The Rockridge Institute

[DesEtoiles]

http://www.democracyfororegon.org/2005/progressive_manual_from_rockridge_institute?PHPSESSID=56e59b966d5d924e39c5828d62cffad8

Progressive Manual from Rockridge Institute
Submitted by Ginny Ross - DFO on Sat, 08/20/2005 - 11:34am. National | Resources
Lakoff and his team continue his great pioneering work in framing with the release of his new "Progressive Manual Project" resources.
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August, 2005

Dear Friends,

As we pass midsummer, Americans struggle with a jobless recovery, an intractable war in Iraq, continuing environmental damage, assaults on progressive achievements, and an extremely conservative but stealthy Supreme Court nominee.

Now more than ever, Americans need tools to convey the progressive vision and agenda for our country, and to do so honestly, energetically, and persuasively. The Rockridge Institute has been busy building an effective institution to serve this need.

The Institute has gained support from people across the country because we understand the stakes and because we are committed to making a critical contribution to the progressive movement. We are pleased to announce the Progressive Manual Project: an essential and strategic initiative that will be our major focus for the next several years.

The Progressive Manual Project

Conservatives benefit from a powerful idea factory, a system of dozens of think tanks, created over 40 years with more than $2 billion in cumulative funding. These think tanks have done tremendous intellectual work to develop a foundation of conservative ideas and ideology. Conservatives use this foundation of ideas to argue their case across a wide range of individual issues. Conservatives' effort to promote their ideas is equally impressive; in addition to their influence on talk radio and television news, the think tanks themselves spend nearly as much to market their ideas as they spend to create them.

Even though the scale, structure, and mission of the conservative think tanks has been widely reported, nothing comparable exists to develop and consolidate core progressive ideas and help explain them to the public. This debilitating void is precisely what the Rockridge Institute seeks to fill with the Progressive Manual Project. Using techniques from cognitive science, the project will build a foundation of the most important progressive ideas, and provide a practical toolkit for people working day-to-day to advance the progressive policy agenda.

Much of the work of Progressive Manual Project involves analysis of the foundation of political ideas that supports the policy agenda of conservatives and progressives:

* Analyzing the full range of values, principles, and ideas that provide the conceptual foundations of both conservative and progressive policy.
* Identifying the many conceptual gaps in progressive arguments and suggesting ways to fill them, consistent with progressive values.
* Working out the values-based reasoning that motivates progressive policies.

With such results in hand, the Rockridge Institute will produce a Progressive Manual. The manual will provide those working in policy and advocacy with a concise summary of core progressive concepts and values. It will show how those concepts and values support a broad range of policy directions involving environment, education, health care, jobs, security, and other areas. It will provide practical tools, ideas, and suggested language for those working day-to-day to build support for the progressive agenda.

[opihimoimoi]

1. My friend Mongo and I are game to try this project....

what can we do?

[DesEtoiles]

2. Right now they are looking for $$$ - they have selected a few

people to do the writing with the support of interns