Think Tanks Talking to Each Other

I was once an enthusiastic supporter of certain think tanks.

My enthusiasm is waning.

With one in particular, reading their blog kind of tore it for me today.  Day after day, I kept waiting for them to mention the fact that people were taking to the streets.

Chirp, chirp, chirp.

Finally today, one person wrote a brief article that said pretty much nothing.  But at least he mentioned it and he wasn't negative.

Who are these people talking to?  Each other, apparently.  Heaven forbid they should try to communicate some of their lofty ideas to mainstream America in a way that can be understood.  I noted in today's blog that someone appeared on MSNBC.  Good grief.  Would someone, anyone, tell the powers that be that NO ONE WATCHES MSNBC.  Fox News, at any given hour, has the combined ratings of CNN, MSNBC and several hundred thousand plus?  They write books that few people read except for the ones they mail to their donors.  Good, important books.  One appearance on Glenn Beck would put them on the New York Times Best Seller List.

But they're oblivious.  They write papers.  They talk to politicians.  They talk to people whom they want to give them money.  They put ads in papers published in Washington, DC.  Middle America apparently doesn't exist in the world of think tanks either. 

What is the point of what they're doing?  Who are they trying to reach?  And if they're not trying to teach what it means to be an American to average people who would love to learn if someone were willing to put it out there for them, why aren't they?  What is the bloody point of talking to each other, or talking people who already think the same way you do?  And I'm not talking about a hundred kids going to a university seminar.  Think what could have been done with Social Security if they had stopped talking to politicians and started talking to people and explaining it the way it should have been explained.  Politicians don't respond to reason.  They respond to pressure. 

Surely there is room in a think tank's mission statement for brilliance and reaching out to the rest of us?  You could perhaps come out of your tanks occasionally?

I am completely disenchanted.  And it's a good thing I'm not in charge of who gets donations.