What Should Our Issue Be?

[Tom Rinaldo]

If we wanted to start a left of center populist oriented movement around a broad social theme, what would it be? I'm not talking about a political platform, or a specific piece of legislation to fight for, I mean something broad enough that on its face it could arguably be called non-partisan, yet powerful enough that people who previously saw themselves as apolitical might actually become involved..Something that mainstream media would find difficult to ignore as people rallied across the nation about it.

We need a movement like that now, badly. The theme I would suggest for it is; "Save the American Middle Class". Yes, I know that would seem to once again neglect the poor, but the truth is, the poor will never have any political power if even the Middle Class can't organize to counter the elites. On a practical level, most programs that can benefit the Middle Class provide some comfort for the outright poor as well. And if it were people like us who lay the ground work for such a movement, we can work to make sure an alliance with the poor is maintained. With many middle class families just a few missed paychecks away from poverty, there will be common cause.

The middle class is mythically American, right along with baseball and apple pie. It is the perceived American way of life that is slipping away from all of us. It is a powerful theme to identify with and rally around and hopefully build a movement from. Just in time for Summer.

[H2O Man]

1. Class warfare.

The rich is attacking the rest of America. They have betrayed the public trust. They have sold out the country.

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. A agree. That becomes the narrative

Rallying to save the middle class seems non-partisan and noncontroversial at first blush, but scratch the surface and class warfare is what you find. That's why my thoughts turned to the middle class. It by definition acknowledges that there are class differences in America, the need to save it is the result of class war being waged against it.

I'm just thinking social messaging here so as not to scare off natural allies before they even join.

[socialist_n_TN]

22. As far as messaging goes, just make it as strictly..........

economic (the top 2% vs the Rest of Us). I'm all sorts of a liberationist, but social issues are where the capitalist exploiters WANT us spending our time and energy. Because that's where the divisiveness comes to a head. Keep it economic.

[KoKo]

23. Tom..problem with that is...

The Repug Financial types on Wall Street...used that against us Dems during the Bank Meltdown/Wall Street Graboff. Larry Kudlow (the Reagan Policy Mouthpiece on CNBC and CNBC itself) started yapping on and on about "Democrats pushing Class Warfare" when the Dodd-Frank legislation was being formatted. He and his mouthpieces on Financial News Sites took up the call and spread all over the "meme" that "Democrats want to do Class Warfare and take away YOUR right to make money and bonuses for the work you do!"

The Repugs/Libertarians/Wall Streeters have already tried to say Democrats are "against capitalism and want to ruin America with "protectionism" (anti-more free trade agreements, wanting to re-regulate Wall St. and Banks, etc.)

We need something new. A new phrase that goes harder to the heart and core of what average Americans are faced with. Some phrase from the Great Depression Writers...something that hits folks in the gut...because it rings true.

Thanks much for this post....it's good to get the "little grey cells working" on what we should come up with.

[socialist_n_TN]

25. "The 2% vs The Rest of Us"..........

nm

[bobbolink]

42. We poor people aren't the rest of you. We weren't recognized in Madison, nor anywhere else.

So, don't claim we are the great unnamed in that phrase.

WE are absent in that.

[socialist_n_TN]

46. OK.........

I consider anybody not in that 2% the rest of us, but to each his own.

[bobbolink]

49. We don't have the resources you have, and I think you know that.

This sort of stuff is very dishonest.

Its one more way to disown us.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

4. Correct.

It may seem that most people could and should see it for what it is. But it has not reached that point yet. -H2O Man, 4-11-11*





* http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=868134&mesg_id=868195

[ozone_man]

44. Nothing like cutting to the chase.

So many things to gripe about and you go right for the heart of the matter. :)

I was listening to NPR on the way to work talking about Goldman Sachs and new book out on same. The author slipped by mentioned tentacles, which I had to chuckle at. Many know GS as the "vampire squid" of Wall Street, with tentacles to all branches of government, and Obama's number one contributor. He, like Clinton, has repayed them many times over with his financial position appointments.

[bobbolink]

3. One more priority list that leaves out poor people. Don't expect our support.

We're tired of fighting for YOU, and being ignored.

thanks, but no thanks.

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. Actually I'm unemployed and poor

I'm also from a solidly working class background.

Anyway I just am hoping for a discussion, and you bring a solid point into it. When I said it would not start with a political platform, just a theme, that meant there was no priority list, just a theme. Full employment helps the poor as well as the middle class. Good public schools helps the poor as well as the middle class. A good economic safety net serves the poor as well as the working class. Fighting outsourcing of jobs helps the poor as wel as the middle class. Universal public health care helps the poor as well as the middle class, and so on.

[bobbolink]

19. That is the typical middleclass response. Nothing new. The same rhetoric.

Let me tell you this... there are four (4) men right here at DU who can no longer work. It is very painful to them, and it is even harder for me, because so much of their indentity involves the work they used to do.

So, talking about jobs not only doesn't apply to them, it points out to them just how worthless they have become in the eyes of this nation.

Is that really OK with you?

That is just one example of how far off the conversation has gone, and how many people are left out.

AGAIN.. that is just one part of what you are saying.

Confirmation that we are worth nothing, and should give our all to fight for middleclass issues.

[arendt]

28. I respect your contributions here. But how does "2% vs 98%"...

leave you out?

My attitude has always been that the rich see no difference between upper middle class and dirt poor - they will treat them all like scum.

The OP is looking for a slogan, not a program. Why does the slogan have to devolve into divide and conquer?

[bobbolink]

31. That is really telling that you don't see that difference.

"Why does the slogan have to devolve into divide and conquer?"

Yes, indeed, why DOES it have to? Why can't the rest of you automatically include us.... especially since you EXPECT us to support and vote for YOUR priorities?

Isn't it odd... you would never say "White" and expect black and brown people to feel included.

You would never say "Straight" and expect gay people to feel included.

We women fought long and hard to be recognized as "Women" and not just subsumed under "Men".

Yet, after all of that, the rest of you can't understand why poor people would object to being subsumed under "middleclass".

None of those liberation movements seem to have made an impression of what oppression really is.

[arendt]

32. But, I didn't say middleclass, it was the OP.

I said 98%.

I recognize you have an issue with the OP. But why with me?

[bobbolink]

33. If not spelled OUT, Everything. Is. Subsumed. Into. The. Middleclass.

I guess you have to have experienced the pain of constantly being left out to understand.

I would think it would be obvious, but that is not the case.

I am giving you a clue how poor people see this, and I am opening myself to attack in order to do that.

I am NOT into arguing... I am telling you what it is like to live with this.

Just like black people told us, just like gays told us, just like women said. None of which you responded to. I think the parallel is very clear.

[arendt]

34. By "you" do you mean me in particular or the MC in general?

If the MC in general, I can accept your statement.

But, if you mean me in particular, you are busy alienating allies.

Please explain to me what you are asking be done. Do you want more jobs? More social services, like healthcare? Tell me what a positive program that supports you looks like.

[bobbolink]

39. As southerners say, and maybe we should all take a cue from them, "All y'all".

And, further, I will say that anyone who isn't busy speaking up, is part of the problem. It is the silence, the acceptance of the injustice, that is killing us!

We have accepted that we are all racist at some level, that we are all sexist at some level... what is so difficult about accepting that we are all harboring classist bias? Why does that get singled out for defensiveness?

I ask you to read what I said to someone else, and to listen to the speech. Sapphire Blue used to periodically post this speech, and I thought it important at the time... now I see it as IMPERATIVE for people to see what this great silence and indifference is doing to us impoverished people in this country.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=230&topic_id=5191&mesg_id=5228

This is not easy for me to do. I would much rather be out playing somewhere, or watching a funny movie. I ask you to give this a chance... to look at the world through my eyes, because that view will show you what so many others are experiencing and feeling.

As for what to do... I think that if you truly walk in our shoes, and see with our eyes, you will KNOW what needs to be done.

However, I do find it interesting that almost all of DU knows that I am homeless... yet not once do I see "low-income housing" on the lists of priorities.

That says a lot right there, don't you think? Rather than keep repeating the same mantras, we need to really HEAR each other, and right now there is a large segment of the population that Has No Voice. Unless All y'all decide to listen.

[Wait Wut]

5. Great post.

We need this.

I'm going to even agree with "Save the Middle Class". We need nonpartisan facts and figures. We need back-up to those facts and figures when FOX, Bachmann and the rest of the clan dispute them. We need nonpartisan advertising supporting that one issue ONLY. Leave the negativity OUT completely since it turns off so many voters. Push the positives of what CAN be accomplished and not what will happen if things don't change.

"With a stronger middle class the economy will improve at a natural pace."
Instead of...
"If things don't improve for the middle class China will take over our country."

Awesome. How do we start?

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. By kicking it around here first...

...and if we can gather some broad agreement (and real interest) on which theme can best be used to take our concern over what is happening to America to city halls across America, we take it past DU and see if some Unions for example have any interest.

[FarLeftFist]

7. Definitely class warfare.

The working poor and middle class. Also wages, healthcare and retirement issues. Plus the HUGE wealth gap in America, obviously whatever we're doing we're doing it wrong.

[Tom Rinaldo]

10. The real issue is class warfare

But that is the real issue for the Tea Partty also, yet their public organizing tool is to brand it American revolution values, and reducing the debt that our grandchildren will bear. Eassys to pull people in with that type of overt appeal.

It's jsut my opinion that starting a movement to Save the American Middle Class autopmatically becomes a perfect vehicle to expose the clasx warfare now going on, and to organize to congfront it. I think that theme passes through most peoples knee jerk consevatrive installed filters than an overt call to defend our side in a class wwar.

But if a movement starts with class warfare as the overt theme, I'll be there. I'm just discussing tactics - we agree.

[socialist_n_TN]

24. Go ahead and make it Save the American Working Class..........

That brings in class warfare without saying it outright. And as far as the poor goes, the MoveOn campaign that had the top 2% vs The Rest of Us, includes the poor also. They're part of the "Rest of Us".

[Tom Rinaldo]

29. I'm open to that n/t

[bobbolink]

40. And there again... those of us who are too old, too sick and too injured to work... can heave

ourselves off a cliff.

What does it take to get HEARD???

Do you really think that ALL AMERICANS CAN WORK????

[socialist_n_TN]

48. Do you really think that matters to the PTB?

Me, you, ANYBODY that's NOT in thier little circle of billionaires are ALL the same. Eventually we all become useless eaters. Some of us just get there quicker than others. You can make an alliance with the capitalists or you can make and alliance with the rest of us or you can sit it out. That's for you to decide.

[bobbolink]

50. We are NOT in YOUR circle, and Madison proved that.

Oh, yes.. wouldn't that be just great to "make an alliance" with all of you, when you don't even recognize us?

So, we exist to promote the rich, or we exist to promote the middleclass.

Either way, we are USED, and then thrown away.

Let me know when YOU all decide to recognize US.

[jtuck004]

9. We need to take business back. Teach people how to own assets and

what to do with them.

I think we have lost the battle, at least for the next hundred years or so, of teaching people about the history of labor and
what it won for them, the history of fascism and what it might look like in a business suit, and expecting people to think that corporations should pay their fair share.

The populists, or left, are locked up in their traditional battles, fighting against very powerful forces who, frankly, spend their time gathering more money and using it to gather more money. The party that should stand with the most vulnerable is enabling their opponents by letting them frame the argument, even passing legislation which enables their opponents to gain more wealth and power.

But the world may have changed and, if so, I think unions and populists could better use their energy to help people create business, own assets, and employ their neighbors.

Until we own the means of creating wealth there will be no real success except for those who simply enjoy the battle regardless of the outcome. I really don't think we will ever move back to a time when those who create the profit that pays for the universitites, public employees, and infrastructure will see a responsbility to do so.

And as long as they see no responsibility to the health of their country the only ones who will win (or maybe even survive) will be those who own the assets, no matter how small.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. Most Americans support a mixed economy

Businesses are part of that. Small businesses are actually American by and large, sand connected to their communities. I think we should be supportive of small businesses.

[slackmaster]

12. The Metric System

[geardaddy]

21. The UK isn't completely metric.

Road signs in Great Britain are regulated by Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 (TSRGD)<39> which requires linear units of measure to be in miles, yards, feet and inches. Weight limits are expressed in tonnes and, despite the fact that "T" is the recognised symbol for teslas, the legislation permits either "T" or "t" to be used as the symbol for "tonnes". Speed limits are in miles per hour, but no units are shown on the signs. On the UK motorway network, signs display distances in miles (often using the character "m" as a symbol. This conflicts with the metric system where "m" is the symbol for metre). Advance warnings are often given in yards, but the actual distance is the equivalent number of metres <40>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom#Road_signs

But I agree that we should go metric here in the US.

[slackmaster]

35. I still hear peoples' weight being expressed in stone in the UK

They're a little different.

[geardaddy]

52. Yep, That's definitely one to get used to.

[Newest Reality]

13. There are many,

many thoughts and angles on your question.

However, some of us have plenty of information now to at least assess the situation and consider options in a clear and relevant way.

We have serious problems in the way that most of our government officials "represent" us. The small percentage that are being vocal and speaking in ways that relate our collective issues are not given enough attention. We could start doing that by trying to present the best and how they do it in contrast to all the "top ten" worst that we are seeing online. If we champion the politicians that we know are with us, and hold them up as beacons, it is a good start, the media be damned!

I think one of our major problems, right now, is the enormous, (and growing) disparity in the distribution of wealth. When money is equated with power over every faction of life, today, then it is clear that the control of its distribution is paramount to our struggle. In this predatory, pseudo-capitalistic scheme we are in, the wealthy are celebrated and even lavished with a different form of taxation and laws than the rest of us. That stands in contrast to equality and is a slap in the face to anyone who values fairness, justice and liberty.

I am not a fan of "isms". Yet we have seen some of the older "isms" demonized with great prejudice if they promote ideas where the balance of power and finance is to be shifted away from those invested in wealth and control. The dangers and labor involved with what suggests itself to be both a redirecting and transformation of our entire system are obvious and can be overwhelming. We should take that into consideration and wonder not about "if" we can do it, but how long a transition would take and how and where to begin that massive effort. The people who own and control the current system have set it up for their benefit and we are beginning to see that the shiny Simulation of media won't always satisfy the need to manufacture consent and influence our views and understanding of what is really going on.

It is not hard to "get it". That's job one. You can do your best to support and embolden those who are on their way to seeing down the rabbit hole. Then, we can watch our reactions and responses emerge into what will have to be a will to make changes that will deal with a plethora of issues we face in this new Century. We have looming resource issues that might be having an impact on the kind of slash and burn politics we are seeing, as well as the grab, by a few, for what wealth we have created together, as well as the resources of the world, (including energy, food, minerals, etc.) Our goals and result must include these changes and I am certain it will involve a form of enlightenment where we break free from the yoke of corporatism, (with its endless growth and consumption model) and embrace a simpler, re-localized future that considers the earth and its resources as an important factor while birthing a new era of more realistic, humanized values of communities acting for mutual survival and the prosperity of meaning, connection and deeper values that will become a true legacy for generations to come.

I would hope that our new, "tribalism" will be possible for our culture of alienation and competition. If we can act quickly enough, it is possible, in mind's eye, to form some sort of hybrid culture where we have some basic, useful technology working side-by-side with basic human skills from the past. I think a world of more equal distribution of our collective power and wealth could be both simple and elegant and far more productive of happiness and fulfillment than this current, dying paradigm where decadent wealth fights to own us all, dealing death and war in its wake without any holds barred on the probable distinction of many species, including our own. The planet has a form of biological balance that represents a sweet-spot for much of the life on it -- that's the basis for our wealth and the future home of our children and theirs.

[leftstreet]

14. Oh gawd. "people like us" Tell me you didn't just say that

:puke:

Here's a thought. Once this mighty and mythical 'middle class' loses it's shirt, maybe impoverished people can teach them a thing or two about grinding out an existence.

[Tom Rinaldo]

15. I meant people who participate here at DU,

You have a problem with that?

[leftstreet]

16. So you assume there are no impoverished people here at DU?

:shrug:

[Tom Rinaldo]

18. Not in any way

All of my life I have slipped between being poor and barely making it to "middle class". Right now i think poor is a better diescription for me. I was proposing "save the middle class" as a front issue to organize around. I always assume people who would be involved would include people who are in the middle class as well as people who believe that all Americans deserve a stanmdard of living long identified with at least the lower middle class. That includes those of us who are impoverished. A more elaborate way of saying it would be save and expand the middle class until all Americans have a decent quality of life. It's a fight for decent wages, decent housing, affordable health care, public education etc. Things that those of us who are poor believe that fair access to should be a human right.

[leftstreet]

20. If you consider yourself "poor," then you're not like the "us" in your OP?

Confusing

[Tom Rinaldo]

27. I think this is the confusing line:

"And if it were people like us who lay the ground work for such a movement, we can work to make sure an alliance with the poor is maintained."

The us was meant to refer to DU activists, and that includes those of us who are poor who see this as an organizing tool that can move our agenda forward.

I was looking for a theme that can ignite broad interest around the country quickly, to push the Tea Party types out of exclusive ownership rights of press coverage. My first thought was the growing income gap in Ameridcan between the elite and everyone else, as a way to illustrate the effects of class warfare. But then I thought using by using the shrinking middle class as a focal point, the most people would become involved AND the media would be mlore drawn to a story line about the middle class fighting back to protect themselves (from the rich) than they would be statistics on wage gaps or open calls for class warfare sel defence.

[leftstreet]

30. Perhaps you've stumbled upon (or possibly on) the issue

How can the laboring classes come together to resist the capital class?

Sounds like class consciousness might be the starting point.

[bobbolink]

45. You are NOT going to get poor people participating with this language, and

I don't see any hope of middleclass people finally "seeing the light".

They simply don't see us, light or no. Look at Madison.. it was all about them, and the "progressive media" portrayed it that way, and there was NO objection from the middleclass people in that portrayal.

So, telling us to "come together" with them... no, you are kidding yourself.

[bobbolink]

41. You can't teach those who refuse to hear... and if the middleclass doesn't do a 180

and start including us, we won't be around to DO any teaching.

Not that it matters to most of them... full of themselves as they are.

As for what we have to contribute... this quote says a lot of it:

The Gift of the Poor
The people with the best sense of what is essential to a community, of what gives and maintains its spirit, are often doing very humble, manual tasks. It is often the poorest person - the one who has a handicap or who is ill or old - who is the most prophetic. People who carry responsibility must be close to them and know what they think, because it is often they who are free enough to see with the greatest clarity the needs, beauty and pain of the community.
- Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, p. 262

[Gregorian]

17. Public funded elections.

And a renewed form of the Fairness Doctrine.

And less military funding, and more education and health funding, and, and, and...


But without honest and fair elections we don't even have a country.

[KoKo]

26. I've been watching many recreations of Dickens Novels by BBC and ITV on Netflix

I feel we live at a time in America that has shades of Dickens time in Mid-1860's, England.

We need to find a way to make our issues appeal in the way Dickens serialization novels managed to do that did help create much reform by showing the plight of the Upper Class and other Classes in ways that "all readers" could relate to.

We need more Dickens... But, I'm clueless as how to do it. We've lost our Molly Ivans and Joe Bageant's and Studs Terkel and so many others. I don't see those who can replace them. But, maybe there is a newer voice who can reach commonality in our very diverse culture that seems to be so much at odds with each other........

:shrug:

[Shagbark Hickory]

36. Excellent question! +! I don't have an answer at the moment but if I do, I will reply again.

[JackRiddler]

37. This, no more money for war, and health coverage for all.

You're allowed to do three. People can count that high. (You're also allowed to work ending bankster power in to the class war part. People hate banks.)

[Shagbark Hickory]

38. I got it. School lunches. Something to do with school lunches.

There is already some chatter about this on the other side.
We can own this one.
Gotta make unhealty cafeteria food out to be like an army of molesters descending upon the sweet innocent children.

[shireen]

43. k & r for the fur babies nt

wish i had something constructive to say ... brain is too tired. But good post ...

[theophilus]

47. Realize the human dream, not just American. Boomers could lead the way.

Tens of millions must realize that we aren't gonna have squat compared to the greatest generation. We will be Soylent Green if things keep going as they are going. Other countries are much closer to the Dream. Let's come through for Equality, Universal Health care, Clean water, Safe food, Pure Air....basically what the 60s crowd hoped for. Leave out hot button issues....we'll hash them out when we have the basics. Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

[themadstork]

51. Something centered around the phrase "The American Nightmare"

For what's happening right now is the exact opposite of the American Dream. If ideally America were to be a land where one could rise from having nothing to being a prosperous, materially well-off member of the middle class, then this is the nightmare, or the malaise: those living a happy life of moderate means are kicked out of their homes and onto the street by the top 1% who simply need MORE wealth, because they can never have enough!

[Tom Rinaldo]

53. I think Class Warfare got the strongest response