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The Drum Major Institute has attempted to end the silence—in board rooms, voting booths, and even on the Internet—that surrounds public policy. There is much work to be done, and many drum majors required to do it. Here’s what DMI did to get out in front in 2003.
Executive Summary
In May of 2002, President William Jefferson Clinton said that, “The work of the Drum Major Institute needs to become a more urgent priority for our nation.” This year, we have attempted to heed this call. In a remarkably short time, we have built an organization that has already begun to influence public policy and thought. From releasing nationally recognized studies into the relationship between schools and communities and the impact of changing demographics on politics to launching an exciting and frequently visited web site that serves as a source of ideas and argument, DMI has demonstrated the strength of its mission and strategy.
Here's what you'll find in the Drum Major Institute's 2003 Annual Report:
2003 DMI Accomplishments:
• Leading the Discussion on People and Politics in America's Big Cities
• Debunking the Myth of the Middle Class
• Making Schools Accountable to Communities
• Reclaiming the Progressive Bandwidth with www.drummajorinstitute.org
• Creating Progressive Platforms through the DMI Speak Series
• Communicating the Message: 'If you don't vote, you don't count.'
• Cultivating Progressive Voices
From the Chairman, Ambassador Andrew Young
A
word from our Chairman on the need for progressives to become more
organized as they reclaim the discussion of American public policy.
Martin would often say that the civil rights movement didn’t happen sooner because of the silence of good people.
Regrettably, as we end 2003, this silence has once again enveloped
us. With it, we are all complicit in the implementation of a
misdirected national agenda. This silence says, Yes, it is okay that we
spend
billions to rebuild Iraqi prisons while we close firehouses in
Brooklyn. It says, Yes,we should suspend civil liberties in the name of
homeland security. And,Yes, to tax cuts skewed towards the rich so they
can get richer while the poor get poorer.
As we end 2003, this silence of complicity is unacceptably deafening.
Worst of all, this silence is greater on our side of the spectrum.
Indeed, the voice of conservatives has never been better honed and
organized. They have aggressively pursued their vision of how
the
world should be—a place where the institutions that belong to the
public are starved until government itself becomes irrelevant. One look
at the policies of President Bush’s administration
and you can see
that they are winning—on everything from tax cuts to a hawkish foreign
policy of striking first and exercising diplomacy later. They are
winning.
Why? The budget of the Heritage Foundation is $30 million a year,
the American Enterprise Foundation and the Cato Institute each work
from $15 million. The top 20 conservative think tanks in
America
spent $1 billion to influence public opinion and thought in the
1990’s.They win, while the people pay the dividends of their
ideological investments.
Read 2003 Annual Report in its entirety Testimonials 'The work of the Drum Major Institute needs to become a more urgent priority for our nation.'—President William Jefferson Clinton 'DMI really is what we need in this country--a think tank dedicated to creativity when it comes to progressive politics.' —New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer