why is the Discovery Institute in SEATTLE?

[maxsolomon]

who funds this crap? why do the citizens of Seattle not ride them out of town on a rail? do i have to put up with conservative think tanks for the remaining 40+ years of my life?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Institute

Funding
The institute is a non-profit educational foundation funded by philanthropic foundation grants, corporate and individual contributions and the dues of Institute members. Contributions made to it are tax deductible, as provided by law.

The institute does not provide details about its backers, out of "harrassment" fears according to Chapman. A review of tax documents on www.guidestar.org <5>, a Web site that collects data on foundations, showed grants and gifts totalling $4.1 million in 2003, the most recent year available. This is in contrast to $1.4 million in 1997, the oldest year available. The records show financial support from 22 foundations, at least two-thirds of which state explicitly religious missions. The Discovery Institute's CSC director, Stephen C. Meyer, admits much of the institutes's money comes from such wealthy Christian fundamentalist conservatives as Howard Ahmanson Jr., who once said his goal is "the total integration of biblical law into our lives," Philip F. Anschutz, Richard Mellon Scaife, and the MacLellan Foundation, which commits itself to "the infallibility of the Scripture." <6> Most Discovery Institute donors have also contributed significantly to the Bush campaign.

Though in the minority, funding also comes from non-conservative sources: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave $1 million in 2000 and pledged $9.35 million over 10 years in 2003, including $50,000 of Bruce Chapman's $141,000 annual salary. The money of the Gates Foundation grant is "exclusive to the Cascadia project" on regional transportation, according to a Gates Foundation grant maker.

Published reports state that the institute has awarded $3.6 million in fellowships of $5,000 to $60,000 per year to 50 researchers since the CSC's founding in 1996 <7>.

[RobertSeattle]

1. 1st Amendment? Even idiots are allowed free speech

I give them just a couple more years - it's become a common meme they are just a canard for Creationism.

[maxsolomon]

2. i disagree

with the likes of the Gates Foundation paying them protection money, they're going to be fighting "materialism" for a long time.

[RobertSeattle]

4. I'm not sure we should expouse "riding them out of town"

They need to be defeated on the battlefield of facts and reality and they'll become the tinhorn that they are.

[maxsolomon]

6. well, that's a figure of speech & i don't endorse vigilantism, natch

but the "battlefield of facts" no longer exists.

the purpose of the DI is to eliminate the concept of "facts".

[RobertSeattle]

10. OK, understand

But the Limbaughs, Hannities, O'Reilly's, and Malkins out there will take any DUer out of context and contort it into "Look at those liberals and how they hate free speech".

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. You should be glad it's there.

As long as there is a prominent RW thinktank in Seattle we won't see any nukes going off in its harbor.

I had a horrible nightmare about that last year, and though I've never been to Seattle I recognised it from the skyline, just before the blast.

[Silverhair]

5. Sounds like you have a problem with Freedom.

Be careful what you wish for, least you get it. If, somehow you managed to create the legal machinery to outlaw those groups that you didn't like, then that same machinery would ultimately outlaw you.

I would personally take up arms to fight against such a government as you may set up. You would set up a genuine one-party dictatorship.

[maxsolomon]

7. oh christ

you can't use a metaphor on this board without a :sarcasm:. i'm starting to hate freedom. :sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm:

i merely mean that seattle, as liberal a city as they come, tolerates a reactionary group which extorts "protection money" from the likes of the gates foundation, in the heart of its downtown, at 3rd & union. why it isn't protested i have no clue.

[Silverhair]

11. I took you for what your words said, as did the other responders here.

Threads by people who want to silence some particular group are fairly common here. There is a current thread where some person wants to outlaw the KKK. There are frequent threads on trying to find ways to get conservative speakers off the air by using some aspect of law.

I am amazed at how many here on DU are so ready to deny free speech to a group or persons that they don't like. So I took your thread to be another one of that type.

[maxsolomon]

12. they can say whatever the fuck they want

but the fact that they can control & frame this absurd "debate" is a direct result of the boatloads of money these "not for profit" think tanks have. they should not be able to hide their funding sources.

and if someone applies that logic to, say, PETA or ELF, then fine. it should be known that creationists fund them.

[AntiCoup2K4]

8. Richard Mellonhead Scaife has polluted my state?

Anybody got a picture of that traitorous son of a bitch? If I ever run into that piece of shit on the street, I'll personally thank him for all he's done to destroy this country ;)

[bleedingheart]

9. you think you have it bad...he lives one county over from me

in the little quaint town of Ligonier....home to the spoiled rotten descendents of the coal and steel robber barons...

his estate is wired to the hilt...the crazy bastard is so paranoid.

he owns most of the newspapers in our area.....

[Maat]

13. What state?

I'm guessing it's ... Pennsylvania.

I researched the Religious Right for a project; Scaife is such a bully.

On edit:
Ha! I was right. My father-in-law and mother-in-law came from Penn.