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96(P) - Think Tank: Are Leftist Think Tanks Possible? And Using Education for Social Change (Patreon)

Published:
2019-07-14 16:42:54
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2026-06
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Content

Michael, Matt, David, and Vic Vaiana all in studio for the Think Tank segment this week. What is the role of Think Tanks in American and can a think tank help the left? How think tanks are typically bought. Are think tanks geared for a different media environment? The promise and perils of the new Koch/Soros anti-intervention think tank hiring actually good people. Think tanks as effective propaganda mills.

Then, what role does public education play in social progress? What needs to be done to fix public ed in America? How does higher ed need to evolve to better serve more communities.

Also, how should Bernie prosecute ICE? Public defenders need more resources.

@_MichaelBrooks

@MattLech

@DavidGriscom

@VicVaiana

Comments

Eric

I think Matt Bruenig’s is evidence that it is possible to have a really good and impactful left think tank

connor rodham clinton

more money for public ed across the board equalize funding per student (not tied to property tax/wealth) & subsidize historically under funded schools so they can catch up in terms of resources, tech, etc.

connor rodham clinton

why spend $120k on a business degree when you can be an ass hole for free??

Zen Ben

The asymmetry between how the liberal/progressive nonprofit 501c4 think tank type organizations operate and the way the right-wing think tanks operate is indicative of the mindset in each camp. Liberal think tanks have an elaborate grant application process, which becomes the primary workload for the ED and their executive staff. Conservative mega-donors write a check for $10,000,000 as seed money and then kick in a few million dollars a year subsequently to keep the operation focused on the mission and not on meeting payroll or wasting their days filling out elaborate custom-made by each lib org to exhaust the director and the staff's time doing fussy busywork. The Right hires a lot of young careerist conservative activists, pays them all decent salary and even company housing. As John Galt style free marketeers, the oligarchs who fund the right-wing propaganda outlets think that internships are for losers and pay their staff with real money, and then assess each new class of reactionary culture warriors to scout the best talent up to the next rung on the wingnut welfare career ladder. It's a reflection of the paucity of real talent in right-wing media that, believe it or not, the knuckleheads and flacks that we see on Fox are the cream of the crop!

Zen Ben

The B team on the Fox internet shows, Breitbart, Daily Caller, and regional conservative talk radio etc. are utterly unwatchable. Apparently, the best and the brightest don't want their career to consist of carrying buckets of stale piss for the anti-social oligarchs who regard them all as disposable peasants. If you had any filament of ethical and journalistic principles, repeating deliberately manufactured lies for the worst people in America is not work to be proud of. The focus in nonprofits funded by liberal donors quickly shifts from providing the social service mission for the clients or doing the ideological work of composing smart policies, to spending your days shaking the money tree and cultivating affluent local businessmen to harvest the big donations that actually pay the staff salaries. Right-wing oligarch funders don't nickel and dime their organization, demanding time-consuming obsessive accounting of every dollar spent. The Koch's, the Mercers, Foster Frieze and the other Republican mega-donors drop a fat check for $100,000, 000 as the down payment on annual operating costs and guarantee the funding for 2-5 years to stand the organization up. They pay their interns, create a career ladder and some of the bigger right-wing think tanks have built 100 room dormitory housing for their young staff This is a function of the abysmal failure of the lame liberal donor class to recognize that they are under attack by dark reactionary forces who will not be mollified by any concession they might offer. Rich liberal donors seem to have an aversion to funding the nuts-and-bolts of nonprofits, which is how the ED and his team can build out capacity and achieve longevity. Why does every half-assed rich liberal donor get to pick a cute custom project that will reward them with a photo op for the building or program named after them? Meanwhile, the organization lacks the capacity to grow through strategic investment.

Zen Ben

Coda on this extended rant from a disgruntled former nonprofit worker: the Left has to let go of romanticizing all-volunteer activism. We will not beat massive capitalist power centers with nice folks spending their evenings after their paid day job to lick envelopes and do the work to promote justice. We are deluding ourselves if we think that we will win with this limp lib strategy. This ticks me off about liberal billionaires like Tom Steyer. For the $100,000,000 dollars that he plans to spend of his fortune on (to split the Democratic vote to get Donald Trump re-elected) to indulges his narcissistic affluenza fantasy, he could be a real hero and actually get results. For that kind of money, he could purchase a big HQ for a liberal think, hire a platoon of policy experts and researchers, build a hundred room dormitory to new young staff, build a top-of-the-line radio and TV studio, and a top talent PR shop to operationalize the scholarly research done by the resident fellows. But, no...Steyer has to stick his pasty face on every billboard in town and burn up a vast sum of money in a big metal barrel, pursuing his ego-driven campaign to be the most recognizable face of the climate change movement. How did someone who made that much money be so stupid! I would like to get him in a room alone and slap some sense into his thick head.

Ben O'Leary

Thanks for taking my question on public defenders...feel free the pass the idea along to Brianna Joy Grey :)

Bijou Smith

New Zealand is still recovering from our neoliberal hell era, and our Labour Party is still infested with them, but we have nowhere near the think tank problem you in the UK and USA do, mainly because of our Parliamentary Select Committee process, which is open to the public. Select Committee's are obliged to listen to all public submissions, and this is pretty simple and effective in diluting the impact of think tanks, since 10 ordinary citizens probably outnumber all the think tanks that exist in New Zealand. Our legislation problem is mainly that our public are still brainwashed by neoliberal fiscal surplus seeking and similar protestant austerity mindsets.

Bijou Smith

Nice discussion on education. Here's my 2 cents: firstly, abolish grades and rewards. There is no reason on Earth why someone studying a course cannot pass the course with arbitrary high mastery. You just give them time. If they voluntarily drop out, fine, they incomplete. But failing a course is totally unnecessary and should be regarded as anachronistic. Secondly, I'd advocate a seamless continuum between work and learning. There need not be a divide between school and work. Merge some work into schools, and merge schools into the workplace. Thirdly, primary education needs to be fun, playful, in the spirit of hacker culture (playful inventiveness), but also democratic, so that if a student wants the pressure of a test, then give them a test! So the entire education system is not a set of institutions with formal bureaucratic rules, it is open and playful and is student-centred not standards and test-centrered.