Institute for Policy Studies

Institute for Policy Studies
The IPS is a highly influential, but little known source of ideas, guidance and training for the U.S. and international left.
Notable Affiliated Organizations:
Africa Action • Center for Corporate Policy • Code Pink • Demos • Jobs with Justice • Liberty Tree Foundation • Ploughshares Fund • TransAfrica Forum • TransNational Institute • United for a Fair Economy • United for Peace and Justice • Washington Office on Latin America
Notable Affiliated People:
Frances Fox Piven • Abner Mikva • Clarence Lusane • Barbara Ehrenreich • Bill Fletcher, Jr. • Derek Shearer • James Abourezk • Jodie Evans • Leon Panetta • Noam Chomsky • Michael Parenti • Robert Borosage • James Early • Tom Hayden

Institute for Policy Studies
The IPS is a highly influential, but little known source of ideas, guidance and training for the U.S. and international left.
Notable Affiliated Organizations:
Africa Action • Center for Corporate Policy • Code Pink • Demos • Jobs with Justice • Liberty Tree Foundation • Ploughshares Fund • TransAfrica Forum • TransNational Institute • United for a Fair Economy • United for Peace and Justice • Washington Office on Latin America
Notable Affiliated People:
Frances Fox Piven • Abner Mikva • Clarence Lusane • Barbara Ehrenreich • Bill Fletcher, Jr. • Derek Shearer • James Abourezk • Jodie Evans • Leon Panetta • Noam Chomsky • Michael Parenti • Robert Borosage • James Early • Tom Hayden

Institute for Policy Studies
The IPS is a highly influential, but little known source of ideas, guidance and training for the U.S. and international left.
Notable Affiliated Organizations:
Africa Action • Center for Corporate Policy • Code Pink • Demos • Jobs with Justice • Liberty Tree Foundation • Ploughshares Fund • TransAfrica Forum • TransNational Institute • United for a Fair Economy • United for Peace and Justice • Washington Office on Latin America
Notable Affiliated People:
Frances Fox Piven • Abner Mikva • Clarence Lusane • Barbara Ehrenreich • Bill Fletcher, Jr. • Derek Shearer • James Abourezk • Jodie Evans • Leon Panetta • Noam Chomsky • Michael Parenti • Robert Borosage • James Early • Tom Hayden

From KeyWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Overview
Personnel
Partner Organizations
Programs
Foreign Connections
Influence on Government Policy
Letelier-Moffitt Award

The Institute for Policy Studies was founded in 1963 in Washington DC and is a highly influential, but little known source of ideas, guidance and training for the U.S. and international left. It began as a revolutionary think-tank that consistently supported policies that facilitated the foreign policy goals of the Soviet Union and weakened the position of the United States.^[1]

About

The Institute for Policy Studies is the largest and most influential of the far left think tanks in Washington. Since its founding in 1964 it has steadily followed a pro-Marxist line on foreign policy, defense and the economy and has spawned a large number of spin-offs, other think tanks and public affairs organizations following the same radical agenda.^[2]

To put its policy recommendations into action, IPS built networks of contacts among Congressional legislators and their staffs, academics, government officials, and the national media.

In 1978, in an article in National Review, Brian Crozier, director of the London-based Institute for the Study of Conflict, described IPS as the "perfect intellectual front for Soviet activities which would be resisted if they were to originate openly from the KGB."^[1]

Soviet Sympathy, Disarmament and Pacifism

IPS has been particularly concerned with researching U.S. defense industries and arms sales policies to Free World countries under pressure from Soviet-supported terrorist movements. The director of IPS arms sales research, Michael Klare, is a veteran of the North American Congress on Latin America, a Castroite research group that has aided CIA defector Philip Agee, and who worked with the Center for National Security Studies, an IPS off-shoot affiliated with the Fund for Peace. Klare has made frequent trips to Havana to "lecture" on U.S. arms policies to "graduate students" at the University of Havana, and has participated in disarmament conferences sponsored by World Peace Council groups.

As at March, 1982, IPS's Arms Race and Nuclear Weapons Project was directed by Bill Arkin, who had been compiling a book of (United States) nuclear weapons data with "everything from where the bombs are stored to where weapons delivery systems are cooked up." The book was to be kept up-to-date with revisions bi-annually.

IPS played a seminal role in the formation and development of the Nuclear Research and Information Service, the World Information Service on Energy, and European Nuclear Disarmament.

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."^[1]

Founders

IPS founders were Kennedy era White House staffer Marcus Raskin and State Department lawyer, the late Richard Barnet.

From the IPS website history page:^[3]

It all began at a high-powered State Department meeting full of generals and defense industry executives in 1961, at the height of the Cold War. When one official declared "If this group cannot bring about disarmament, then no one can," two young men in the audience couldn’t help but snicker. The culprits, White House staffer Marcus Raskin and State Department lawyer Richard Barnet, looked across the room and decided to get to know each other.

Within two years, Raskin and Barnet had left the Kennedy Administration and founded the Institute for Policy Studies, where they could more freely "speak truth to power.” Over more than four decades, IPS public scholars have used their independence — from government, from corporate money, and from the silos of academia — to combine fresh, bold ideas with effective action. They have provided critical support for the major social movements of our time by producing seminal books, films, and articles; educating key policymakers and the general public; and crafting practical strategies in support of peace, justice, and the environment.

“IPS pioneered the modern politics of ideas in the capital. And even as conservatives were clubbing IPS, they attempted to imitate its form. The Heritage Foundation, for example, was modeled directly on IPS.” -Washington Post, 1986.

Marcus Raskin and another founder Arthur Waskow, had previously worked for Democratic Congressman Robert Kastenmeier of Wisconsin. In 1961 they co-authored a report for him that recommended unilateral disarmament for the U.S.^[4]

Founding Principles

From the IPS website history page:^[3]

No government funding: Since it is difficult to "speak truth to power" if one takes funds from that "power," IPS does not accept any government money.

Public scholarship: IPS turns "ideas into action" through staff who combine inter-disciplinary research and writing skills with activist experience, based on the belief that dynamic social movements drive most social change.

Building alternatives: At least half of the Institute's work focuses on positive alternatives to current policies and institutions. Some of this work is transformational and visionary, laying out alternative systems and institutions. Some offers steps toward those larger transformations.

Social inventions: IPS has created many projects that then spin off into independent organizations, such as the Government Accountability Project and the Institute for Southern Studies, or become government initiatives, such as the National Teacher Corps in the 1960s and 1970s.

The power of convening: With progressive movements often weakened by their fragmentation, IPS convenes unlikely allies to meet new challenges for peace, justice, and the environment.

Projects

Cities for Progress

The IPS project, Cities for Progress, is based in in Washington, D.C. It is a network of locally-elected officials and community-based activists taking on other issues including Universal Healthcare and opposing Wal-Mart expansion.^[5]

Marxist Connection

On Monday, October 12, 2009, David Schwartzman gave a presentation at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC on the science and politics of catastrophic climate change. The event was sponsored by the Metro DC chapter of the Marxist Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and the DC Metro Science for the People.

Renee Carter chaired the meeting which was attended by over 20 mostly activists and representatives of environmental and progressive organizations. After David’s in-depth, but clear explanation of the complex science of both climate change and how the catastrophic results can be prevented, Ted Glick of CCAN spoke about the latest environmental legislation and the organizing of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a major environmental group in the Washington area.

Walter Teague discussed the political and strategic issues of prevention of C3 and Renee Carter described the political work and approach of CCDS. Valuable contacts both new and renewed were made and the impassioned discussion continued for over two hours.

Presented as an IPS/SALSA CLASS, David Schwartzman’s address on the threat of catastrophic climate change ("C3") that now confronts all humanity, explored the questions: “What are the biggest obstacles to prevention? Why this challenge is also an unprecedented opportunity to end the global rule of capital. Why is it critical to take seriously the sciences of climatology and thermodynamics for C3 prevention and to construct the other world that is possible? And why 21st Century Socialism will either be Ecosocialism or simply will remain the narrow vision of political sects?” ^[6]

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 The War Called Peace: Glossary, published 1982
↑ Communists in the democratic party, page 68
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 IPS history
↑ Communists in the Democratic party, page 70
↑ About
↑ http://www.cc-ds.org/discussion/metroDC_presents_Eco-socialism.html

Institute for Policy Studies

The IPS is a highly influential, but little known source of ideas, guidance and training for the U.S. and international left.

Founded	1963, Washington, D.C.
Founded by	Marcus Raskin, Richard Barnet
Head Office	Washington, D.C.
Politics	Far left
Website	IPS website

Notable Affiliated Organizations:

Africa Action • Center for Corporate Policy • Code Pink • Demos • Jobs with Justice • Liberty Tree Foundation • Ploughshares Fund • TransAfrica Forum • TransNational Institute • United for a Fair Economy • United for Peace and Justice • Washington Office on Latin America

Notable Affiliated People:

Frances Fox Piven • Abner Mikva • Clarence Lusane • Barbara Ehrenreich • Bill Fletcher, Jr. • Derek Shearer • James Abourezk • Jodie Evans • Leon Panetta • Noam Chomsky • Michael Parenti • Robert Borosage • James Early • Tom Hayden

Programs coordinated by the Institute for Policy Studies.

Local, National, Global influence

From the IPS website history page:^[1]

From the start, IPS has operated simultaneously at the local, national and global levels.

Local: Since 1980, IPS has run an evening school for activists in Washington, DC. From the start, IPS has also worked with local officials and has brought groups of such officials to Washington to amplify their message.

National: Much of IPS's policy work is aimed at the national level, and IPS has always worked closely with, and provided analysis and model pieces of legislation to, progressive members of Congress. Currently, IPS advises the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which, with more than 70 members, is the largest non-party Caucus.

Global: IPS founded the Transnational Institute (TNI) in 1973 to bring together public scholars from around the world to tackle the growing divide between rich and poor nations and peoples around the world. Since then, IPS has been involved in international networks of researchers and activists to oppose corporate-led globalization (and U.S. intervention) and to propose citizen-based alternatives. Under the Bush Administration, IPS has helped catalyze the global peace movement, which theNew York Timesreferred to as the "second superpower."

Building on Letelier’s work on a New International Economic Order, IPS has been a leader of economic justice movements around the world. Richard Barnet’s 1974 examination of the power of multinational corporations, Global Reach, is still required reading in many college courses, as is his follow-up book with IPS director John Cavanagh, Global Dreams (published in 1994). Cavanagh was a leader of the movement to cancel developing country debts in the 1980s, as well as the Alliance for Responsible Trade and the International Forum on Globalization in the 1990s. Through these and other networks, IPS has promoted just, sustainable trade and investment policies. Under the Bush administration, these networks have helped win important advances in debt cancellation and in scuttling plans for a hemispheric trade pact.

In 2007, IPS developed a detailed "Just Security" agenda that proposes non-military solutions to the core challenges of climate chaos, global poverty, nuclear weapons, terrorism, and regional wars.

Anti-militarism

IPS has been a leading organizer and inspirer of opposition to U.S. military action from Vietnam to Afghanistan-earning the organization the attention of the authorities.

From the IPS website history page:^[1]

As soon as IPS opened its doors in 1963, it plunged into the anti-Vietnam War movement. In 1965, Raskin and Associate Fellow Bernard Fall edited The Vietnam Reader, which became a textbook for teach-ins across the country. In 1967, Raskin and IPS Fellow Arthur Waskow penned "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority," a document signed by dozens of well-known scholars and religious leaders that helped launch the draft resistance movement. IPS also organized Congressional seminars and published numerous books that challenged the national security state, including Gar Alperovitz’s Atomic Diplomacy and Barnet’s Intervention and Revolution. The FBI responded by infiltrating IPS with more than 70 informants, wiretapping its phones, and searching through its garbage. The Nixon Administration placed Barnet and Raskin on its "enemies list."

Gulf War

From the IPS website history page:^[1]

In 1991, during the first U.S. military foray in Iraq, IPS produced the pamphlet Crisis in the Gulf, which was widely used by the peace movement. Fellow Gail Christian produced a weekly IPS radio program on the war that was broadcast by three dozen public radio stations across the country.

Central America

From the IPS website history page:^[1]

In the 1980s, IPS became heavily involved in supporting the movement against U.S. intervention in Central America. IPS Director Robert Borosage and other staff helped draft Changing Course: Blueprint for Peace in Central America and the Caribbean, which was used by hundreds of schools, labor unions, churches, and citizen organizations as a challenge to U.S. policy in the region. In 1983, PBS aired Saul Landau’s exposé of the CIA’s dirty war, "Target Nicaragua," and in 1985, several members of Congress joined an IPS press conference to release the report In Contempt of Congress: The Reagan Record of Deceit and Illegality on Central America, which documented 77 examples of false or misleading statements and violations of law by U.S. officials.

United for Peace and Justice

IPS was responsible for founding the nationwide umbrella group of "peace" organizations, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ). It continues to influence the organization by ensuring the UFPJ steering committee always contains at least one amnd sometimes several, IPS activists.

From the IPS website history page:^[1]

In 2003, IPS convened the meeting that led to the formation of the country’s largest coalition against the Iraq War, United for Peace and Justice. IPS serves on the coalition steering committee and produces talking points, fact sheets, and policy documents for Congress and the peace movement on the costs of the war and how to end it justly.

Influence in the Civil Rights Movement

From the IPS website history page:^[1]

In 1964, several leading African-American activists joined the staff and turned IPS into a base of support for the civil rights movement in the nation’s capital. Fellow Bob Moses organized trainings for field organizers of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Council on the links between civil rights theory and practice, while Ivanhoe Donaldson initiated an assembly of African-American government officials.

Women's liberation movement

From the IPS website history page:^[1]

In these early years, IPS was also at the forefront of the feminist movement. Fellow Charlotte Bunch organized a historic women’s liberation conference in 1966 and later launched two feminist periodicals, Quest and Off Our Backs. Rita Mae Brown wrote and published her path-breaking lesbian coming-of-age novel Rubyfruit Jungle while on the staff in the 1970s.In the early 1980s, Barbara Ehrenreich, now renowned for Nickel and Dimed and other best-sellers, led the Institute’s Women in the Economy Project. Isabel Letelier brought three dozen Third World women to the United States for educational tours across the country.

Anti-Apartheid movent

From the IPS website history page:^[1]

IPS was also on the cutting edge of the anti-apartheid movement. In 1977, it began a South Africa project that produced a series of studies and books on the subject. In 1985, Fellow Roger Wilkins helped found the Free South Africa Movement, which organized a year-long series of demonstrations that led to the imposition of U.S. sanctions.

Economic inequality

From the IPS website history page:^[1]

On the domestic front, IPS began tackling the problem of economic injustice in the late 1960s. For example, through the Appalachia Project, IPS worked with mine workers on occupational safety and health and regional economic development. In 1975, IPS initiated the Conference on Alternative State and Local Public Policies, which brought together progressive legislators to develop more equitable legislation. This work is carried on today through IPS’s Cities for Progress project, which connects local officials pursuing innovative approaches. One such measure is a Chicago bill that would set a floor for big box retail wages.

Since 1994, IPS has also published an annual report on the disparity between CEO and worker pay that has garnered widespread coverage in the mainstream media and helped put the issue of economic inequality at the center of the political debateEnvironment

Drug policy

IPS has always made drug liberalization a priority:^[1]

In the early 1990s, IPS began monitoring the environmental impacts of U.S. trade, investment, and drug policies. The Institute’s Sustainable Energy and Economy Network was the first to calculate the World Bank’s massive contributions to climate change through its support of oil, mining, and gas projects. Meanwhile the Global Economy Project has helped raise awareness of the environmental impacts of "free trade" through the popular book Field Guide to the Global Economy and other publications. The Drug Policy Project has helped bring activists and policymakers to Latin America to expose the environmental and human costs of the misguided "war on drugs."

Environment, climate change

IPS has played a major role in the environmental and "climate change" movements:^[1]

IPS became involved in environmental issues through the anti-nuclear movement, a natural extension of its long history of work on the “national security state.” In 1979, IPS Fellow Saul Landau won an Emmy for his documentary "Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang,” which tells the story of the cover-up by the U.S. nuclear program and of the hazards of radiation to American citizens. In 1985, Fellow William Arkin published Nuclear Battlefields: Global Links in the Arms Race, which helped galvanize anti-nuclear activism through its revelations of the impact of nuclear infrastructure on communities across America.

IPS also began to grapple with environmental problems through its work on corporate-driven globalization. In the mid-1970s, Jim Ridgeway, now a renowned investigative reporter, published The Elements, a monthly IPS newsletter on ownership and control of the world’s natural resources. Through her path-breaking work on debt and hunger, TNI Fellow Susan George exposed the environmental devastation resulting from and contributing to extreme poverty.

In recent years, the urgency of the climate crisis has led to an increased IPS focus on preventing environmental collapse. IPS is partnering with the International Forum on Globalization to critique false solutions to global warming and to promote transformational policies that emphasize sustainability, equity, and protecting the “commons.”

References

↑ ^1.00 ^1.01 ^1.02 ^1.03 ^1.04 ^1.05 ^1.06 ^1.07 ^1.08 ^1.09 ^1.10 IPS history

Institute for Policy Studies

The IPS is a highly influential, but little known source of ideas, guidance and training for the U.S. and international left.

Founded	1963, Washington, D.C.
Founded by	Marcus Raskin, Richard Barnet
Head Office	Washington, D.C.
Politics	Far left
Website	IPS website

Notable Affiliated Organizations:

Africa Action • Center for Corporate Policy • Code Pink • Demos • Jobs with Justice • Liberty Tree Foundation • Ploughshares Fund • TransAfrica Forum • TransNational Institute • United for a Fair Economy • United for Peace and Justice • Washington Office on Latin America

Notable Affiliated People:

Frances Fox Piven • Abner Mikva • Clarence Lusane • Barbara Ehrenreich • Bill Fletcher, Jr. • Derek Shearer • James Abourezk • Jodie Evans • Leon Panetta • Noam Chomsky • Michael Parenti • Robert Borosage • James Early • Tom Hayden

Foreign Connections with the Institute for Policy Studies.

Several foreign aligned radicals communists have been officials or staffers of the IPS, including;

Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean Foreign Minister under the pro-communist Allende government.

Letelier fled to the U.S. after Allende was overthrown. He joined IPS and became head of its European subsidiary, the Transnational Institute.

Letelier became active in a propaganda campaign against the Chilean government and American antiCommunist policy in general. In 1976 he was killed in his auto by a bomb. The FBI recovered his briefcase intact. Its contents included correspondence and records showing that he had been receiving financial support from the Soviet propaganda apparatus working through East Germany and Cuba.

Isabel Letelier, Orlando's widow, was also an IPS Fellow.

Tariq Ali, also active with , Transnational Institute the IPS subsidiary.

Ali was the editor of a Communist newspaper in England, "The Red Mole," and a member of the 4th International Trotskyite grouping, in Europe.

Susan Weber, at one time editor of an IPS environmental journal, "The Elements." Before joining IPS Weber worked for the Soviet Embassy as editor of their magazine, "Soviet Life," and was registered with the Justice Department as an employee of a "foreign power."

Roberta Salper, IPS fellow, a member of the Central Committee of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, a Marxist-Leninist organization.^[1]

Letelier-Moffitt murders

From the IPS website history page:^[2]

In 1976, the Institute’s destiny became irrevocably linked with the international human rights movement when agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet murdered two IPS colleagues on Washington’s Embassy Row. The target of the car bomb attack was Orlando Letelier, one of Pinochet’s most outspoken critics and the head of IPS's sister organization, the Transnational Institute (TNI). Ronni Karpen Moffitt, a 25-year-old IPS development associate, was also killed.

For more than three decades, IPS’s annual Letelier-Moffitt awards program has recognized new human rights heroes. IPS has also worked with lawyers, Congressional allies, researchers, and activists and through the media to achieve measures of justice: the convictions of two generals and several assassins responsible for the Letelier-Moffitt murders, the declassification of U.S. documents on Chile, Pinochet’s 1998 arrest in connection with a Spanish case brought by former IPS Visiting Fellow Joan Garces, and the indictment of Pinochet by Chilean Judge Juan Guzman, a Letelier-Moffitt human rights awardee.

References

↑ Communists in the Democratic party
↑ IPS history

Institute for Policy Studies

The IPS is a highly influential, but little known source of ideas, guidance and training for the U.S. and international left.

Founded	1963, Washington, D.C.
Founded by	Marcus Raskin, Richard Barnet
Head Office	Washington, D.C.
Politics	Far left
Website	IPS website

Notable Affiliated Organizations:

Africa Action • Center for Corporate Policy • Code Pink • Demos • Jobs with Justice • Liberty Tree Foundation • Ploughshares Fund • TransAfrica Forum • TransNational Institute • United for a Fair Economy • United for Peace and Justice • Washington Office on Latin America

Notable Affiliated People:

Frances Fox Piven • Abner Mikva • Clarence Lusane • Barbara Ehrenreich • Bill Fletcher, Jr. • Derek Shearer • James Abourezk • Jodie Evans • Leon Panetta • Noam Chomsky • Michael Parenti • Robert Borosage • James Early • Tom Hayden

The Institute for Policy Studies' Influence on Government Policy.

"Alternative Budgets"

In 1975 a group of 47 members of Congress, led by John Conyers, asked the IPS to prepare an "alternative budget" to that proposed by President Ford. This request was repeated in 1976 and 1978, by 56 legislators.

The 1978 document called for "a socialist housing program...radical social change in the educational system...a 50% cut in the Defense budget". . .and "disengagement" from America's overseas commitments.

In 1983 sixty Congressmen went back to the IPS with a request for another "alternative" budget.^[1]

The Washington School

The Washington School, founded by IPS in 1978, was an important means of influencing Congress and the Democratic Party. Courses on defense, foreign affairs, and domestic policies are taught there by IPS officers and staffers, and other American or foreign radical "experts." A large number of members of Congress and staffers have attended these schools. Several legislators have also taught there, including the following:

1984 elections

During the 1984 Democratic primaries, Marcus Raskin and Richard Barnet advised George McGovern and Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), and IPS fellow Saul Landau, an Emmy-winning filmmaker, shot some of McGovern's spots.

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.^[3]

Congressional Progressive Caucus/Progressive Challenge

CPC co chair Lynn Woolsey, IPS director John Cavanagh, CPC co-founder, long time IPS supporter and House Judiciary committee chair John Conyers, CPC co chair Barbara Lee

IPS has significant influence inside the U.S. legislature through the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

From the IPS website history page:^[4]

Currently, IPS advises the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which, with more than 70 members, is the largest non-party Caucus.

In the late 1990s IPS established Progressive Challenge to utilize leftist groups including Democratic Socialists of America, Americans for Democratic Action, United Electrical Workers, NETWORK, National Jobs for All Coalition etc to pressure^[5]the Progressive Caucus in the "correct" direction.

Democratic Socialists of America member Bob Roman, writes of a 1998 Chicago Progressive Challenge meeting attended by Congressmen Jesse Jackson Jr, Luis Gutierrez and Danny Davis;

On the evening of Monday, April 21, the Progressive Challenge came to Chicago. Starting off with a town hall style meeting that brought together about 150 people in the UNITE hall at 333 S. Ashland in Chicago, the meeting was structured to present testimony from representative of various local organizations to local Congressional members of the Progressive Caucus.

DSA was particularly well represented by the testimony of the Youth Section's International Secretary, Daraka Larimore-Hall. Daraka Larimore-Hall gave an impassioned, coherent presentation that linked the various aspects of DSA's agenda with the project at hand.

Congressmen Jesse Jackson, Jr., Luis Gutierrez and Danny Davis attended the meeting...

The Progressive Challenge is an effort to link the Congressional Progressive Caucus with the larger left grass roots network of single issue, constituent, labor and ideological organizations. The Institute for Policy Studies is very much the keystone organization of this project, which has brought together some 40 organizations including DSA, Americans for Democratic Action, United Electrical Workers, NETWORK, National Jobs for All Coalition to name a few. No one of these groups is a major player inside the Beltway, but together they have captured the attention of the Progressive Caucus and contributed to its growth.

Local government influence

IPS has long worked to move municipal governments in a "progressive' direction. In 1975, IPS initiated the (National) Conference on Alternative State and Local Public Policies, which brought together "progressive" legislators to develop more "equitable" legislation. This work is carried on today through IPS’s Cities for Progress project, which connects local officials pursuing leftist policies. One example is a Chicago bill that would set a floor for big box retail wages.

In October 1979^[6], IPS's NCASLPP {National Conference for Alternative State and Local Public Policies}, directed by former Students for a Democratic Society leader Lee Webb was independently incorporated under Webb, then an IPS trustee, as CASLP, the Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies.

Another IPS municipal project is Cities for Peace.

From the IPS website history page;

IPS also founded Cities for Peace, which coordinated hundreds of city council resolutions against the war and is now organizing resolutions to bring the troops home and against war in Iran.

Obama administration

IPS Ideas for Obama administration, December 16 2008

The institute for Policy Studies sees the Obama administration as a "window of opportunity" to push for "progressive" change.

IPS plans to utilize its "deep ties with the Congressional Progressive Caucus" and the wider social movements to pressure the Obama administration.

In 2008 IPS enlisted 70 writers to produce a document "Mandate for Change-Policies and Leadership for 2009 and Beyond", which is designed to provide a policy blueprint for President Obama's administration.

References

↑ Communists in the Democratic party, page 71
↑ Communists in the Democratic party, page 73
↑ Left-Wing Thinkers Interview by Sidney Blumenthal Washington Post, 30 July 1986
↑ IPS history
↑ New Ground 58 May - June, 1998
↑ Information DigestVol XI #22 Nov 7 1980 p 386

External links

[warcalledpeace-0] 1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 The War Called Peace: Glossary, published 1982

[1] Communists in the democratic party, page 68

[history-2] 3.0 ^3.1 IPS history

[3] Communists in the Democratic party, page 70

[4] About

[5] ttp://www.cc-ds.org/discussion/metroDC_presents_Eco-socialism.html

[6] 70/7 IPS Income Tax return

[7] 71/72 IPS Income Tax return

[8] Trustees

[9] Staff

[10] Information Digest April l5, 1983 p77-79

[warcalledpeace-11] The War Called Peace: Glossary, published 1982

[12] About IPS, partners

[13] Africa Action website

[14] Alliance for Responsible Trade website

[15] Center for Corporate Policy website

[16] Code Pink: Women for Peace website

[17] Demos website

[18] District of Columbia Grassroots Empowerment Project website

[19] Global Justice website

[20] Global Rights website

[21] Hip Hop Caucus Institute website

[22] International Forum on Globalization website

[23] International Labor Rights Forum website

[24] Jamaica Plain Forum website

[25] Jobs with Justice website

[26] Jubilee USA website

[27] Liberty Tree Foundation website

[28] National Priorities Project website

[29] Other Worlds website

[30] Ploughshares Fund website

[31] Split This Rock website

[32] DC Poets Against The War website

[33] Tomales Bay Institute website

[34] Common Assets website

[35] TransAfrica Forum website

[36] TransNational Institute website

[37] United for a Fair Economy website

[38] United for Peace and Justice website

[39] U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation website

[40] U.S. Labor Against The War website

[41] Washington Office on Latin America website

[history-42] 1.00 ^1.01 ^1.02 ^1.03 ^1.04 ^1.05 ^1.06 ^1.07 ^1.08 ^1.09 ^1.10 IPS history

[43] Communists in the Democratic party

[history-44] IPS history

[45] Communists in the Democratic party, page 71

[46] Communists in the Democratic party, page 73

[47] Left-Wing Thinkers Interview by Sidney Blumenthal Washington Post, 30 July 1986

[history-48] IPS history

[49] New Ground 58 May - June, 1998

[50] Information DigestVol XI #22 Nov 7 1980 p 386

[award-51] 1.0 ^1.1 IPS website: Letelier-Moffitt Award

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[1]

[1]

[2]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[1]

Institute for Policy Studies

From KeyWiki

About

Soviet Sympathy, Disarmament and Pacifism

Soviet visit

Founders

Founding Principles

Projects

Cities for Progress

Marxist Connection

References

Trustees

1970 trustees

1971 trustees

2009 trustees

Staff

IPS "Who's who"-20th anniversary

References

References

Local, National, Global influence

Anti-militarism

Gulf War

Central America

United for Peace and Justice

Influence in the Civil Rights Movement

Women's liberation movement

Anti-Apartheid movent

Economic inequality

Drug policy

Environment, climate change

References

Letelier-Moffitt murders

References

"Alternative Budgets"

The Washington School

1984 elections

Congressional Progressive Caucus/Progressive Challenge

Local government influence

Obama administration

References

Background

Recipients

References

External links

Views

Personal tools

Search

Navigation

Toolbox