For a good list of progressive infrastructure organizations go to http://newprogressivevoices.org/ and look at the left column. Of oucrse there are others, and I hope that people can leave comments here directing people to those organizations as well.

The list follows — go to http://newprogressivevoices.org/ for links to their websites

* Campaign for America’s Future
* Center for Community Change
* Center for Economic and Policy Research
* Commonweal Institute
* Commonwealth Institute
* Center on Wisconsin Strategy
* Demos
* Drum Major Institute for Public Policy
* Economic Policy Institute
* Grassroots Policy Project
* Green For All
* Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
* Institute for Policy Studies
* The Jamestown Project
* New Vision: An Institute for Policy and Progress
* The Opportunity Agenda
* Progressive States Network
* Redefining Progress
* The Roosevelt Institution
* Sightline Institute

A warm welcome to Friend of Blog, Dave Johnson, who has been working for progressive infrastructure longer than pretty much anybody else.

Glad you could join us today for Blue America!

Hi egregious and thank you for the warm welcome. I am glad to be here.

As people get past their post election exhaustion, what do you think we should be focusing on short term? Are folks even ready to think about politics?

Good afternoon Dave and welcome to FDL. Thank you for this update on the current state of the “Progressive Infrastructure.”

I guess the one caveat that I would add is that a major difference between the right wing/conservative infrastructure and a progressive infrastructure is that progressives actually tend to think independently and don’t take direction from the top down too awfully well.

Or I might be an idiot.

Wow, it’s really something to think about what we could do if we built a network of equivalent size to the wingnut welfare world. Thanks for a tremendous gathering of information and resources!

The lack of a progressive infrastructure is especially strong here in Florida. Mel Martinez’s seat in the Senate will be up for grabs at the same time that we need to field a candidate to run against Crist’s re-election. We really only have one good candidate right now (Alex Sink), so it will be interesting to see which office she decides to seek.

Right now is the time to think about this. We have a number of important policy fights coming. Health care, Employee Free Choice Act, etc. There are coalitions formed to fight for those, but very little underlying foundation of public understanding to support those fights.

What I mean is, the right has some core messages that support their issues across the board. “Personal responsibility” is an example of this. They trot that out to support their tort “reform” and anti-health care and other policy battles. So they pound on “personal responsibility” 24/7 and it provides a foundation for their issue arguments as those come up.

So what we need is to develop more of a widespread public appreciation of “we’re all in this together” and similar arguments, and develop those through lots of channels, and in lots of ways, and do it outside of each policy fight and each election season, and eventually the public respondes. This is “demand creation.”

And then when we go into the health care fight, or the Employee Free Choice Act fight, and other fights, we can draw on public understanding of the various ways that “we’re all in this together” has been explained, and have a ready-made base of support for those policies.

Progressives supported unpopular ideas like helping the poor and taxing the rich and gay marriage and the fascists took advantage of these issues. But it looks like the so called ‘conservative ideas’ have failed to serve our democracy overall. We must remember that corruption can destroy us no matter the direction it comes from. We must kill corruption all together.

Digg please

I think the R Senators have given us one to build on by allowing us to ask, “Why are the Republicans trying to suppress wages and benefits for unionized US workers? Shouldn’t they instead be trying to raise the wages and benefits of their non-union constituents who work at heavily taxpayer subsidized foreign auto manufacturers instead?”

dakine01 -

Right. The right is top-down and we aren’t. We of course are democratic, and our movement is bottom-up. Dean and Obama etc. have shown the power of this. But ideas do need development and articulation, and need to be refined throught discussions, and then ripple out through various information channels, so people can reach understanding and eventually consensus. That is the role of think tanks, and the value of people who are paid to concentrate on certain subjects.

Of course a progressive infrastructure would act ethically, not be in the business of tricking people like the right is. But we have an easier mission — we are not trying to trick blue-collar workers out of their pensions and health care in order to buy ourselves bigger jets.

Hi Dave,
How do we neuter Limbaugh et al?
They are brainwashing people.

Welcome to the Lake, Dave!

Echoing what dakine said above, since the left is a notoriously independent thinking bunch (like an anarchists’ society meeting), how do we corral all the disparate groups into agreement on what gets put on the agenda?

There are progressive oriented foundations, why aren’t they showing more leadership in funding the next generation of activists? Too comfortable with making the same old donations?

Elliot -

The truth does set us free. Limbaugh and Fox etc depend on “low information voters” accepting the stuff they say, and on a lack of alternative sources of information reaching people. For example, this idea that taxes hurt the economy that they repeat over and over. They got away with that for years, but now progressives are starting to have outlets like the blogs and Air America that are answering back with some facts. (In fact the economy has always done much better when tax rates at the top are very very high, and I can get into the reasons in another post…)

So countering them takes infrastructure. It takes organizations that can do the research, and generate wording that regular people understand, and channels to get that information to their eyes and ears. THAT is progressive infrastructure.

A lot of progressive orgs withdrew from electoral politics starting in the 1970s — even as conservative groups increased their participation.

1,855 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Dave Johnson and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

Thank you for the post but in this forum I think you are preachin’ to the choir. The Democratic Party establishment has not been very open to the idea of a “new”, more progressive activist constituency let alone a strong, progressive institutional structure that can bend the behavior of elected politicians and break the ties of the monied class to the elected officials at all levels. Witness the disbanding of the DNC state organizers and closin’ the door on Howard Dean before he could even get his coat off the rack. The fact that the DNC, elected party leadership and the “beltway” executive club could allow the DNC to purge Dean without protecting the institutional framework he had built over the last 4 years gives this old progressive the idea that maybe there is a conflict between the interests of the progressive base of the Democratic Party and the interests of the elected leadership. Why is Dean not involved in some capacity in the continuity of leadership in the DNC and why is there not an ongoing effort to institutionalize the fragile relationships developed between the states and the national party thru the organizers? Why has there not been an effort to establish better communication with or response mechanisms to extra-party organizations like MoveOn?

There will never be a solid “progressive infrastructure” until the chain of command and lines of authority between the elected leadership in the Democratic Party and the monied power brokers are broken.

The blog-communities like FDL and Daily Kos and the extra-party groups like MoveON comprise what could be called the existing “progressive infrastructure” and to institutionalize this framewwork within the Democratic Party is gunna take a coup lead by a national leader who has his or her own “infrastucture” to bring to bear on the party…anyone guess who that might be?

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, NOT ALL FASCISTS CALL THEMSELVES REPUBLICANS!!!

Exactly. And that infrastructure must include media as well as think tanks. The TradMed that exists will run with right-wing framing as the default “neutral” or “nonpartisan” view, and it takes much effort by non-conservatives to get their POV across in the US corporate-owned press.

egregious — The problem of foundations supporting progressive infrastructure… Yes that is a big one, and I hope someone can leave a comment on that. For my own part, I think one piece of the answer is that many foundations do not like to support “general operating expenses” and prefer specific programs. But progressive infrastructure organizations are in a startup phase and just need to be able to hire a few people and get office space and pay phone bills before they can take on the job of managing programs. Another part of the problem is that this idea of promoting core progressive values like democracy and community is considered advocacy and many foundations that have been around for a while avoid funding advocacy. The background of that is another post…

But I think someone can leave a better comment.

I’m not so worried about coming up with ideas, we have lots of good ideas. But unless we can get those implemented we are going to be our own Ivory Tower.

It’s been encouraging to see some of the national media picking up on progressive concepts.

I think you have this backwards. The WAY to break the chain is to fund progressive infrastructure and build from the grassroots up a demand for democracy and transparency. On the right the conservative movement took over the Republican Party, working outside of the electoral process. They went out to the public and created a perception of public demand. It was largely astroturf, but that is how they accomplished it. WE can create ACTUAL demand because we really are fighting for the right ideas and for supporting each other.

I think there are core progressive values like “we are all in this together,” democracy and community that we all support. I think that our issues and policies really spring from one or another variations of these. We start to diverge on how to apply these, but as long as we are promoting the ideas of equality and democracy, we end up better as a society than we have when we have followed “you’re on your own” and “in it for ourselves” values.

Citizen Dave Johnson:

Respectfully, I believe you and the “progressives” up ’til now have it backwards. Until the infrastucture is built WITHIN the Democratic Party that can respond to and assist in cultivating and protecting extra-party progressive entities, there will be no progressive political party in this country…period.

We have similar infrastructure problems in California. In fact this was reflected in the election results. Obama won big but we lost Prop 8, Charlie Brown, Steve Young, etc. and Hannah-Beth Jackson for state senate by only about 900 votes…

I work with Speak Out California here. We have Calitics here and the Courage Campaign but there is little funding for building up real progressive infrastructure here. Prop 8’s loss shows that we need that.

Do you have any perceptions on the Fairness Doctrine. Any possibility of it being reinstituted? It seems that the right is scared silly over it.

This is not the job of a political party or of politicians. Politicians in a democracy RESPOND to demand. It is the work of organizations outside of the party to generate demand. Also progressives are not top-down. When you suggest that “the party” should be responsible for creating progressive entities, you are advocating that the few at the top tell us what we should be doing.

I think the right is using the Fairness Doctrine to raise money right now.

But in my opinion (and diverging from the subject of progressive infrastructure) the fact is that in a democracy we have a responsibility to be sure that all voices are able to contribute to the discussion of where we should be heading. One value of democracy is that we get the combined wisdom of millions contributing to debates. And that means we have a responsibility to make sure voices are not drowned out, as they currently are in the corporate-owned media.

Dave, I’m sure that all of the above organizations are excellent and do good work – I will check out their sites. However, it seems to me that we have too many instead of not enough. I get dozens of e-mails every day asking for money from various groups. Wouldn’t it be best if some of them got together so they would have more people and more money to concentrate on what’s needed?

Citizen Dave Johnson:

Not to beat the poor dead horse but what we are talkin about is gettin’ the structure established WITHIN the Democratic Party to provide entry to progressive interests and cuts the fuel line between the monied interests and the elected leadership. Let’s build a political party that provises for one person and one vote and does not anthropromorphize money.

Well I think we are nowhere near the point of having too many organizations. The problem you see is that we have not yet developed a functioning ecosystem to support progressive politics. We need to develop what I call a culture of giving, where all of us understand that the only way we are going to have a progressive future is if we all start giving what we can to support that.

There’s a reason all the progressive groups are always begging for money. As I worded it in one post, on the day that Obama raised a million dollars in one minute, Lakoff’s Rockridge institute closed its doors for lack of funding.

People get very focused on the immediate, short-term election battles and in the heat of the moment are willing to give money to political campaigns. But this is the least effective possible use of money! Political campaign money literally just goes up in the air — as commercials. No one pays attention in the days just before the election, and it leaves little behind.

But a coordinated, ongoing campaign designed to get people to identify as progressives would have an immense payoff on Election Day. People would be predisposed to vote for progressive candidates and support progressive policies. So instead of having to spend millions upon millions at the last minute to try to sway a few “swing voters” you have already built your base over the years. As I said in the post, a dollar contributed to progressive infrastructure organizations today is much more effective than ten dollars given to each of your candidate just before any election.

What a great discussion, Dave. I agree that we really need to have a progressive infrastructure that helps build the environment in which progressive ideas can flourish and come into being. It is best separate from political parties. I really like the results of the organizations you’ve named so far, but you can see how far we yet have to go. A progressive infrastructure could make sure we bring progressive ideas to the table, rather just having mainstream and blue dog ideas which have been vetted by big money. Fairness and community – these are progressive values. The infrastructure makes it possible to have more people who represent these values have air time and face time in front of the public and shapes the type of people we elect to represent us in our government.

Dave

The MSM is the largest reason that, although the truth is out there, it never gets told. Any ideas on how to force the Main Stream Mudslingers into actually delivering genuine news, not Entertainment Today style junk?

Progress would be made quickly if not for these people who disgrace the profession of journalism by their disinformation 24/7. If more people knew what was really going on in their country, they would be ready to support progressive sites, ideas, etc. There is a reason that most people think Iraq was involved in 911..the media and politicians lie to promote their own agenda. Any thoughts as to how to stop the propaganda machine?

Dave, the problem I find is knowing which organization does the best work and deserves to have the money.

Dave, I’ve been a long time fan of your words & work. Unfortunately I seem to have been forced into the ranks of the long-term unemployed by the collapse of the electronics industry in Austin, TX therefore I no longer have money to contribute to this much-needed progressive infrastructure. Worse, I don’t have much to say that’s not already being said by others (and frankly, said better). What can I do to contribute to this progressive infrastructure? (Please don’t tell me ‘phone-banking’ and/or ‘blockwalking’ as my interpersonal skills are such that I would better aid the progressive movement by arguing the right-wing position… hence my now dead via outsourcing 35-year career as a technical person)

I have felt for a long time that the Democratic Party pros are afraid both of ideas and of citizen involvement. They have both their issue agendas, which are mostly centrist, and their own career interests. Consultants do very well for themselves even when they lose.

For that reason pressure has to come from groups outside the party working within the party (like accountability now), and public education (which the Democrats have been horrible at) has to be carried on independently of the party. (This doesn’t mean boycotting the party or joining a third party. Just working independently.)

besides the party, a lot of Republican donors seem to be completely oblivious to the need to get the word out. A billion dollars will be spent in an election year, but every election the Democrats have to start from scratch. Nothing is developed in between). And the bulk of that billion goes to major media which are to all intents and purposes Republicans. (Again, the liberal donors have their own pet issues and financial interests. They’re not us.)

On “low-information voters” — I call them “ambient voters”. They’re not actively interested by they listen to what they hear on the broadcast media and what they hear other people saying. Right now ambient voters will mostly be Republicans. Free media are run by advertisers, and serve the advertiser’s interests.

Disclosure: I’m Dave’s partner at “Seeing the Forest”. We generally agree about things, but I’m speaking only for myself right now.

One way is to develop sources of honest information. The blogs are an important component of progressive infrastructure and everyone should be supporting them. Public TV and radio was supposed to be a neutral source of information uncorrupted by corporate influence. That was the original idea, and maybe after Jan 20 we can get back to that.

But we also have to be working to remind the public that this is a democracy and they have a responsibility to be informed and involved. Progressive infrastructure orgs can find ways to articulate that. The corporate media promotes the idea that we are “consumers” instead of citizens, and that shopping is our duty…

That’s easy. Give some money to all of them.

Well there is a way. This idea of developing the underlying foundations of public support for progressive values, ideas, policies and candidates outside of the election process has been slow to ripple out. Really, people don’t seem to get it that the general public at large has lost understanding of and support for core values like democracy and community in the last several decades. So they don’t get it that we need to rebuild that support.

So spread the word that we need to build up organizations that reach the public with education about democracy and other core progressive values, and that this will leverage election dollars, and help elect progressive candidates and get progressive policies enacted.

Dave I gotta disagree with you on giving money to every group who asks. I would advocate looking over their material, doing some research on the internet, asking around, and making some very carefully targeted donations. I take 2 to 3 years to decide on major changes, and investigate smaller ones carefully.

We hear about how Republicans are good at promoting conservatism and the Democrats are bad at promoting progressivism. But when you look closely at what is happening, it isn’t the Republican Party that we’re talking about. It is this infrastructure out there, hundreds of organizations that promote “free markets,” etc. and we think it is the Republican Party. Rush Limbaugh is not part of the Republican party, and he talks about “RINOs” which is the conservative expression for Republicans who are not conservative enough. The Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute are not part of the Republican Party, they promote conservatism (and corporatism really) and the party responds.

OK, I’ll give a more serious answer. We need a clearinghouse — an “Act Blue” for progressive infrastructure organizations, so people can give a lump sum that is distributed, or where they can go to find individual orgs to support. We need some way to certify which groups really are working as part of a progressive infrastructure, certain criteria like reaching the general public and not just mining an issue list to raise funds for entrenched management.

The problem comes up right away that it takes funds even to get this done, and finding is so minimal. Fortunately Democracy Alliance is a major funding group that is starting to help. But we need to create that culture of progressive giving to really get things moving. The only real way to fund a progressive movement is by the grassroots, because then it reflects what the grassroots needs and not what major funders want.

One thing you can do today is look for the organizations in the Progressive Ideas Network, which is the organizations in the list in the first comment here.

I’ve read somewhere that Republican donors are more willing to take a chance on someone to see what they can do, less likely to micromanage, and more willing to give long-term support without asking for grant renewals every year.

My explanation is that Democrats tend to be bureaucrats and administrators, whereas Republicans are more likely to be entrepreneurs and gamblers and advertisers. That works strongly to the advantage of the Republicans.

So spread the word that we need to build up organizations that reach the public with education about democracy and other core progressive values, and that this will leverage election dollars, and help elect progressive candidates and get progressive policies enacted.

We truly do need to get more progressive politicians elected because even with a Democratic Congress, we are still saddled with a Democrat who wants to sabotage our best chance for sane health care reform by removing the option of Medicare for all before even starting to come up with a proposal.

A progressive infrastructure would make it much easier for people running for office to associate themselves with a core set of well-known progressive values.

To continue this answer, the idea of progressive infrastructure is a change in approach for progressive-aligned organizations. The problem that developed with the established “issue organizations” was that the funding limitations forced them to focus more and more narrowly on their core issue and talk more and more to their existing membership. Over time it became a competitive environment where everyone felt that a dollar that goes to another organization is a dollar they don’t get themselves. Their leadership became more specialized and “silos” developed.

All the while the public support for core progressive values that served as the foundation for all of these groups eroded. And no one was responsible for reaching the general public to drive understanding of these core progressive values and ideas.

So now established issue organizations are also starting to work in a progressive infrastructure way, by working to reach the general public and explain core values again. This mutually reinforces the foundation of support as well as other organizations that are aligned.

The missing component is a culture of progressive giving — the millions of small donors each giving a hundred dollars a year. This is what is needed now, to translate the energy that Obama was able to generate, into broad-based and lasting support for the organizations that can consolidate and hold on to this victory.

Twain, I gave the long version of an answer to this in a comment below to egregious.

Above not below. Heh.

Thanks. I have been giving to candidates through Blue America but not to the Dem Party. Won’t ever give to the party again until they show me that they can be real Dems. Will look at the organizations you suggest.

The particular organizations I work with are the Commonweal Institute, and Speak Out California.

Perhaps because we’ve been out of power for so long, it’s difficult to make the shift from blue sky thinking to getting ourselves into action. I am reminded of the intelligensia in Russia who would spend endless hours around the kitchen table with intimate friends discussing how things should be.

And it’s all fine to continue having the theoretical discussions – we need and value our philosophers. But we also need some leaders, people to point the way and say:

“We’re doing this. Right now. Follow me.”

Book Salon a few flights upstairs with Jane hosting Ed Begley, Jr.

Mr. Johnson: While I enjoyed reading your opinion piece and agree with its basic premise, I would like a bit of clarification on one point. You emphasize that donations should be made “not [to] issue-based” groups, but to “infrastructure” groups. How do you differentiate between these categories? And why discourage people from donating to issue-based groups as well as the other kind? Don’t donations and work for both help our cause?

I think an “either/or” polarizing attitude that only some groups are the “right” groups to donate risks fracturing our movement, which is the last thing we need right now…or at any time, really.

Many cannot afford giving anyone $100 at one go, even on an only-once-a-year basis — I know I can’t. What’s wrong with smaller donations, say $25 a year or so? Every little bit helps, doesn’t it?

Thanks for the question. Above an answer I have to a question included, “So now established issue organizations are also starting to work in a progressive infrastructure way, by working to reach the general public and explain core values again. This mutually reinforces the foundation of support as well as other organizations that are aligned.”

I think a good way to judge where to donate might be to ask if the organization is at least in part reaching the general public with a core progressive message that supports their own and other progressive-aligned groups, or is just pussing a narrow issue message.

‘gave’, not ‘have’. It should read: Above an answer I gave to a question included…