The Rule of Law in Mexico and Beyond 2/17

Posted on February 14, 2017 by in Past Events

Join Justice Perez Dayan and Justice Ortiz Mena from the Mexican Supreme Court in a fireside discussion about the role of this Court in the interpretation and enforcement of Mexico’s Carta Magna, and about possible future paths in this relation, drawing inferences from comparative instances.

This Fireside Chat will be moderated by friend of the FDR Foundation and Consul General of Mexico in Boston, Emilio Rabasa.

February 17 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Fireside in the FDR Suite (B-17)
Adams House, Harvard College (26 Plympton St.)
Limited to 10 participants. RSVP required.

How to Survive a Russian Hack

Posted on February 2, 2017 by in Hot Off the Wire

In response to Donald Trump’s executive order banning citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham issued a joint statement on Sunday arguing that the measure would “do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security.” In response, Trump took to Twitter. “The two Senators should focus their energies on ISIS, illegal immigration and border security instead of always looking to start World War III,” he tweeted.

This invocation of World War III, which he also made in Charlotte, North Carolina during the campaign (“You’re going to end up in World War III over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton”) bears a striking similarity to those aired by Russia’s state-owned media, as Anne Applebaum pointed out in October. Russian state media outlets favor headlines like “Are NATO’s Massive War Games on Russia’s Border a Pretext to World War III?” from Sputnik in May 2016, or “US Bombing Syrian Army Would Start World War III,” from the same site in October, and “Trump’s Victory Prevented World War 3” from November. Lately, Russian state media have suggested that Trump has been battling a coup to remove him from office since before inauguration. “Is the United States facing a coup d’état?” a British RT columnist wrote in December.

These headlines are characteristic of the disinformation campaigns the Kremlin uses to frighten and destabilize its eastern European neighbors. The precise nature of Russian state-backed interference in the last November’s U.S. presidential election and the contact, if any, between Russian officials and members of President Trump’s election campaign, may never be fully known. But the apocalyptic stylings of Russian disinformation have reached across the Atlantic. Resisting this strain of anxious rhetoric means looking to its origin.

Read the rest of Linda Kinstler’s article, featuring the FDR Foundation’s “Defense of Democracy” work, at The Atlantic.

 

Unleashing the Girl Effect 2/10

Posted on February 1, 2017 by in Past Events

How can creative action cultivate girls as advocates for gender equality?

Join Beyond Tomorrow allies Creative Action Institute (CAI) for appetizers & cocktails to take part in the conversation!

This event is hosted by CAI, and RSVP is required. Their Eventbrite link can be found here.

Clare Dowd and Yasmin Padamsee of CAI will share the approach to integrate arts-based training to deepen the scope and impact of their work to cultivate at-risk adolescent girls in East Africa as advocates for girls’ human rights in their families, schools and communities, and explore undertaking this much needed work in the U.S.

When: Friday, February 10 5:30 – 7:30PM
Where: FDR Suite, Adams House
 B-17

Contact: Julia D’Orazio 978.998.7994/julia@creativeactioninstitute.org.

 
CAI works at the intersection of creativity and social change. We build the capacity of leaders and organizations for innovation, collaboration and resilience to advance conservation, health and human rights globally through original initiatives, experiential training and collaborative projects that harness the power of art and creative processes.

8th Annual FDR Memorial Lecture: Formulating a New Good Neighbor Policy 4/8

Posted on January 26, 2017 by in Past Events

In 1943, President Roosevelt spoke at Monterrey, Mexico noting Mexico’s contributions of military support and farm laborers to the war effort. “Our two countries,” he stated, “owe their independence to the fact that your ancestors and mine held the same truths to be worth fighting for and dying for… No less important than the military cooperation and the production of supplies needed for the maintenance of our respective economies has been the exchange of those ideas and of those moral values which give life and significance to the tremendous effort of the free peoples of the world.”

In the current political atmosphere, polluted with “alternative facts” and “fake news,” it is easy to forget the realities of U.S.-Mexico relations and the roles played by Latinos in the United States. On the one hand, Latinos contribute $1.3 trillion to the American economy in buying power. On the other hand, irrespective of their citizenship status Latinos are often vilified as “the other” by those who wish to twist their story into a single narrative of drugs, guns, gangs and terrorism — a dangerous trend for other immigrant communities as well.

Join Republican entrepreneur Solomon Trujillo and Democratic former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, co-founders of the Latino Donor Collaborative, as we renew FDR’s call for thoughtful cross-cultural engagement. Through this non-partisan conversation, we’ll gain hard data about Latino contributions to our economy, a better understanding trade and cross-border cooperation, and realistic strategies to sustain America’s role as the greatest immigrant nation on earth.

RSVP Required. Limited to 120, with preference given to Harvard undergraduates.

About the Speakers:

Hon. Henry Cisneros is Chairman of the CityView companies. CityView is a partner in building more than 60 communities in 13 states, incorporating more than 7,000 homes with a home value of over $4 billion. He is also Chairman of the Executive Committee of Siebert Cisneros Shank, one of the nation’s premier public finance firms. In 1981, Mr. Cisneros became the first Hispanic-American mayor of a major U.S. city, San Antonio, Texas. In 1984, Mr. Cisneros was interviewed by the Democratic Presidential nominee as a possible candidate for Vice President of the United States and in 1986 was selected as the “Outstanding Mayor” in the nation by City and State Magazine. In 1992, President Clinton appointed Mr. Cisneros to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

 

Solomon D. (Sol) Trujillo is an international business executive with three decades’ experience as CEO of high-cap global companies in the US, EU, and Australia. A digital pioneer and long-time practitioner of market-based management, Sol was an early champion high-speed broadband and the mobile Internet to stimulate productivity and innovation across all sectors of the economy. Sol currently sits on corporate boards in the US, EU, and China and has managed operations in more than 25 countries around the world – including developed as well as emerging markets from the EU and North America to China, Austral-Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

 

SIGN UP INFORMATION IS HERE

 

PRESS RELEASE & ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IS HERE

 

 

Before That Gilded Tower, Another President-Elect Had a Manhattan Home Base

Posted on December 16, 2016 by in Hot Off the Wire

At the stately age of 108, the handsome double-width townhouse at 47-49 East 65th Street bears no resemblance to a certain tower of gilt, glitz and high security just 12 blocks away.

Yet the last time a president-elect ran a transition from the east side of Manhattan, it took place in that 65th Street residence, the home of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt, on a street of understated grandeur.

“It was the Trump Tower of 1932-33,” said Harold Holzer, the director of Hunter College’s Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute, which now occupies the building.

If an estate in Hyde Park, N.Y., is landmarked in our historical consciousness as the Roosevelt residence, the family’s onetime city house, about 90 miles south, has its own claim as the incubator for the public lives of Roosevelt and Eleanor, two of the most consequential figures of 20th-century America. They lived there for most of 25 years.

READ MORE AT NYTIMES.COM

What does it mean to be free from want or fear?

Posted on December 14, 2016 by in Hot Off the Wire

…If Roosevelt were delivering his Four Freedoms speech today, “he probably would have come up with more than four basic freedoms… That being said, the world as we know it and the needs of humans as we know them still can fit into his four freedoms… Maybe the simplicity of the four freedoms is something to bring us back to looking at what the core rights are and how to focus on ensuring those core rights are fulfilled.”

 

Read more on the U.S. State Department’s “Share America” site:

What does it mean to be free from want or fear?