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...