Capitalist Pigs

May 5, 2009

The term “money laundering” suggests that the more often dirty money changes hands, the cleaner it gets but globalization just moves the dirt around.

100-Day Dash

Apr 28, 2009

After 100 days, the glass is now definitely more than half full. But we’re still a long way off from a fundamentally new relationship between America and the world.

Book Event: Mandate for Change

Mar 12, 2009

Three decades ago, The Heritage Foundation produced a primer on the Reagan Revolution entitled Mandate for Leadership, which offered an overarching philosophy against government and in favor of unregulated markets. Now, with President Barack Obama in office, we face a promising moment in history to present a different ideological perspective for our nation’s future.

Join Demos, The Nation, and the Institute for Policy Studies for a forum featuring prominent experts and scholars in the progressive community. The speakers will draw on essays from a new book, Mandate for Change: Policies and Leadership for 2009 and Beyond, a collaboration of over 70 authors and activists that offers a set of specific policy proposals for the new national administration on critical domestic and international issues. The ideas, policies, and resources presented in this volume set forth a fundamental, badly needed “mandate for change” to reinvigorate government and rethink the role of markets and civil society.

Speakers:

Chester Hartman is Director of Research at the Poverty & Race Research Action Council in Washington, DC and the founder and former Chair of the Planners Network, a national organization of progressive urban and rural planners and community organizers. Throughout his career as an urban planner and scholar, he has served on many boards, including the editorial boards of the Journal of Urban Affairs, Housing Policy Debate, Urban Affairs Quarterly, Housing Studies, and The Journal of Negro Education. He is also a former Board Member of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and was the founder and former President of PRRAC, as well as a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam.

Katrina vanden Heuvel has been editor of The Nation since 1995 and publisher since 2005. She is the co-editor of Taking Back America–And Taking Down The Radical Right and most recently, editor of The Dictionary of Republicanisms. She has received awards for public service from numerous groups, including The Liberty Hill Foundation, The Correctional Association, The Association for American-Russian Women, and the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Callaway Prize for the Defense of the Right of Privacy. She is also the recipient of The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s 2003 "Voices of Peace" Award. Vanden Heuvel is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the board of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the Institute for Policy Studies, the World Policy Institute, the Correctional Association of New York, and the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute.

Miles Rapoport is the President of Demos, where he sets the agenda and oversees the management of the organization and its fundraising efforts. Prior to assuming the helm at Demos, he served for ten years in the Connecticut legislature, where he was a leading expert on electoral reform and served as Chair of the Committee on Elections. In 1994, he was elected as Secretary of the State of Connecticut, during which time he released two unique reports on the state of democracy in Connecticut. His articles have appeared in national magazines and newspapers, and he is the founder of Northeast Action, a leading political reform organization in New England. Rapoport came to Demos from a position as Executive Director of DemocracyWorks, a Hartford-based group that works on democracy reform.

To register for this event, contact Jinny Khanduja at 212-389-1399 or jkhanduja@demos.org or click here.

Green Paper Gold

Dec 9, 2008

Here’s an innovative way to tackle the economic crisis and global warming in one sweeping proposal.

Drawing the Future From the Past

Dec 6, 2008

Since the end to the U.S. wars in Southeast Asia, many other wars have been waged, in other parts of the world, in new terrain, villages, and communities. Yet, the wars in Southeast Asia lingers.

IPS Mandate for Change Election Series: The Election and Climate Action

Nov 11, 2008

U.S. action on energy and climate change has been a hot topic in this election season. Join us for an in-depth analysis of how the results of the 2008 presidential election will impact national climate and energy policy, and the implications for international climate action.

Panelists: 

Janet Redman, Researcher, Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, IPS
Brent Blackwelder, President, Friends of the Earth US
James Barrett, Executive Director, Redefining Progress
Arjun Makhijani, President, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

Moderator: Daphne Wysham, Fellow, IPS

This event is part of the Institute for Policy Studies series of provocative brown-bag luncheon discussions of the various issues in the platforms of the Democratic, Republican, Green, and Independent presidential candidates. IPS and Chester Hartman have a new book coming out at the culmination of this brown-bag series, Mandate for Change, which will put forth what we feel are the best and most creative policy solutions for these and other pressing local, national and international issues.

About the Panelists:
Janet Redman is a researcher for the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy Studies, where she provides analysis of the international financial institutions’ energy investment and carbon finance activities. Redman has been active in establishing Climate Justice Now!, a global network of organizations and movements committed to the fight for social, ecological, and gender justice.

Brent Blackwelder, President of Friends of the Earth U.S., is one of the nation’s leading environmental advocates. An architect of significant legislation to protect natural resources and clean up pollution, Blackwelder has presented more than 100 testimonies before Congress on environmental matters and is currently the most senior environmental lobbyist in Washington.

James Barrett is the Executive Director of Redefining Progress, a public policy think tank dedicated to smart economics. Barrett has worked on a variety of issues concerning energy and environmental economics, including the impacts of carbon reduction programs on the U.S. economy, the economic implications of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, and the technical and economic feasibility of hydrogen production.

Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, has produced many studies and articles on nuclear fuel cycle related issues, including weapons production, testing, and nuclear waste, over the past 20 years. Most recently, Dr. Makhijani has authored "Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy," the first thorough attempt to show how the U.S. could transition to an energy economy based completely on renewable energy by 2050, without any use of fossil fuels, nuclear power, or carbon offsets.

Moderator Daphne Wysham is a fellow and board member of the Institute for Policy Studies, founder and director of the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, and co-host of Earthbeat Radio. Her research and writings have appeared in local, national and international media.

This event is free and open to the public.

For more information, please contact Janet Redman at janet@ips-dc.org or (202) 234-9382.

The Crisis and the Environment

Oct 17, 2008

Less travel, but also less investment in alternative energy: Columnist Michael Klare asks whether the crisis is a net plus or minus for the environment.