Excerpt from Robert Borosage's remarks at America's Future Now! Conference
June 1, 2009

You are activists and leaders from over 40 states across the nation.  You come from the many tribes of the progressive community: union organizers and civil rights activists, feminists and environmentalists, boomers and millennials, and working together over these last years we have come a very long way.  You know when we first convened this annual gathering, Washington basically was occupied territory: Bush in the White House, conservatives controlling both houses of Congress, market fundamentalism worshipped across the aisle in both parties, Karl Rove--you remember him, the boy genius--he was forging the permanent conservative majority.

And we gathered in this city to plant the flag in the ground, to say this is where we stand, and we're not going to let you ruin this country without a fight.  It is time to take back America.

And so we organized.  In 2005 we beat Bush at the height of his power when he sought to privatize Social Security.  Imagine if he had succeeded.  We mobilized to end the war in Iraq.  We exposed an economy that was not working for working people. 

We built capacity, new organizations, new coalitions, new energy from the blogs, and in 2006 we helped give Democrats their voice on Iraq, and the Democrats took back the Congress.

In 2007 we laid out our agenda: end the war, comprehensive health care, new energy and good jobs, invest in workers, empower workers, invest in education.  We called on the candidates running for president to come before you and to show their stuff.  And a long shot, a stranger to many of you, a former community organizer named Barack Obama won your straw poll.

And in 2008, as the country reeled from the catastrophic consequences of conservative failure, we helped take back the White House, and we elected with the largest number of votes in history a gifted leader running on one of the most progressive agendas this country has seen since the 30s.

We have come a very long way, a very long way, but none of us should be fooled.  This is not the time to rest.  We have a long way to go.  For now, in fact, the real struggle begins as we go from Taking Back America to forging America's Future Now.

These next years could witness the greatest period of progressive reform since the 1960s.  The choices we make over the next years are likely to set the framework for our society, our economy, even our survival for decades to come...