Think Tanks Spin Tanks?

"Think Tanks", such as the Brooking Institute, American Security Council, American Defense International, American Enterprise Institute are powerful opinion (propaganda) institutions enabled by money from corporate donors and significantly are based at centers of power, such as Washington DC, where they have quick and ready access to our law makers and representatives.

They are advocates for the power elite in this country, and abroad, and have for many years have had influence over our lives and government policy. We have been thinking along their political and economic lines like puppets on strings.

The American public has been spoon-fed, compliments of a duplicitious media, their ideas, which have become ours over time.

At times reality sinks in that certain actions we have been advised to take are wrong we are then fed elaborate excuses and given new paths to follow.

The American people take great pride in their form of government, that we have a representative government, a democracy, but it is one only by definition for the American people are more like puppets on strings, manipulated very cleverly by the Elite through their bought and paid for propaganda mills.

As more and more voices are heard, through independent blogs, the elitists will become alarmed at the prospect of losing their control of ideas and will begin proposing actions to stifle discourse through the internet.

The danger of think tanks, besides their proximity and access to power, is their pseudo-intellectual authority and legitimacy. Their scholarship is questionable yet the media calls on their "experts" on a regular basis to discuss popular issues, thus giving them prestige in the eyes of the public.

Political party supporters have used them to get around campaign donation limits. Think tanks are convenient outlets for political propaganda, which is their purpose anyway.

The only "peer review" process that takes place about their "scholarship" is counter propaganda from opposing think tanks. Actually the euphamism "think tank" should be "spin tank", for little real scholarly thinking takes place, in my judgement, as there is little balance to most of their conclusions.