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Wanted: Americans to Rebuild the Dream

Another Labor Day has passed, but the jobs crisis is far from over. What can we do to salvage the American Dream for the millions of hardworking people for whom life has become a nightmare of struggle and insecurity?
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Another Labor Day has passed, but the jobs crisis is far from over. What can we do to salvage the American Dream for the millions of hardworking people for whom life has become a nightmare of struggle and insecurity?

Here's what we cannot do: count on Obama's highly anticipated speech to make a difference. After all, the majority of his audience, a joint session of Congress, cares more about corporate contributions than mass unemployment. The New York Times urges the president "not to calibrate his policies to fit what he hopes will be acceptable to his Republican opponents." Sound advice, to be sure, because whatever Obama proposes will meet unyielding opposition, impervious to soaring rhetoric and suffering citizens.

Though Obama appears unable to accept it, most congressional Republicans are more interested in defeating him than rescuing the country. However shortsighted, that's how they plan to win their future, while they fulfill their role as corporate lackeys, rolling back workers' rights at every opportunity.

To defend our rights we must challenge the assault on labor with determined resistance, as in Wisconsin. We have to put ourselves to work, organizing, demonstrating, taking to the streets.

It is easy to complain that Obama lacks spine; it is hard -- and more effective -- to have his back, to provide the support anyone in his position would need to change the status quo in Washington. (Speculation as to whether he actually wants to do so I leave to others.)

That is the only way we will get the change we want and the jobs we need -- with our disciplined engagement in the process. Otherwise, corporations will continue calling the shots, prizing their own bottom line above all else.

We won't have a government of, by and for the people until we take responsibility for governing ourselves. Just voting on Election Day doesn't do it, as should be painfully clear by now. We must stop acting as if democracy were a spectator sport and take control of the game.

Easy to say, hard to do. Our difficulties can seem so daunting that it's tempting to escape into the next sensational sideshow, but instead, let's remember that the policy decisions and power dynamics that brought us here are still at work, and our problems will persist until we come together to solve them.

If we despair and do nothing, we guarantee defeat. But we are too big to fail. If everyone getting short shrift in this economy comes on board, we'll have tens of millions of Americans working together.

Some inspired and inspiring people have already begun building a movement. Van Jones, a fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former Obama adviser, has identified five key constituencies:

  1. "The long-term unemployed -- at some point we've got to stop talking about extending their unemployment benefits and instead create a good employment program for millions of Americans."

  • "[V]eterans are coming home to nothing; there are 17 suicide attempts a day among our young veterans. We took them from a military battleground with support and now we're throwing them into an economic battleground with no support."
  • "[M]illennials are graduating off of a cliff into the worst job market since World War II. We need a youth employment program so that we don't do long-term damage to the employment and income prospects of a whole generation."
  • "[A]ll of the victims of foreclosures by banks and all of the families whose heads are being held underwater by bad mortgages need relief. American taxpayers and homeowners bailed out America's banks, and yet America's banks will not do the same favor for the American people. The bankers themselves would be homeless were it not for the generosity of the American people."
  • "[O]ur so-called public employees -- our cops, firefighters, teachers, nurses -- the backbone of our country, the backbone of every one of our communities. These are America's everyday heroes. They're the ones who never abandon America in a crisis. And yet, we're supposed to throw a million of them under the bus this year alone. That's morally wrong and indefensible."
  • Right there we have about 30 million Americans. Will you join us?

    Here are the main components of the Contract for the American Dream, a collaboration of thousands of ordinary citizens:

    1. Invest in America's infrastructure

  • Create 21st-century energy jobs
  • Invest in public education
  • Offer Medicare for all
  • Make work pay
  • Secure Social Security
  • Return to fairer tax rates
  • End the wars and invest at home
  • Tax Wall Street speculation
  • Strengthen democracy
  • If you support these goals, please help rebuild the dream so we'll have reason to celebrate Labor Day in years to come.

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