covington.
More details on the above report Must read!!
Shaking the foundations a review of the above report.
This is another report from the same source, with a different author, published in '99 http://www.ncrp.org/psr/pressreleases/thinktanks.htm
Piss on the People to Save Them; Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception By Jim Lobe The Neocon Philsophy is Based on Lying, on Pushing Religion without leaders practiicing it. AlterNet. 5/19
Robert Kagan PNAC's Philosopher-- "A new brutalism about it." Book Review; OF paradise and Power-- it's said this is THE book to read to understand the BUSH administration.
The Empire Needs New Clothes; the ultimate family value, the highest patriotism, and the most desperately needed story . Thom Hartmann
Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President
by Neil Mackay
The Right-Wing Assault What's at stake, what's already happened and what could yet occur Cass Sunstein
The New American Century vs. The UN Jesse Lee March 10 opednews.com
Oil War: 23 Years in the Making... Toronto Star Sunday, March 9, 2003 by the Toronto Star
Storm of Mideast war has gathered over decades New Zealand Herald, New Zealand - 07 Mar 2003
A think tank war: Why old Europe says no Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 07 Mar 2003
A New American Century? Ireland Independent Media Center, Ireland - 13 Feb 2003
Who's Behind the War on Liberal Professors?
NeoCons reshape world over breakfast
Major names who have been signatories on letters and policy statements from PNAC.
This batch of names are people who were with PNAC five years ago.
Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett Robert Kagan William Kristol Gary Bauer Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Aaron Friedberg Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby Norman Podhoretz Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen George Weigel
Steve Forbes presidential candidate, publisher of Forbes Mag.
Jeb Bush Gov FL
Dick Cheney Vice President
Donald Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz Deputy Secretary of Defense
Dan Quayle former VP and mis-speller
Richard Perle presently serves as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Department of Defense, Chairman and CEO of Hollinger Digital, and Director of The Jerusalem Post. He is a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI). His research areas are defense, intelligence, national security, Europe, Middle East, Russian region. He has previously served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for international security policy (1981-1987), and on the U.S. Senate staff (1969-1980). He received his M.A. in political science at Princeton University, and his B.A. at the University of Southern California.
Peter W. Rodman Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs) most recently Director of National Security Programs at the Nixon Center (1995-2001). He is a former Senior Editor of National Review (1991-1999) and worked as a research and editorial assistant to Dr. Kissinger in the preparation of his memoirs.
Vin Weber, Vice Chairman of Empower America, is a former Minnesota Republican Congressman, lawyer and banker. He now lives in Virginia and is the new head of the private National Endowment for Democracy, and was formerly a Senior Fellow at the Bradley-funded Progress and Freedom Foundation (www.pff.org)
R. James Woolsey former director of the CIA, 1993-95, Mr. Woolsey is presently a member of the Board of Directors or Board of Managers of: Linsang Partners, LLC; BC International Corporation; Fibersense Technology Corporation; Invicta Networks, Inc.; DIANA, LLC; Agorics, Inc.; and Sun HealthCare Group, Inc. He is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. He has served in the past as a member of the Boards of: USF&G; Yurie Systems, Inc.; Martin Marietta; British Aerospace, Inc.; Fairchild Industries; Titan Corporation; and DynCorp. Besides serving as Director of Central Intelligence, Mr. Woolsey has served in the U.S. government as: Ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Vienna, 1989-1991; Under Secretary of the Navy, 1977-1979; and General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, 1970-73.
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, JR. Chairman Defense Science Board Commissioner
(U.S. Senate Appointee)
Co-Chair, Aerospace Global Issues William Schneider is currently the
Chairman of the Defense Science Board in the U.S.
Department of Defense. He is also President of International Planning
Services, Inc (an international trade and finance advisory firm)
Robert B. Zoellick Bush Cabinet Member Robert B. Zoellick assumed office as the 13th U.S. Trade Representative on February 7, 2001. As U.S. Trade Representative, Mr. Zoellick is a member of President Bush's Cabinet, with the rank of Ambassador, and serves as the President's principal trade policy adviser and chief trade negotiator
Paula J. Dobriansky Dept. of State Under
Secretary, Global Affairs Term of Appointment: 05/01/2001 to present
Francis
Fukuyama is Dean of Faculty and Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of
International Political Economy at the Paul
H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns
Hopkins University.
Info on people:
William Kristol, chairman of the Project, is editor of the influential Washington-based political magazine, the Weekly Standard. Widely recognized as one of the nation's leading political analysts and commentators, Mr. Kristol regularly appears on all the major television public affairs shows. Before starting the Weekly Standard in 1995, Mr. Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, where he helped shape the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican congressional victory. Prior to that, Mr. Kristol served as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle during the Bush Administration and to Secretary of Education William Bennett under President Reagan. Before coming to Washington in 1985, Mr. Kristol taught politics at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Listen to an interview with William Kristol on NPR
Robert Kagan is co-founder with William Kristol of the Project for the New American Century. He is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a contributing editor at the Weekly Standard, and a columnist for the Washington Post. From 1985-1988, Mr. Kagan was Deputy for Policy in the State Department's Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. From 1984-1985, he was a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and principal speechwriter to Secretary of State George P. Schultz. In 1983, he served as foreign policy advisor to Congressman Jack Kemp and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the United States Information Agency. In 1981, he was Assistant Editor at the Public Interest. Mr. Kagan holds a bachelor's degree from Yale College and master's degree in public policy and international relations from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Alexander Hamilton fellow in American diplomatic history at American University.
Bruce P. Jackson is president of the Project on Transitional Democracies. Mr. Jackson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and on the Board of Advisors of the Center for Security Policy. He is the President of the U.S. Committee on NATO, a non-profit bi-partisan organization formed to promote the expansion of the NATO alliance. From 1979 to 1990, Bruce Jackson served in the United States Army as a Military Intelligence Officer. From 1986 to 1990, he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in a variety of policy positions pertaining to nuclear forces, strategic defenses and arm control negotiations. Upon leaving the Department of Defense in 1990, Mr. Jackson joined Lehman Brothers, an investment bank in New York, where he was the chief strategist for the firm's proprietary trade operations. In 1993, he moved to Martin Marietta Corporation where he was Director for Strategic Planning and subsequently Director for Corporate Development Projects. In these positions, Mr. Jackson played a significant role in the execution of the Corporation's mergers and acquisitions strategy.
Dr.Gary J. Schmitt is executive director of the Project for the New American Century. His Background is described here
Daniel McKivergan is deputy director of the Project for the New American Century. Prior to joining the Project, Dan was legislative director for the Office of Senator John McCain of Arizona
Ellen Bork is deputy director at the Project for the New American Century and contributing editor of the New York Sun
Here's a list of signatories of a June 3, 1997 Statement of principles. This is worth reading. Here's an excerpt:
"The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership."
and
"we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values.."
They seem to have forgotten about the first half of this one. Our democratic allies, other than Britain, have been distanced.
Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer William J. Bennett Jeb Bush Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby Norman Podhoretz Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz
Here's a list of signatories of a January 23rd 2003 letter on the defense budget on the website.
William Kristol Gary Bauer Max Boot Frank Carlucci Eliot Cohen Midge Decter Thomas Donnelly Frank Gaffney Daniel Goure Bruce P. Jackson Donald Kagan Robert Kagan Lewis E. Lehrman Tod Lindberg Rich Lowry Daniel McKivergan Joshua Muravchik Danielle Pletka Norman Podhoretz Stephen P. Rosen Gary Schmitt Randy Scheunemann William Schneider, Jr. Richard Shultz Henry Sokolski Chris Williams R. James Woolsey
Signatories of a letter on Hong Kong dated Nov 25, 2002
William Kristol Dick Thornburgh Morton Abramowitz Mark A. Anderson Andrew Y. Au Gary Bauer Robert L. Bernstein Max Boot Ellen Bork Steven C. Clemons Helle Dale Midge Decter Thomas Donnelly Nicholas Eberstadt Robert Edgar Amitai Etzioni Hillel Fradkin Sam Gejdenson Merle Goldman Bruce Jackson Robert Kagan Max M. Kampelman Adrian Karatnycky Penn Kemble Craig Kennedy Harold Hongju Koh Tod Lindberg Bette Bao Lord Connie Mack Mary Beth Markey Martin Peretz Danielle Pletka Norman Podhoretz John Edward Porter Gary Schmitt Sin-Ming Shaw Paul Simon Stephen Solarz Leonard Sussman John J. Sweeney John Tkacik Arthur Waldron Jennifer Windsor Larry Wortzel
Letter To President Clinton Advocating Removal of Milosevic from Office.
Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrahms, Richard L. Armitage, Nina Bang-Jensen, Jefrrey Bergner, George Biddle, John R. Bolton, Frank Carlucci, Eliot Cohen, Seth Cropsey, Dennis DeConcini, Paula Dobrianski, Morton H. Halperin, John Heffernan, James R. Hooper, Bruce P. Jackson, Zalmay KHalilzad, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Peter Kovler, Mark P. Lagon, Peter Rodman, HElmut Sonnenfeldt, William Howard Taft the 4th, Ed Turner, Wayne Owens, Dov S. Sakheim,
Letter Advocating taking a strong stand on behalf of Taiwan
Edwin J. Feulner, Jr. William Kristol Elliott Abrams Richard V. Allen Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett John R. Bolton William F. Buckley, Jr. Midge Decter Robert Kagan Jeane J. Kirkpatrick I. Lewis Libby Edwin Meese III Richard Perle Norman Podhoretz William Schneider, Jr. Arthur Waldron Malcolm Wallop James Webb Caspar Weinberger Paul Weyrich R. James Woolsey Paul Wolfowitz
Letter to Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott May 29, 1998 advocating removal of Saddam... discusses weapons of Mass Destruction
Elliot Abrams William J. Bennett Jeffrey Bergner John R. Bolton Paula Dobriansky Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad William Kristol Richard Perle Peter Rodman Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick
Letter to Bill Clinton outlines the Vision of the Project for a New American Century.
"-- We should use U.S. and allied military power to provide protection for liberated areas in northern and southern Iraq; and -- We should establish and maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf - and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power"
signatories: Elliott Abrams Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad William Kristol Richard Perle Peter W. Rodman Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick a whois search at register.com shows that the person who registered the domain is
New Citizenship Project
Gary Schmitt
1150 17th St. N.W. Suite 150
Washington, DC 20036
202 293-4983 fax 4572
project@NEWAMERICANCENTURY.ORG
hosting at ns.cais.com ns2.cais.com
The website is registered to the New Citizenship Project. (NCP)
Gary Schmitt, the executive director,
Here is a social network diagram for Gary Schmitt from www.namebase.org (a fascinating site, one that spies and political researchers will find useful.
Namebase suggests a CIA connection. http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb01?Na=Schmitt%2C+gary
funding sources for NCP is listed at http://www.mediatransparency.org/search_results/info_on_any_recipient.php?258
Repeated sources of funding for NCP include these major conservative sources of funding for think tanks and other conservative causes. These include some of the most wealthy, powerful conservative bastions of power on the planet.
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc. .... more:
It's big, with over $700 in assets
Another Source of funding is Sarah Scaife Foundation run by Richard Melon Scaife
The Man Behind the Mask; Richard Melon Scaife
Social Network Diagram for Scaifeinfo on the The John M. Olin Foundation and their own website http://www.jmof.org/
an excerpt from an article written for the NY Times, October 25, 1999 by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, listed among the archives of the Project for the New American Century:
"
The Clinton Administration has placed itself squarely in the tradition of Presidents Wilson and Carter, and never more so than in Mr. Berger's speech, entitled "American Power: Hegemony, Isolationism or Engagement." Mr. Berger is opposed to American hegemony and decries Republican calls for increased defense spending. The true test of leadership, he argues, is not whether the United States remains militarily powerful, but whether it signs onto international conventions such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Climate Change Treaty, provides enough money to global poverty programs and supports the United Nations.
It is on these matters, Mr. Berger argues, "that our most fundamental interests are at stake." Mr. Berger derides those who worry about the threat posed by China or Russia as "nostalgic" for the cold war. In the Clinton Administration's world, there are no enemies or even potential enemies. There are only potential partners in the search for what Mr. Berger calls an international "common good."
This is the kind of utopian internationalism that the Democratic Party rejected under the hardheaded leadership of Harry Truman and Dean Acheson but embraced again after Vietnam. It is the internationalism of Jimmy Carter, squeamish and guilty about American power and content to base America's security, and the world's security, on arms control agreements rather than on American arms. This is the internationalism which in the late 1970's and early 1980's favored the SALT II agreement and the "nuclear freeze" and opposed the Reagan arms buildup and the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Republicans in the coming election will likely propose a very different kind of internationalism. In the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, they will argue that the United States can and should lead the world to a better future, one built around American principles of freedom and justice -- but only if it has the power and the will to use that power.
Republicans will argue that American security cannot be safeguarded by international conventions. Instead, they will ask Americans to face this increasingly dangerous world without illusions. They will argue that American dominance can be sustained for many decades to come, not by arms control agreements, but by augmenting America's power and, therefore, its ability to lead."
