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Progressive Groups Unveil 'Contract For The American Dream'
WASHINGTON -- In the wake of the deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling, widely viewed as yet another setback for the progressive community, advocacy groups on the left are redoubling efforts to change the political narrative.
S&P's decision to downgrade the United States' debt and the market selloff that followed has only emboldened those voices who believe the main structural problem plaguing the economy has less to do with debt and more to do with a lack of economic growth.
On Monday afternoon, MoveOn.org and Rebuild the Dream announced a campaign to build up a popular movement that could match (if not surpass) the debt reduction crowd in both size and energy. And they have borrowed a concept from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) as their organizing principle.
The campaign, led by Van Jones, President of Rebuild the Dream; Justin Ruben, Executive Director of MoveOn.org; and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), among others, is debuting a new Contract for the American Dream. They describe it as "a progressive economic vision crafted by 125,000 Americans … to get the economy back on track." Its debut will involve a nationwide day of action, as well as an ad in The New York Times to run sometime this week, organizers said.
The basic premise of the campaign is that America isn't broke, it's merely imbalanced. In order to stabilize the economy, politicians should make substantial investments in infrastructure, energy, education and the social safety net, tax the rich, end the wars, and create a wider revenue base through job creation.
"Many of our best workers are sitting idle, while the work of rebuilding America goes undone," reads one bullet point of the Contract. "Together, we must rebuild our country, reinvest in our people and jump-start the industries of the future. Millions of jobless Americans would love the opportunity to become working, tax-paying members of their communities again. We have a jobs crisis, not a deficit crisis."
The name of the campaign is, of course, a reference to the Contract for America that Gingrich authored in the run up to the 1994 congressional elections. In the context of the current debate in Washington, the principles it promotes resemble a liberal pipe dream more than an actual outline for potential legislation. President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress have, after all, been openly willing to throw entitlement reforms into the debt reduction discussion. And the notion that this Congress will decide to make future stimulus-like investments ignores Republicans' complete dismissal of such measures.
And yet, if you look at the specific suggestions, there is overlap between what the Contract advocates and what the president has endorsed -- mainly on the transportation and clean energy fronts. More than that, the Contract fills the obvious need for liberal advocacy groups to build a popular movement in support for their ideological side of the debt debate, something that has been clearly and at times painfully missing as a counterpoint to Washington's current obsession with austerity.
Read the full Contract below:
107 Comments so far
Show All"The campaign, led by Van Jones, President of Rebuild the Dream; Justin Ruben, Executive Director of MoveOn.org; and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), among others, is debuting a new Contract for the American Dream."
Gag. A contract dreamed up by Obamabots. That'll really get the ol' ball rolling,
My thoughts exactly. This is the same bunch of folks who will declare the victory the minute Oblahblah makes another pretty speech.
Yes. They thought if they dreamed up a worthless contract, people would forget how they've uncritically worshipped Obama for the past three years. They were the ones screaming: "Give him a chance! He's only been in office a little while!" not too long ago.
You're right. What they need is another pretty Obama speech. They'll quickly scurry back to the pen.
Corporate trolls, every one of you.
Oh, just stop it. You have a lot of nerve coming on here and calling people corporate trolls. You evidently place your faith in these mainstream Democrats, even when it's obvious they have done nothing but promote Obama and his neoconservative ideology. You seem to either be a paid poster or an enabler of the status quo.
You stop it. Fitting ideas to a political party is a rhetorical device, a cheap trick to negate the idea by labeling it. If you have the stuff to intelligently and objectively discuss the idea, and how to move the party (any party) to the idea instead of the converse, then do it. Otherwise, you're just the pot calling the kettle black.
You operate on the assumption that the party in question is worth saving. Curious.
From what I've seen of your posts, this surprises me. What party did I suggest was in question, or needed saving?
There is absolutely NO SUCH ASSUMPTION inherent in what I've said, and I logically left the door open for "the party (any party)" to be a newly created one. I simply and logically asserted that the effort in these conversations should be to promote ideas to the party and not the other way around the way one does when conflating an idea with ad hominem criticism of a party or its representatives.
Pardon the ad hominem thing, but you didn't do well in logic studies, did you? Or is there another reason for you to try and detract from my post in this way?
You seem to think that the solution lies in "parties" operating in a corrupt and rigged system. Happier now?
Now you are being plain ignorant - let's all vote for the candidates of the "no party" party then!
The solution lies in the intelligent and vibrant debate of ideas. Period.
In all my years on this forum I have never advocated for a party, and I've been registered as unaffiliated since 18, nearly 40 years ago.
I would ask again about your purpose in supposing to know what I think and for detracting from my post, but it is evident enough. You are not clever.
"Now you are being plain ignorant - let's all vote for the candidates of the "no party" party then!"
Well, I for one am voting for Bradley Manning. I won't belabor you with Emma Goldman's bon mot about voting, but I figure that if there's any sense in engaging in such a debased-unto-worthless exercise, then one might as well vote for a candidate one can believe in.
Otherwise, your assumption that I care what you think (or that you have any idea what I think) is, well, amusing.
You're apparently unfamiliar with the concept of write-in voting, I see. Although I must admit, the thought of voting for Emma Goldman is mighty tempting!
Now where did I say you cared what I think? You can't get much right at all can you? Now, that is amusing.
"You can't get much right at all can you?"
Well, as long as my track record is better than yours . . . :-)
"If you have the stuff to intelligently and objectively discuss the idea, and how to move the party (any party) to the idea instead of the converse, then do it."
My goal was not to move "the party (any party)" anywhere. My goal was to expose the enabling authors of a "contract" that is so trite and phony as to be embarrassing. If you want to discuss an idea, then by all means discuss it. Show us how it's done, this contract that's supposedly going to restore the American Dream.
(If Jan Schakowsky hadn't voted for mandated corporate health insurance, signed by "Our courageous and visionary President" (her words) , perhaps she might be given more consideration.)
You do realize the ad hominem fallacy in your stance, right? I mean what lie or errors in judgment have you made in your life - should we now all assume that you have zero, zippo credibility? And of politics, who was it that said politics makes strange bedfellows? You do understand the game-playing involved there, right?
The authors and supporters are not significantly relevant to the merits and substance of the contract. They are irrelevant as to whether there exist nuggets of content to be appreciated, or whether the overarching idea has merit, whether certain verbiage is lacking or needs amended, etc. The authors are irrelevant as to whether such a contract should even exist, as a declaration for the hope and promise of the idea that our nation should stand for a shared vision, or of what that vision should be?
Your goal was to castigate the idea by conflating it with your perceptions of undesirable personalities and corruption within a given political party, whereas a contract to restore the American Dream would by definition speak to all Americans regardless of their party affiliations and personal perceptions of past legislation.
You showed us how not to do it.
Might be a corp troll ---- but the comment sounds tongue in cheek to me. dh
Great, you got the personal attack out of your system. Now what do you think of the IDEAS?
The ideas don't matter as long as they're being proposed by folks who will capitulate on them at the first opportunity.
The ideas?
"The basic premise of the campaign is that America isn't broke, it's merely imbalanced. In order to stabilize the economy, politicians should make substantial investments in infrastructure, energy, education and the social safety net, tax the rich, end the wars, and create a wider revenue base through job creation."
Hmmm. In the past 3 years, not a day goes by in which at least ten people post such ideas here on CD. THE QUESTION is always, "How do we defeat the elites who have no intention of allowing these ideas to become reality"? Shall we ask them nicely? Shall we point out to the whores in Congress that they are supposed to be serving the people, not consolidating a career as a corporate whore? Will Van Jones openly, publically bring up such points? Will Van Jones and the rest advocate a General Strike to get elite attention? Oh, we are very familiar here on CD with such ideas and we are waiting for the Van Jones and the rest of the "power progressives" to get far more radical in talking about HOW to ACTUALIZE such ideas instead of just repeating them over and over and over again.
I would love to see Van Jones and other power progressives openly call Obama a corporate whore. Call people who serve the banksters and the MIC traitors to this country. But i aint holding my breath waiting for these guys to start engaging in radical straight talk.
Post script:
Years ago, I asked david Korten - who has been writing about such "ideas" for years, and invited a few of us CDers over to his blog - when he was going to get more radical in talking about what it is going to really take to actualize these ideas, in contradistinction to just endlessly t a l k i n g about them. I got no reply.
Power progressives with money and/or media platforms need to get much more radical. They are very visible and have the money to hire the best lawyers should the government try to f**k with them. Thus they have the freedom to start engaging in radical straight talk. If they banded together - call Chomsky, Hedges and all the rest - they could easily be putting out far more powerful and radical statements. What are they waiting for? The US is dragging the planet down into economic and ecological disaster RIGHT NOW, so why dont they really put it all on the line, right now? This is it - Final Exam Time for the human race.
Amazing how much some of you sound like founding fathers, in their youth. Liberty or death! Actually, there isn't that much difference between the orthodox CD progressive and the tea party patriot when each gets to the bottom line. Maybe we just go full circle. Jefferson said liberty is not a free commodity.
Is what we want the same as what is right and true?
Hear Hear, lefttown, corvo! Van Ruben helped create Obama, which in turn led to the current ASSUALT on the Social Programs now underway. Had Ruben did his job and critique Obama's neo-conservative policies with the same zeal as he did Bush, maybe -- just maybe - he would not be in the position of creating marketing schema's to overturn what he helped to create in the first place.
More tripe from those who disguise themselves as 'progressive' while creating the mess to begin with.
Who cares whose ideas they are, if they're the right ideas?
Indeed, so it would seem, any good idea is a good idea regardless of source. However, there's the Pied Piper effect whereby those supporting a particular set of ideas or goals will follow their 'progressive' leaders right up Do-Nothing Street onto Cliff View Way and ... oops, over the edge and out of service, thus further weakening any real national movement toward progress and change.
If a progressive says something meaningful, but no one is allowed to hear it, did he/she really make a sound?
Maybe I'm being a bit cynical, but I suspect this will get as much airplay as the "People's Budget" did.
Then it's up to every one of us to make sure it gets heard.
I wish it was that easy to make it through the US M$M's Iron Curtain.
There is nothing wrong with cynicism if it accurately describes the contemporary moment we find ourselves. Take a look at some current political meme's these so called progressives use:
War escalation is called a "surge."
Downsizing the social saftey net is called "reform."
Torture is called, "enhanced interrogation."
Capitulation to the Tea Party nut jobs is called, "compromise."
Rendering legislation, so no CEO is LEFT Behind, is referred to as "Saving the economy."
Using drone strikes on non combatants is called, "The war on Terror" and "Winning the hearts and minds of the people."
Extending the Bush Tax Cuts is called, "compromise."
Buttressing the Coal Industry which is the most egregious form of fossil fuel on the planet is called "clean coal."
Did I miss any?
End the Bush tax cuts for the richest 5% already. Practically everybody in United States except the Tea Partiers, the clinically delusional, and our corrupt Congressional "leaders" realize this needs to happen, with all due haste. Even Standard & Poors, for God's sake. Our Congress and Senate are now to the right of Standard & Poors!
End the damn Bush tax cuts.
As long as our Congresscritters are among the richest 5% of Americans, and paid to represent the interests of their class, those tax cuts will prevail.
The majority of our Congresscritters -- especially in the Senate -- have been among the richest 5% for as long as there has been a U.S. Congress. I mean, even the original congressmen were all wealthy landowners and slave-owners, for god's sake. So it's not (solely) an issue of them already being wealthy. It's an issue of them no longer being interested in issues that are larger than themselves and their plutocratic benefactors. And, ultimately, an issue of how we fund elections in this country, which pretty much requires them to prostitute themselves to the highest bidders. A parliament of whores.
End the Bush tax cuts for everyone, and then begin on rolling back the Reagan tax cuts.
That's cute, "Contract for the American Dream".
Now shut up while the grown ups destroy the country.
The perpetual political bankruptcy of middle-class "Progressives" is again demonstrated with yet another whining lament, begging the masters of our economic life to please restore the mythical "American Dream". Full page advertisements in the New York Times will not have any effect because the CONTENT of the advertisement is proven time and again to be useless and false.
The economic, social, ecological and political crises we are facing today ARE NOT SOLVABLE BY MAKING SEEMINGLY RATIONAL PROPOSALS TO THE CORPORATE AND CAPITALIST MASTERS, REPRESENTED BY THEIR POLITICAL WHORES IN CONGRESS AND THE WHITE HOUSE.
The 30 year decline and now economic collapse of U.S. (and global) capitalism is the root problem. The U.S. capitalism of a more prosperous time
(from the end of WWII to the 1970s) cannot be "restored" because of the profound historic changes in capitalism. The economic decisions made by U.S. capitalists to maintain and expand their profit by EVERY means possible despite these fundamental changes in U.S. capitalism.
Globalization has meant millions of jobs permanently lost to manufcaturing overseas cheap labor, TO MAXIMIZE PROFIT. Wars and militarism continue with Obama because WAR IS PROFIT. Nothing is done
about global warming and climate change because THE PROFITABLE POLLUTERS WOULD HAVE TO BE SHUT DOWN. The TAX SUPPORTED public commonwealth (public education, health care, etc) UNPROFITABLE needs of the people are minimized and eliminated, because TAXES DESTROY PROFITS.
THE CAPITALIST ECONOMY MUST BE TRANSITIONED TO A SOCIALIST ECONOMY ORGANIZED TO MEET THE ECONOMIC NEEDS OF THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE, WORKING PEOPLE, THAT MAKE UP THE MAJORITY OF SOCIETY.
Capitalism will not end without a massive political struggle to remove the
pro-capitalist, pro-corporate political whores from the White House and Congress. Mass media, now owned and controlled by corporate and capitalist interests, must be accessed by anti-capitalist voices to present every day the economic needs of working people.
Without this transition to a socialist economy, with the continuation of
the capitalist looting of the people's economy, without an end to the rape
of the environment, the people and the planet will continue to descend into
the barbaric hell intrinsic to and created by gangster capitalism.
Read daily: The World Socialist Web Site http://www.wsws.org
Read Monthly Review Magazine.
In California, register, vote, run as candidate in the Peace and Freedom Party. www.peaceandfreedom.org and check out the PFP BLOG.
Nicely stated.
Well said, Jerry.
Exactly!
"We have been propagandized, and conditioned to identify with one of two camps"
There is only one "camp" that we are continuously "propagandized" and "conditioned" to identify. The goal is to indoctrinate the existing capitalist economic system the only frame of reference for all thinking and living. This indoctrination of capitalist values begins with childhood, with such programs as "BIZ KIDS" on our local PBS channel. (PBS now stands for Privatized B*** S*** rather than Public Broadcasting System!)
"Progressives" have completely absorbed capitalist thought and values of capitalist culture. For this reason "Progressive" thinking denies scientifically observable fact and reality. That is, the normal operation of the capitalist economy has intrinsically created barbaric human and ecological crises which cannot be resolved and still maintain the capitalist system of economics.
The term "socialism" has been used by the National Socialists (Nazis), by Stalinist USSR, and even one victim of the Cambodia genocide called Pol Pot "socialist". Obama is a "socialist", With so many conflicting variations of "socialism', past and present, from Social Democracy in Europe, to Castro and Chavez etc. the term "Socialism" and "socialist" has become almost meaningless.
I prefer, instead of "socialism", to advocate a transition from existing capitalism (that massively profits a tiny minority at the expense of the majority) towards an
economy that organizes the resources of the society to meet the economic needs of the entire society..
I always appreciate you view Jill. Keep the fires alive, my friend.
As much as I wish I could click my heels... the old saying from Lao Tzu is something that stays with me - usually translated as...' the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step', there is an alternative interpretation.... 'the journey of a thousand miles starts from where your feet are' mud it is, shine lots of sunlight on it, plant seeds of everything needed for nurturing and tend it constantly...
Corporations are structurally totalitarian and functionally sociopathic. The only society you could organize around one would be fascist and anti-human. They are also legally bound to maximize profits, which would immediately conflict intractably with your goals.
It's a cute idea, but useless. Along those lines, however, it might behoove every American to own their own corporation, so they would have their own pet culturally coddled sociopath in order to have maintain some sort of political voice.
I saw Richard Wolff's film the other day (free on his website) looking long-view at the US economy and how very possibly the structure has finally hit the end of rising wages (hit it 30 years ago, and now about to seriously head in reverse for all but the top 1 to 10 %, more like). And it seems obvious that the way things are going, the wealth left in the US system is headed for more and more re-distribution to the wealthiest.
So without addressing the root causes for this, it doesn't seem like we'll get anywhere, and I don't really see an addressing of the root causes in this Contract.
Isn't the root problem the way certain small groups own and control the vast resources of all? Why can't we talk about this? We don't need to say therefore those small groups need to be killed off. We can simply say therefore we intend to change this set-up so that it looks much more like a democracy, so that democratic control is how the mass economic/natural resources of our society need to be handled. We don't need to abandon one iota of compassion, friendliness, or nonviolence to articulate this. We don't need to view all those in the small groups who currently poorly run the economy as inherent enemies--some could even agree with our call and join us, as others who have abandoned oppressive privileges have done in the past. But we can't have any movement on such a vision without articulating it. And by articulating it, we could start the process of many millions of people thinking about how to actually bring the vision about.
We might also want to question our own quiet roles in perpetuating our current model of greed and division: how can we ourselves actually live more on a basis of compassion and caring for all?
For love and compassion--and economic-social transformation--
Visiting Professor posted this on another thread: but it is required reading for the 'support Obama' progresseive's who are left arguing against themselves:
"It has long been irritating to me that so many well-meaning people have clung to the faint hope that Obama is really on the side of the people, and he is just playing a master gambit -- giving away piece after piece on the chessboard in line with a secret plan he has for an eventual checkmate. Right.
I'm convinced this nonsense has been perpetrated by the corporate right wing think tanks whose policies Obama mirrors quite effectively. Its practical impact is to blunt opposition and divide the left, and it is working quite well.
The revelation today regarding Panetta's remarks and Obama's agreement with them is that nobody should doubt Obama's true intentions any longer: he is a corporate puppet, first and last. The common denominator between these two policy positions -- maintaining obscenely high military spending and planning to cut back on medical care for the elderly -- is this: Killing. That's it, plain and simple. Obama wants to facilitate more killing abroad in impoverished countries, and kill more poor elderly folks who rely on Medicare and Medicaid to stay alive.
I think it's time we stopped all this killing at home and overseas and started healing instead. Started understanding instead, Started reaching out to people in need instead. It's time.
I call for a General Strike for Jobs, Healthcare, Housing, and Education for All.
Sometimes I feel like the Little Red Hen when I write these words, as I have been doing for over a year now. The difference is that the Little Red Hen could bake the cookies herself, but nobody can create a general strike all alone.
Your assignment: Study the general strikes that have occurred in the United States (yes, we've had some) and learn what inspired the leaders of those actions, and what the results were. You may be surprised.
We're up against it, folks. Are we going to wait until it's too late to do anything?
General Strike. Is it time?"
VP
One can write whatever he or she might whish here, but it really doesn't matter. The final word is in with regard to the myth, the scam that is the American Dream and the guy who spoke it is dead. Just move over to YouTube and look up George Carlin's "The American Dream". If you have already listened to it, listen to it again. If you haven't, please do. It's the sad truth.
They own it all. They are the ones who own all the wealth of the nation, the moveable and nonmoveable. Everything. They own the two parties and the Supreme Court. And what they don't own, they want. They will privatize SS and then bankrupt it after picking i's bones. The will give Medicare to the insurance companies that they already own. It's over. Make the best of it.
Thanks for your helpful and encouraging remarks, richsmith2.
And there you have it folks...the famous left-wing circular firing squad in full display. I guarantee almost everyone who has posted on this thread agrees with the content of the ideas presented. But because of who presented them, we get complaint after complaint. The tea partiers may be morons, and may have been corporate financed, but at least they got past the starting line and began the race. Lefties can't even do that!
Teabaggers could only because they have the Koch Brothers and their ilk buying politicians for them. If the same were true of the left, it wouldn't matter how many lefties really existed, or how united they were.
As Woody Allen once famously quipped, "90% of success is just showing up for work." Say what you will about the Tea Partiers, and the bogus astroturf nature of their psuedo-populist uprising, but those useful fools actually showed up for work when they were supposed to.
Which is more than I can say for the left. I saw more people log in to CD in April to gripe about the entity organizing nationwide Tax Day protests against GE and Wells Fargo and Bank of America this year (Moveon.org, OMG!) than people who actually showed up to protest in my city. Yeah, that will win you a lot of public exposure and empathy. I'm with Kane on this one.
Actually, very few teabaggers "show up." Abby Zimet regularly posts features here about how their rallies bring out astonishingly small crowds.