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About
Empower
America, founded in 1993, is one of a string of advocacy organizations
headed by Reagan education secretary and national moral compass
William Bennett. Bennett also oversees and co-founded Empower.org,
the "research-arm" of Empower America, and Americans for
Victory over Terrorism. Other founding members of Empower are
Jeane Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp, and Vin Weber.
According
to its mission statement, Empower America is "devoted to ensuring
that government actions foster growth, economic well-being, freedom
and individual responsibility. The ideas that have fueled America's
stunning economic expansion - opportunity, competition, ownership
and freedom - must be the framework for reform of century-old public
systems such as K-12 education, the tax code and social security.
Uniquely positioned in Washington, Empower America bridges the gap
between the array of think tanks that produce white papers on the
public-policy debate and the actual enactment of policy. In implementing
our free-market, entrepreneurial principles into law, we are convinced,
through actual experience, that we are the most effective 'delivery'
system in existence."
Regarding national
security issues, "Empower America remains committed to a strong
and proactive -- but distinctively American -- foreign policy, one
that rejects both short-sighted isolationism and imprudent multilateralism.
We believe that the federal government is primarily responsible
for guaranteeing the safety of its citizens. Therefore, our goals
are twofold: to insure that the U.S. military is prepared for any
challenge it may face, and to rapidly deploy an effective missile
defense to protect American citizens and allies."
According to
Mediatransparency's James D'Entremont, "While Empower America
bills itself as a 'nonpartisan, nonprofit organization,' its board
of directors is a blue-ribbon panel of right-wing pro-corporate
Republicans, and the organization itself is a kind of stepchild
of the Heritage Foundation. Amazingly for a nonprofit entity, Empower
America proudly declares political candidates to be among its 'products.'
Its popular training sessions for reactionary candidates have enhanced
the success of the pro-business theocratic right in recent years."
Empower.org
publishes a yearly survey entitled "The Index of Leading Cultural
Indicators," which is billed as a "compilation of facts
and figures about the state of American society."
Bennett's
introduction to the 2001 index triumphantly begins, "By many
measures, the state of our union is extraordinarily strong. We live
in a time of peace and unprecedented prosperity. Citizens of America
live longer, and more comfortably, than any other citizens in history.
The average American today enjoys luxuries undreamed of by the richest
and most powerful of kings in the last century. In terms of military
and foreign affairs, we bestride the world like Colossus. Our military
dominance is arguably as great as any other nation's in history.
No nation is perfect, but to a degree unlike any other nation, we
have used our power to advance the causes of liberty, human rights,
and democracy worldwide." (5)
Funding
Funders
include the Sarah Scaife, JM, and Olin foundations. The Index of
Leading Cultural Indicators is funded by the Bradley and Olin foundations.
(2)
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Right
Web connections
William
J. Bennett, cofounder
Steve
Forbes, former chairman
Jack
Kemp, cofounder
Jeane
J. Kirkpatrick, cofounder
Michael Novak,
codirector
Donald
Rumsfeld, former board member
Vin
Weber, cofounder
Theodore
Forstmann, founding chairman
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