Robert Borosage
From KeyWiki
Robert L. Borosage is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Policy Studies.[1] He is also the President of the Institute for America's Future and the Secretary-Treasurer of Campaign for America's Future.[2][3]
He writes widely on political, economic, and national security issues for publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Nation and The American Prospect magazine.
He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including Fox Morning News, RadioNation, National Public Radio, C-SPAN and Pacifica Radio. He teaches on presidential power and national security as an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington School of Law.
Borosage is acting chair for the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation. Borosage is a a regular columnist on The Huffington Post. He writes regularly on economic and national security issues. Borosage is founder of the Campaign for New Priorities, a nonprofit organization calling for post-Cold War reinvestment in America. [4]
Education
Borosage is a graduate of Yale Law School and holds a master's degree in international relations from George Washington University.[5]
Progressive Majority Political Action Committee
Borosage also helped to found and chairs the Progressive Majority Political Action Committee, developing a national base of small donors and skilled activists. Progressive Majority recruits, staffs, and funds progressive candidates for political office.[6]
IPS connection
In 1979 Robert Borosage of Institute for Policy Studies served on the steering committee of the Institute for Policy Studies initiated Conference on Alternative State and Local Public Policies.[7]
Campaign for New Priorities
Borosage was the founder and Director of the Campaign for New Priorities, involving over 100 organizations in the call to reinvest in America in the post-Cold War era.
Soviet visit
On April 10, 1982, an IPS-sponsored group visiting Moscow for a week of meetings with high-level Soviet officials responsible for disseminating disinformation and propaganda for U.S. consumption, met with U.S. reporters to serve as the unofficial means for floating the possibility that Brezhnev might agree to a New York summit meeting in New York at SSD-II. The IPS group, led by its principal spokesman, Marcus Raskin, IPS cofounder and senior fellow, included Robert Borosage, IPS director, National Lawyers Guild activist and former director of the Center for National Security Studies; Minneapolis Mayor Donald M. Fraser; Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Episcopal Bishop of New York; New York lawyer Robert S. Potter; and Roger Wilkins, journalist and senior fellow of the Joint Center for Political Studies which specializes in "black issues."
The IPS group identified only two of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee officials they met - Georgi A. Arbatov, head of the Institute of the USA and Canada, a "think-tank" that provides research and analysis and also cultivates and develops contacts with Americans at the direction of the KGB and the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee; and Vadim V. Zagladin, first deputy chief of the International Department.
In various U.S. interviews, Borosage has floated such standard Soviet themes as the Soviet Union is satisfied by "rough parity" with the United States; that the United States is restarting the arms race; that the Soviets want to go back to SALT II and get U.S. ratification; that if the United States starts another round in the arms race, it will seriously hurt the Soviet economy and ordinary Soviet citizens-but they'll still go ahead, so competition is futile; and the threat that the modern U.S. weapons proposed for deployment are "very dangerous... and would lead to much more dangerous stages that would make both sides insecure, not more secure."
Borosage took pains to say that the Soviets are "skeptical" of the disarmament movement and "they hadn't expected it. It was much more powerful and widespread than they'd ever imagined."[8]
Jesse Jackson campaign
In 1984 Institute for Policy Studies director Robert Borosage was brought into Jesse Jackson's campaign by IPS fellow Roger Wilkins, a former assistant attorney general and a nephew of the late NAACP president Roy Wilkins.
To Jackson, he was a senior adviser. The relationship between "Jesse and IPS is built on me", says Wilkins. Jesse and I have known each other for a very long time, more than 20 years, since he was working for Martin Luther King Jr. and I was in the Department of Justice.
- As an older fellow I have not always approved of everything Jesse has done; nor have I always approved of his style. Having said that, my sense is that his run in 1984 was historic and constructive.[9]
Political campaigns
Robert Borosage has served as an issues advisor to progressive political campaigns, including those of Senators Carol Moseley Braun, Barbara Boxer and Paul Wellstone. In 1988, he was Senior Issues Advisor to the presidential campaign of Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Campaign for America's Future
In 1996 Robert Borosage, was one of the original 130 founders of Campaign for America's Future.[10]
He was also and founder and president of CAF sister organization[11] Institute for America's Future.
- The organizations were launched by 100 prominent Americans to challenge the rightward drift in U.S. politics, and to develop the policies, message and issue campaigns to help forge an enduring majority for progressive change in America.
Recently Borosage spearheaded[12] the Campaign’s 2006 issues book, StraightTalk 2006, providing activists and candidates with distilled messages on kitchen table concerns, from jobs to affordable health care.
The Next Agenda Conference
Progressive LA: The Next Agenda Conference was held On October 20, 2001 in Los Angeles at the California Science Center.
The Progressive Los Angeles Network (PLAN) and the Institute for America’s Future "will co-sponsor an important conference -- the Next Agenda Conference -- designed to celebrate recent victories, build upon Los Angeles’ progressive momentum, and link local issues with a national progressive agenda. The conference will also help solidify a more strategic and integrated progressive movement in Los Angeles".
Speakers included Robert Borosage, Institute for America’s Future[13]
Apollo Alliance
In 2004, Joel Rogers from the Center On Wisconsin Strategy, Robert Borosage from the Institute for America’s Future, and environmental visionary Dan Carol approached Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and SEIU President Andy Stern, among others, to propose a new alliance of labor, environmental groups, business and social justice leaders called the Apollo Alliance. The Alliance, which soon included over 200 supporting organizations, released a report that year arguing for a ten-year program of investment in a “clean energy, good jobs” economy.[14]
Apollo Alliance board
In 2008 Borosage served on the board of the Apollo Alliance.
Soros connection
On November 29, 2006 Open Society Institute held a roundtable discussion entitled "How Do Progressives Connect Ideas to Action?"
- Individuals and organizations with similarly progressive goals often dilute their power by working alone or even working at cross-purposes. As Americans who are politically left of center move forward, questions of infrastructure, communication, and collaboration are particularly important.
Participants included several key leaders of the "progressive" movement[15];
- Robert Borosage Campaign for America's Future.
- Eric Foner Columbia University, Department of History
- Joel Rogers University of Wisconsin Law School
- Andrea Batista Schlesinger Drum Major Institute for Public Policy
- Katrina vanden Heuvel The Nation editor.
Take Back America America - "progressive plan for victory"
On March 17, 2008, at the Take Back America conference in Washington D.C. Dianne Archer, Robert Borosage, Donna Edwards and Van Jones spoke in the Opening Plenary entitled "The Progressive Plan for Victory". [16]
Foreign Policy in Focus
Robert Borosage serves on the Advisory Committee of Foreign Policy in Focus - a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.[17]
The Nation
In 2009 Robert Borosage was listed as a Contributing editor of The Nation[18].
Wellstone Action
In 2009 Robert Borosage was listed as a member of the Advisory Board[19] of Wellstone Action, a Minnesota based organization based on the political legacy[20] of that state’s late ‘progressive” Senator Paul Wellstone.
- Wellstone Action and Wellstone Action Fund combine to form a national center for training and leadership development for the progressive movement. Founded in January 2003, Wellstone Action's mission is to honor the legacy of Paul and Sheila Wellstone by continuing their work through training, educating, mobilizing and organizing a vast network of progressive individuals and organizations.
America's Future Now!
Robert Borosage was one of the 148 speakers who addressed the 2010 America's Future Now Conference.[21]
RT broadcast
The Russia Today Moscow-funded propaganda channel, aired a special program on Tuesday February 22, 2012, on how progressives in the U.S. can “Take Back the American Dream” by defeating Republicans. The propaganda effort was broadcast throughout the United States and produced in collaboration with major liberal groups such as the Campaign for America's Future, MoveOn.org and Demos, all of them George Soros funded.
The host was Thom Hartmann, who regards himself as the nation’s “number one” progressive radio talk-show host.
The “National Teach-In to Take Back the American Dream” featured Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor; Heather McGhee of Demos; Leo Hindrey, a businessman and self-styled “Patriotic Millionaire;” Natalie Foster, the co-founder of Rebuild the Dream; and Robert Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future.
Nobody on the program, which also aired on DISH Network, DirectTV and the Free Speech TV Network, demonstrated any concern about appearing on a Moscow-funded channel to promote the “American dream.”[22]
Elizabeth Warren fundraiser
On March 21, 2012, Young Professionals Event fundraiser was held at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Boston, for Elizabeth Warren
Hosted by: Alisha Bhagat, Heather Booth, Paul Booth, Robert Borosage, Chris Bowers, Denise Bowyer, Laura Clawson, Carla Ohringer Engle, Robert Friedman, Rich Goldberg, Adam Green, Sarah Harrison, Sabrina Hersi Issa, Mike Lux, Kate Ottenberg, Jonathan Parnes, Ami Patel, Cecilia Poon, Joel Silberman, Stephanie Taylor, James Williams, Jenny Wu, Zaid A. Zaid
Contribution: $1,000 chair; $250 Sponsor (VIP reception included); $50 guest.[23]
Progessive bridge
Campaign for America's Future leader Robert Borosage boasts of close relationship with top Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Dick Durbin.
"I'd say we are the bridge," Borosage said. "We are attuned to the grassroots and in touch with the progressive leadership in Congress."[24]
References
- ↑ http://www.ips-dc.org/
- ↑ IAF Board
- ↑ Board
- ↑ Progressive majority BOD page, accessed July 1 2012
- ↑ Progressive majority BOD page, accessed July 1 2012
- ↑ http://www.politico.com/arena/bio/robert_l_borosage.html
- ↑ Information Digest August 24, 1979
- ↑ The War Called Peace: Glossary, published 1982
- ↑ Left-Wing Thinkers Interview by Sidney Blumenthal Washington Post, 30 July 1986
- ↑ http://www.undueinfluence.com/caf-co-founders.htm
- ↑ http://apolloalliance.org/about/board/
- ↑ http://www.politico.com/arena/bio/robert_l_borosage.html
- ↑ [Announce Oct. 20: Progressive LA Conference announce-admin at comm-org.utoledo.edu announce-admin at comm-org.utoledo.edu. Tue Oct 16 10:22:22 CDT 2001]
- ↑ Apollo Alliance website: Report entitled "High Road or Low Road? Job Quality in the New Green Economy", page 10
- ↑ http://www.soros.org/resources/events/progressives_20061129
- ↑ Campaign for America's Future website: Take Back America 2008 - Agenda (accessed on May 11, 2010)
- ↑ Foreign Policy in Focus website: Advisory Committee (accessed on April 28, 2010
- ↑ http://www.thenation.com/about/masthead.mhtml
- ↑ http://www.wellstone.org/about-us/board-directors
- ↑ http://www.wellstone.org/about-us/our-mission-goals
- ↑ Our Future website: Take Back America 2010 Speakers (accessed on July 12, 2010)
- ↑ Full Show 2/21/12: The "National Teach-in to Take Back the American Dream" Special, Submitted by Thom Hartmann A... on 22. February 2012 - 8:32
- ↑ OpenSecrets.org, Fundraising Events Senator Elizabeth Warren
- ↑ Meet the Left's Grover Norquist January 8, 2013
