Posted on 08/18/2005 3:20:04 AM PDT by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
At least eighty wealthy liberals have each pledged $1 million or more to the newly established Democracy Alliance to fund a network of progressive think tanks and advocacy groups, the Washington Post reports.
The goal of the alliance, which was founded last spring, is to foster the development of liberal and left-leaning institutions that can counter the influence of established conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Cato Institute. According to alliance officials, many liberal groups are too focused on promoting an agenda that was enacted when Democrats enjoyed majorities in the Senate and House, as opposed to generating new ideas and strategies designed to win support from voters. To help stem the erosion of the Democratic Party's base, alliance staff members and its board of directors plan to draw up a list of groups that can effectively develop and promote liberal and progressive ideas.
"There has never been an organized or coordinated look at connecting the dots of the progressive movement," said San Francisco businessman and alliance board member Mark Buell. "For forty years, we had a voice somewhere, the White House, the House, the Senate. For the first time, we find ourselves without a voice."
Shifting money to the alliance could spell the end of pro-Democratic groups such as America Coming Together (ACT) and the Media Fund, which depend on many of the same donors as the alliance. ACT recently announced it was closing state offices and laying off staff, and its principal funder, billionaire George Soros, has stopped donating to it.
Many liberal groups have been dependent on one-year foundation grants for specific projects, said Democratic strategist and alliance founder Rob Stein, while the money flowing to conservative groups has often taken the form of long-term commitments with no strings attached. "To be effective in the twenty-first century in promoting your beliefs, it is necessary to have a financially secure institutional infrastructure that has the capacity to promote consistently and coherently a set of ideas, policies, and messages," said Stein. "We understand that it's very hard to promote a belief system and to be operationally high performing if you don't have multi-year funding."
PS I used the search function and did not find this story posted anywhere.
Also, you need to actually believe in something coherent...
As the pot smoking Beatles once said, 'Money can't buy you love'. And it sure cannot buy you wisdom.
So...what will they actually "think" of in the tank? Hmmmm? My first guess is how to pretend to be for something...anything that the American people will vote for.
LOL, this has Liberals and Think in the same sentence...good one.
Thanks. I really did look. Even searched with that title.
At google I search: site:freerepublic.com keyword
and find most everything better than the forum search.
The key to a successful search is to enter a word found in the title, not the whole title at once. Select a word pertaining to the subject, and you may even find search results with different headlines but covering the same subject.
In this case, I would have selected the word tanks.
Or, possibly, how to "delicately re-phrase" what already exists so that we'll vote for it. NRO's Corner has a link to an interesting analysis of this piece.
I wonder how sandals and t-shirt liberals feel about being controlled by "the rich".
Looks to me like Freerepublic should buy Google right away.
Paying bright liberals to think will subvert the liberal cause. Thinking often leads to conservative views.
That has been my path.
The only obstacle we have to becoming the permanent majority are the thoughtless reactionaries and the social conservatives.
The former doesn't realize when it is giving up freedom and the latter wants to control your life as much as the libs.
But....but...., there are no rich liberals, they hate wealth and..and the wealthy.....this can't be right........probably a vast right wing conspiracy.
The most intersting statistic I saw for the 2004 election was a breakdown of how the wealthiest voted.
Kerry won by 59% to 41% the votes of those Americans who had more than $10 million in assets to invest. The so-called ultra-high-net worth individuals.
Bush won by 72% to 38% those with between $1 million and $10 million to invest.
There are probably a lot of ways to analyse this, but to me it is a symptom of those who earn their money and those whose money earn for them. People with more than $10 million to invest don't have to work. Often they inherited their money and don't even know what it means to work. Thex could care less if others catch up because they already have their.
Those with $1 to $10 million certainly are rich, but no so much that they needn't work. The probably earned that money and know what it means to work hard. They don't want to deny those below them the opportunity to do the same and beleive in a dynamic, optimistic and meritocritous America.
It's like the old adage about what the difference is between a conservationist and a developer: The conservationist built his home last year.
That, to me, is the fascinating heart of the matter.
Unless they are all retired and stupid, there could be some heavy duty consequences.
Sounds pretty clear they have surrendered.
Liberal Think-tank....This seems to be a bit confusing to us right wingers. I wasn't sure that it was possible to use liberal and think in the same sentence, guess I was wrong.
Will this be like the Moveon.org think-tank or the Micheal Moore think-tank, or the ErAmerika think-tank.
Should be entertaining to say the least.
snicker...
For 80 million I'll tell them that to win they are going to have to be conservative. That is really what the bottom line is...
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