Screwed the Undeclared War Against the Middle Class (32 page)

None of this is rocket science—it's all within the means of current technology. It simply requires that we have politicians in Washington who are willing to stand up to the lobbyists from big oil and advocate for America's middle class and, ultimately, all of humanity.

The cons have almost succeeded in throttling American democracy by screwing over the middle class. To fight back we must battle on two fronts.

First, we must recognize and reclaim the government programs that create a middle class:

Return to the American people our ownership of the military, the prison system, and the ballot box.

Fight for free and public education that encourages critical thinking, historical knowledge, and a love of learning in each child. Combat the No Child Left Behind Act and the belief that education is a commodity that can be tested.

Fight for a national single-payer health-care system based on Medicare.

Fight for Social Security—do not let it be privatized or co-opted.

Fight for progressive taxation: reinstate a rate of 35 percent on corporations and a rate of 70 percent on the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans—and use the money to pay back the Social Security system and to fund an economic investment program.

Fight for a living wage and for the right of labor to organize.

Fight for a national energy program that puts people and the planet—not Big Oil—first.

When America has a strong middle class, democracy will follow. The opposite is also true.

To fight back we must also make use of the ballot box. We can achieve the economic programs that make the middle class possible by using the power of our democracy to vote for those politicians who support the middle class.

We've been conned for long enough. It's time to take back America.

Back in 2003, when my "progressive talk radio" program was first nationally syndicated on Sirius Satellite Radio and about two dozen stations around the country, one of our regular listeners was a guy I knew only as "Jeff in Denver." During the first year of the show, Jeff's constant call and complaint was that the Democratic Party in his area "was lost, had no vision, was too corporate and conservative, and was just letting itself get run over."

One day I challenged him, saying something to the effect of, "If you don't like what they're doing, why don't you show up at one of their meetings and let them know?"

Months went by, and one day Jeff called again. He'd shown up at his local county Democratic Party caucus. There were about a dozen people there, most of them in their midforties or older and showing—in Jeff's opinion—a "lack of knowledge of issues, lack of vision, and lack of time put in deciding issues."

Jeff got active in the party and, to make a long story short, was responsible (along with a few compatriots) for moving his party in a more progressive direction at both the local and state levels. He's now "working to develop an issue-by-issue platform for the party, creating tools for activists, writing a definitive vocabulary
(to counter [Frank] Luntz), and creating a do-it-yourself guide for rEvolution (peaceful yet dramatic change)." All because he showed up and got involved.

In 2005 I was the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Washington County, Oregon, Democratic Party. Lupita Maurer, the party chair, told me how just four years earlier the Washington County Democrats had been lucky to draw two dozen people to a meeting. There were more than three hundred at the meeting I addressed, and it wasn't because I was the speaker—that's how much the party had grown since it had been infiltrated by activists.

A longtime member of the Washington County Democratic Party told me, "For a lot of years, it was just fifteen or so of the old stalwarts, people who stuck with the party through thick and thin, no matter how bad things looked; they could be relied on, and they were there and kept it alive. But then both Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich launched campaigns that energized people, bringing them into the party. And even after the campaigns, they've continued to participate and have revitalized the local Democratic Party."

In early 2006 they opened their first-ever local headquarters office, where people can drop in, organize, participate, and get information about what the party's doing—or tell the Party what they think it should do.

In early 2006 "Roy in Rio Rancho, New Mexico" called my program. He had recently gotten involved in local politics, he said, in part because of the excesses of the Bush administration and in part because he "was inspired by that guy from Colorado who called your show a few years ago and got active."

Roy was brimming with enthusiasm: "New Mexico now has verifiable paper ballots for every election in the state." He said:

Some serious guys did some serious work: they created the parade, and the governor got out in front of it. Fortunately, we had a Democratic governor and a Democratically controlled Round House because it was pretty much a party-line vote, but it went down about six hours before the session closed. It's not perfect, but at least we've now got ballots that we can look at and we can recount.

It turned out Roy was one of those "serious guys." He'd shown up for a Democratic Party meeting in his community. "Now I'm a Democratic precinct vice-chair; I'm the vice president of the county Democratic Club."

Roy wrapped up his call with a message to our listeners: "The main reason I called in is to say that when you just get down and you feel like you've been kicked in the teeth, just keep on pitching. Get out there and just agitate! Get the word out around the country, Thom! People, just get out there! Heck, it's fun!"

Roy is right. Jeff and Roy are Democrats, but Roy's message is a call to all patriotic Americans, regardless of party affiliation. Democrat, Republican, or Green—if you are being screwed by the cons, it's time to get involved. It's time that We the People took back control of our government.

Over the past decade, progressives have spent a lot of time on the outside, looking in. There are undeniable benefits to being an outsider: it's much easier to criticize what you don't like than to change it.

It's vital to point out slanted reporting in the corporate media, but it's also important to seize enough political power in Washington to enforce antitrust laws to break up media monopolies.