Sunday, July 31, 2005

Think tanks: conclusions pt. II

I apologize for the lack of updates in recent days. Generally I will be unable to produce as much as I did a week ago. My intention is to make this a biweekly blog; meaning I hope to publish two posts at some time during the week. Due to a busy and somewhat unpredicatble schedule I won’t promise more than that. Thanks to those of you who are reading this blog and checking for updates.

Back to the subject of think tanks (this will be my last post on them, for now). One of the major questions that has arisen in my discussion of this topic is: how do we live in a world were think tanks are a dominant force in the intellectual landscape of politics? Some have proposed contributing money to think tanks that adhere to points of view alternate to those of the well funded conservative majority. In a sense, can we (alternative thinkers) outgun the corporate funded majority?

We may have to follow this track, at least in part. Ways to stay in the debate are good. Ultimately, however, if this is our only route of "attack" we are doomed to failure. Most effective think tanks will be beholden to those with the most money. Even excellent grassroots funding efforts are far shakier than the steady stream of corporate profits. While Howard Dean was able to raise a large amount of money in small donations and organizations like moveon.org have become small power houses, when we compare these phenomena to the loot that poured into Bush's reelection coffer the question has to be asked: is it possible to catch up?

The New America Foundation, a middle of the road and effective think tank which criticizes the role of corporate profits in think tanks, is itself supported by corporate monies (though to a much lesser degree and through many indirect sources). So are there any alternatives?

Not exactly, since we’ll never be able to match tactics, but we still may be able to influence the debate. There are intriguing projects like the Mainstream Media Project, which, through its guests on call program, has developed a network of experts of all sorts (academic, professional etc.) in order to connect them to radio or television broadcasts. Mainstream’s mission is multifaceted and I encourage you to check them out.

Further there are now many new “media sources” popping up on the web, many in the form of blogs but also in more traditional journalistic formats. My feeling is that as more and more of the populace enters the online world the chances for feeding alternate, as well as manipulating, sources of information increases. The battle for this medium is heating up and as long as ordinary people (us the participating audience) hold a place in this sphere we will be able to get our voice heard. I imagine a set of participatory knowledge centers, such as wikipedia, where people will be able to discuss and analyze what is happening in the world today.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

nice, cozy place you got here :)..

1:05 AM  

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