are there liberal think tanks?

[andyhappy]

just curious ...you always hear about the conservative think tanks but are there any for "our-side"?

[dbonds]

1. All liberals are thinkers.

It is just with conservatives, so few of them think that they have to get them together to come up with an idea.

[andyhappy]

3. I hear ya...

but I mean liberal versions of such republican think tanks as 'project for a new american century' or something like that.

the left is so unorganized compared to the right!

[dbonds]

8. You are right that we are not organized.

We don't have a long term plan, in that we believe whole heartedly, that if everyone would just wake up they would see that what we believe is right. I think we over-estimate the population that way. The one thing that defines us is that we believe in the people's rights. Other than that we have a vast difference in what to do with those rights. The conservatives (from a political viewpoint) tend to believe in more in the rights of businesses. While I view that as the right to be greedy, and want power, they view business as the fuel that keeps everything moving.
Given that we are depending on common sense to win out for the majority to see our view. I think the other side has appealed to baser instincts with a vast marketting campaign that does need to be counterred by a long range plan from us. So I do tend to agree, that we need think tanks.

[MsTryska]

2. Rockridge

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org

[andyhappy]

7. interesting....

thanks for the tip!

[glitch]

4. Liberals don't need think tanks, our ideas sell themselves.

Conservative and fascist think tanks need to create propaganda to sell their ideas.

Edit to add: all we need are a fair media and a fair voting system.

[leftofthedial]

14. without think tanks

we'll never have a fair media and a fair voting system.

RW think tanks have been a primary reason why our media and voting systems are corrupt.

[glitch]

16. I think it has more to do with who owns what.

Think tanks just provide the cover they need to appear legitimate.

[leftofthedial]

17. think tanks are a linchpin of the RW strategy

without them, there would still be a Dem majority in Congress and no repuke pres would ever serve more than one term, no Clinton impeachment, no war in Iraq (in fact, no Persian War I), no Limbaugh on the radio, no destruction of America's unions, no "Reagan" on the sides of all those buildings, no mega-trillion-dollar deficits, no Patriot Act, no discussion of destroying Social Security . . .

in short, no RW movement. The repukes would still happily represent the country club set.

[dweller]

5. Center for American Progress

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/c.biJRJ8OVF/b.8473/

dp

[Selatius]

6. Economic Policy Institute

I don't know if they consider themselves liberal, but the information they dig up often is cited by Democratic leaders to attack Republicans.

[louis-t]

9. Liberals don't need to sit in no stinkin' tank

to think.

[Lindsey]

10. I think America Coming Together is one...

n/t

[dbonds]

11. I hope you are right.

It is strange, we are either coming together or headed for civil war. Not much room in between.

[KamaAina]

13. ACT appears to be more of a political action organization

like Democracy For America, than an actual think tank.

Don't get me wrong. We need political organization, too, maybe more than think tanks at this point.

But over the long haul, the think tanks generate the ideas that the politcal groups turn into talking points and sound bites. Besides, I am far better suited to work at a think tank (Podesta seems to have brought his own research guy over with him to American Progress :( ).

[tsuki]

12. Brookings Institute

[Lisa]

15. two Canadian ones ...

Centre for Social Justice (Toronto)

http://www.socialjustice.org/

Centre for Policy Alternatives (Ottawa)

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/


For sustainable energy and climate change:

The Pembina Institute

http://www.pembina.org/


And the Pew Research Center (which identifies itself as "a non-partisan fact tank" -- something which, given the attacks on "the reality-based community", is seen as hostile to the current administration) is doing a number of things:

People and the Press
http://people-press.org/

Global Warming
http://www.pewclimate.org/

http://pewresearch.org/

[TreasonousBastard]

18. You can find some on this list...

http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/psthink.html

in addition to the ones mentioned.

Part of our problem is that the other side has been pretending to be the only intellectual movement out there, and we haven't really spent much time building our credentials. We've spent a lot of time talking about policy, but rarely about political or social philosphy.

Sure, most people won't care much about that social or economic philosphy, (face it-- even among neocons, how many have actually READ Ayn Rand?) but you have to have some intellectual underpinning for the programs and policies. When Buckley ran the National Review, he spent a lot of time building conservative intellectual credentials, and that was time well spent for them. Gave them more credibility than they deserve, and they ended up with a lot more credibility than our side has.

The other side has coopted far too many of the historical thinkers, like everyone from Jefferson to Adam Smith, and loves to bring up their names even when those historical figures plainly don't agree with them. Just like they've been coopting religion and trying to tell us Jesus would hate the "death tax," but love the death penalty. They know people will just notice the references, but not actually READ the references.

Whose names do we throw around when we want to make a point? Rosa Luxemberg used to be a good one, but if anyone remembers who she was-- well, that would be the kiss of death.

When we had to dump the old-time pinkos, we never came up with any new names with intellectual authority. Many of the ones we could have had we let the other side destroy while we were off worrying about policy wonk stuff. Look what they did to Susan Sontag and a whole bunch of others. Cornell West is under their radar, but seems to be under ours, too.