Last month, I joined with MoveOn.org and launched the Rebuild the Dream campaign to help give a voice to the millions of Americans who aren't being heard in Washington. This past weekend, we organized nearly 1,600 house meetings across the country -- nearly double the number of protests the Tea Party held when they launched in April of 2009. The American Dream Meetings gave more than 27,000 people, from all across the country, an opportunity to come together and discuss what the American Dream means to them and their families. They talked about how the jobless crisis and foreclosure mess is impacting their communities. They put forth creative ideas for the Contract for the American Dream -- a bold progressive vision to help fix the broken economy and rebuild our communities. The Contract has already received nearly 26,000 ideas submitted online alone and over 6 million ratings.
While I'm beyond inspired by the enormous outpour of ideas we've received thus far, it doesn't surprise me that the American people are yearning to come up with practical solutions to our economic crisis. While so many Americans struggle with joblessness and rampant foreclosures, we keep hearing from Washington that we need to reduce the deficit, even if it means slashing Medicare or gutting vital programs families depend on. Washington appears to be operating on an entirely different planet than the rest of America.
There's an important story that's not being told in Washington. It's the story of the mother or father getting the dreaded call into the office where their boss informs them that they've been laid off. They were already underwater on their house, and now without a steady paycheck, they start to get behind on their mortgage payments. Then comes the big bad bank. They do everything they can to keep their house but it's no use. The bank posts that horrifying foreclosure notice on their door, and takes their home. They sell most of their belongings and move their entire family into a one-bedroom apartment. Or if they're lucky, they move in with grandma. It's a vicious cycle and it's happening every single day in America. It's the new American nightmare.
Our brave men and women in uniform are coming from a war battlefield only to return home to an economic battlefield with little hope of finding a job. Young Americans are graduating off a cliff, and sleeping on their parent's couches waiting for an opportunity to come along.
In Washington, it's almost as if these problems don't exist. It's fair to say that Washington has become obsessed with deficit politics, even though poll after poll shows that the number one concern of Americans is the economy and jobs. So, how did Washington get so off track with the rest of America? How did the debate change from being focused on job creation during the stimulus debate, to becoming focused mostly on cutting spending and tightening our belt? There was a movement with a message, and it has helped drive this deficit obsession in Washington -- the Tea Party.
In April of 2009, Americans who identified themselves as Tea Partiers took to the streets to protest against what they perceived to be a "big government takeover". With the help and funding of lobbyist-run think tanks such as Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works, 800 Tea Party protests were organized across the country to speak out against "big government", taxation, and more specifically, President Obama.
The media started to take notice. Who were these people? Why were they so angry? Should they be taken seriously? Like bees to honey, right-wing candidates began to flock to the Tea Party and adopt their platform as their own. The Tea Party organized protests at town halls around health care reform -- successfully heckling members of Congress and making sure the TV cameras were there to spread the story. From that point on, anything and everything the Tea Party did, the media paid attention to. And, anyone on the left who didn't take them seriously had pie in their faces when Tea Party-backed candidates propelled to power in Congress in the 2010 Election.
The Tea Party didn't just make waves in Washington, DC, they also helped elect extreme right-wingers to State Houses and began occupying Governor's mansions across the country. These newly elected Tea Party candidates weren't afraid to take risks, and they weren't shy about putting their right-wing ideology before the economic well being of their constituents. They immediately began an all out assault on public workers, women's rights, and began doling out tax breaks for millionaires and corporations. They threw everything at the wall in the hopes it would stick. And to the detriment of working families, some of it did. But it wasn't without consequence for their movement or the candidates they helped elect.
Fast forward to February of 2011, Madison, Wisconsin. Just after Governor Walker doled out $140 million in tax breaks to corporations, he proposed the Budget Repair Bill, which restricted the collective bargaining rights of workers. Tens of thousands of Wisconsinites filled the Capitol and surrounded the grounds, protesting the attack on workers' rights. The protests reached a magnitude of 150,000 people in Madison -- larger than the rally put on by Glenn Beck and the Tea Party in Washington, DC. The protests in Wisconsin helped ignite and inspire other protests around the country. In an effort to show solidarity with the workers in Wisconsin, "Rallies to Save the American Dream" were held in all 50 states. From Ohio to Montana to New York, protests against right-wing attacks and unfair budget cuts began breaking out across America.
A new movement to save the American Dream was born.
The Tea Party has their message and their movement, and it continues to impact the debate in Washington. But the movement to save the American Dream is bigger. There is a silent majority of Americans who are fighting back, and many of them have been fighting alone. They've been fighting to find a job and provide for their families. They've been fighting against the banks that are trying to take their homes. They're fighting against unfair budget cuts that will disproportionately hurt the middle class and poor. They're fighting for the American Dream. But, as we saw in Wisconsin, and we're now beginning to see around the country, millions of Americans are starting to fight back together. And, it's only a matter of time before the American Dream Movement comes to Washington.
Follow Van Jones on Twitter: www.twitter.com/VanJones68
Looking at the programmatic efforts, and the silliness of the rabid hatred for the "wealthy" and "corporate," coupled with the puerile focus of forcing society to deliver what cannot be mandated, while they ignore the entire workings of the capitalist enterprise heretofore so successful in the annals of the world, one could extrapolate that this inane bunch have not much of a prayer.
Except it would be a mistake to take the adulthood of the polity for granted, even if the elections of 2010 proved a tsunami of dissatisfaction with the current lot in Congress.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/trying_to_move_on_moveonorg.html
If a bank forecloses on someone who isn't making their payments, you call them "the big bad bank." What would you have the bank do -- give gift houses to people who have stopped making their payments? Would that unrealistic course of action spare the bank from your juvenile name-calling? Should we completely eliminate all lending institutions, because you think they're "bad?" Hmm, then no one would be able to buy a home. I guess they're not bad after all.
Before I bought a home, I made sure I didn't buy more home than I could afford. In other words, I made sure that I had enough savings so that if the worst-case scenario happened (going underwater on the house AND losing my job) I would not be plunged into an immediate crisis and I would have time to find a sustainable alternative way to house my family. That's called responsibility. Look into it. It's something America's leaders used to endorse.
Sadly, the average Tea Partier has no idea that they have been making the wealthy even wealthier without a single job being created.
Sadly, American corporations have been hording trillions in profits without adding a single job to the market (Yes, I have direct knowledge, I work for one the the larges credit card issuers in the country and we reported a 27% increase in net revenue this quarter without adding a single job).
Sadly, the average Tea Partier has no idea that they have been duped into voting against their own best interests.
Sadly, any response to my post by a Tea Partier will be the same old song and dance...Blame Obama, because there is no defense to killing the middle class.
Sadly, our troubles started long ago when GWB allowed American jobs to be shipped over seas for huge corporate tax breaks, and the corporations pokected those benefits, and GWB gave every rich American a huge tax break which DID NOT create new American jobs.
Sadly, the average Tea Partier is blind and the only thing that will open their eyes is a complete meltdown of the American Econmy.
Sadly, its coming.
If I am not mistaken this is pretty much the President's current proposition to the Republican-lead House, and from outside of the fishbowl of American politics it sounds quite reasonable in a "cut-spending-and-earn-more-to-pay-your-debts" kind of way. (In the interest of full disclosure - I am not an economist, hell, I don't even have a checkbook)
As stated above I consider the Tea Party's ideas to be nostalgic and overly simplistic, their ideas rarely take into account how incredibly complex modern societies have become, and while I may consider myself a liberal, I am a liberal of a very old school (think classical Greek old). I no more enjoy the idea of BigGov than they do, but I do acknowledge that government has it's role to play in society; health, law, public safety, education and environment are all on my list of things I am willing to see my taxes pay for.
I get the feeling that my attitude is not unique, but those who hold similar views are usually fairly quiet about it, we usually have better things to do. Since the weather here is nice today and have to mow the lawn, I will leave this here. Take from it what you will, I have offered only my own opinions.
Cheers.
First things first: I am a Canadian citizen so if I display what you may think of as a woeful ignorance of American politics - Blame it on that - I actually try to be well informed nonetheless.
While I am in no way a fan of its simplistic nostalgia, Mr. Jones can blame the economic tribulations of the US on the Tea Party all he wants, it will not brings you any closer to a solution to the current crisis (which some have said is no crisis at all).
The proposals made by both sides do have qualitative merits, however, when viewed in combination instead of in opposition to one another. By cutting spending (starting with the military - do you really NEED military bases in Germany, Italy, and England? The war's over!), allowing modest tax increases (1.5-3%) on those who are least likely to notice them (i.e. anyone making $1 Million/year +), and by cutting some of the subsidies for large corporations who really don't need them (Coal, Oil, Nat.Gas, Insurance companies, etc.). This just leaves what I believe you call Entitlement Programs - Social Security and Medicare; while they are a drain it is likely that a little reform would go a long way, and probably be unnoticed by the majority of those who rely upon them for services.
Try to keep up, people. That mythology has long since been dispelled.
You do know about credit default swaps, over-leveraged and under-capitalized banks, and toxic assets, and mortgage-backed securities by now, don't you?
Blaming the crisis on some notion that all of a sudden the majority of Americans suddenly went crazy and racked up their credit cards just when everything was going so well - and so blew up the economy - is misguided and misinformed. People were not putting luxury items quite so much as food and diapers, clothes for school, and paying the utility bills on the credit card as they lost jobs, or suffered hard times due to a health crisis which bannkrupted them because health insurance fraudulently gave people the false sense that they were covered in a health crisis.
1.Can someone explain to me why the American People are under such a heartless attack by the
Elite?
2.Why do the people who have prospered so much in America, are now trying to destroy it's
people's right to prosper?
3. And I'm asking the Elite, where does this total disregard of your fellow Americans, stem from and
how can you justified it?
4. What has the American People done to deserve your utter callousness toward their well being?
5. Judging from the Elites hostile actions toward the 90% ers, what should they do to protect
themselves from further deprivation?
For many Congressional Republicans, like Ryan, this is their Bible... they have said so...
it's all about equating freedom with greed and so justifying ruthlessness in the greedy pursuit of wealth above all else.
If you believe Van then you also believe all the people who rack up credit card bills and overspend consistently (and there are millons of them) bear no fault and should be bailed out.
**disclaimer - there are some that, through no fault of their own, find themselves in trouble and deserve public assistance.
If you overspend at home you will absolutely be in trouble sooner or later and now we are in the EXACT same situation as a country. I dont care WHAT one overspends on it is still overspending.
We can debate all day on why we didnt get enough jobs since Obama took office but the fact is that continuing to spend more than we "make" is disaster. Because there are poor people doesnt mean we must spend more than we have. You can call that mean-spirited or right-wing but I call it REALITY.
How do you propose to pay for this?