The buzz is that President Barack Obama is pushing hard for a deal with the big banks over the foreclosure crisis in advance of the State of the Union address on Tuesday. Most observers are afraid that the deal will be too small and that the banks will get a slap on the wrist despite playing a major role in creating the financial crisis that led to a recession.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined a growing chorus calling for a rejection of such a small deal and calling for an investigation of the banks over potential fraud and illegal activity:
We need to hold banks accountable for the fraudulent practices that brought about the worst economic crisis since the Depression. State Attorneys General have been investigating bank fraud, and these critical investigations must not be undermined by a premature and inadequate settlement. We call on the administration to reject any deal that insulates banks from full responsibility.
We commend state Attorneys Generals like New York’s Eric Schneiderman and Delaware’s Beau Biden for their leadership and courage in calling for a real investigation and relief on a scale that helps the millions of homeowners who face a new wave of foreclosures.
The economy is currently weighed down by $750 billion in negative home equity, so relief on a massive scale is needed to lift home values and stimulate the economy by increasing consumer demand. A comprehensive settlement must force banks to write down underwater mortgages. A sum significantly larger than the rumored $25 billion is needed for the economy to grow and create jobs.
Specifically, the administration must stand strong against the Big Banks and insist on:
1. A full and thorough investigation into problems tied to the residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) market, and
2. A guaranteed minimum amount of money set aside for reducing the mortgage principal of “underwater” homeowners in key states impacted by the foreclosure crisis.
This is an opportunity for the administration to demonstrate leadership and show that it has the political will to do what’s right for homeowners and right for our economy.
On a conference call today launching the new "Contract for the American Dream," Van Jones said that the American people have more wisdom about what's going on in the country than those inside the beltway.
More than 131,000 Americans submitted ideas for the platform, more than 1600 house meetings were held and more than 25,000 ideas were submitted. Of those ideas, the ten most popular were included in the contract. Compare that to the right-wing Contract From America, in which only 50,000 people submitted ideas and only 800 house meetings were held. This disparity was despite the fact that the Contract for the American Dream did not get a big push from Fox News (or any equivalent) and there wasn't a big funding push from anyone like the Koch brothers.
"This movement is real. It's big. It's growing," Jones said. The movement is already active in every congressional district in the country. Jones said that what we need now is for the majority of Americans who agree with the contract need to stand up and speak out for the mainstream American values it represents. These values are what helped make the twentieth century "the American Century." He points out that while both parties have responded to the tea party, that group only represents 10-15 percent of the country. The Rebuild the Dream movement represents 70 percent.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky said that the two biggest problems we face right now are creating jobs and stopping the disappearance of the middle class, the fact that the American dream is slipping through people's fingers. She said that further cuts to federal spending will kill more jobs and make the economy worse. The solution, Schakowsky argues, is to grow our way out of the economic troubles we have -- to have a robust economy, we have to have a robust middle class. And the middle class needs jobs.
She is introducing legislation that represents the contract, including the Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act, which would create 2.2 million jobs over two years that meet critical community needs, and the Fairness in Taxation Act that would create a new 45 percent tax bracket for those who make more than $1 million each year and a 49 percent tax bracket for those who make more than $1 billion each year. She said this bill would raise $800 billion over ten years and would require the richest Americans to pay their fair share.
Economist Dean Baker said it amazes him that the very people that got us into the trouble we face now are in charge of solving the problems they created. He said that it is the economic collapse -- not excessive spending -- that led to huge deficits and that to fix the deficit, we have to get the economy going again. The contract does just that, in his opinion, and is consistent with our successful responses to economic downturns in American history. His real fear, if we don't get things moving in the right direction again, is that there could be people in their 30s, 40s and 50s who may never work again in their lifetimes.
MoveOn's Justin Ruben says that his group's supporters are on board with this agenda. He doesn't think that the people in D.C. will take the plan seriously at first, although most economists would say that the plan makes sense. He's calling on MoveOn supporters to do the legwork to change the minds of members of Congress by talking the contract up at town hall meetings and in visit to congressional offices.
Also on board is the Center for Community Change, led by Jeff Parcher. He says that the economy doesn't have to be the way it is today. "We have enough, we are the richest, most under-taxed country in the developed world," he added. Certain members of our society are not contributing their fair share and the key is to change the conversation in Washington.
We, the American people, promise to defend and advance a simple ideal: liberty and justice . . . for all. Americans who are willing to work hard and play by the rules should be able to find a decent job, get a good home in a strong community, retire with dignity, and give their kids a better life. Every one of us – rich, poor, or in-between, regardless of skin color or birthplace, no matter their sexual orientation or gender – has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is our covenant, our compact, our contract with one another. It is a promise we can fulfill – but only by working together.
Today, the American Dream is under threat. Our veterans are coming home to few jobs and little hope on the home front. Our young people are graduating off a cliff, burdened by heavy debt, into the worst job market in half a century. The big banks that American taxpayers bailed out won’t cut homeowners a break. Our firefighters, nurses, cops, and teachers – America’s everyday heroes – are being thrown out onto the street. We believe:
AMERICA IS NOT BROKE: America is rich – still the wealthiest nation ever. But too many at the top are grabbing the gains. No person or corporation should be allowed to take from America while giving little or nothing back. The super-rich who got tax breaks and bailouts should now pay full taxes – and help create jobs here, not overseas. Those who do well in America should do well by America.
AMERICANS NEED JOBS, NOT CUTS: Many of our best workers are sitting idle while the work of rebuilding America goes undone. 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.
To produce this Contract for the American Dream, 131,203 Americans came together online and in their communities. We wrote and rated 25,904 ideas. Together, we identified the 10 most critical steps to get our economy back on track and restore the American Dream:
10 CRITICAL STEPS TO GET OUR ECONOMY BACK ON TRACK
I. Invest in America's Infrastructure: Rebuild our crumbling bridges, dams, levees, ports, water and sewer lines, railways, roads, and public transit. We must invest in high-speed Internet and a modern, energy-saving electric grid. These investments will create good jobs and rebuild America. To help finance these projects, we need national and state infrastructure banks.
II. Create 21st Century Energy Jobs: We should invest in American businesses that can power our country with innovative technologies like wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal systems, hybrid and electric cars, and next-generation batteries. And we should put Americans to work making our homes and buildings energy efficient. We can create good, green jobs in America, address the climate crisis, and build the clean energy economy.
III. Invest in Public Education: We should provide universal access to early childhood education, make school funding equitable, invest in high-quality teachers, and build safe, well-equipped school buildings for our students. A high-quality education system, from universal preschool to vocational training and affordable higher education, is critical for our future and can create badly needed jobs now.
IV. Offer Medicare for All: We should expand Medicare so it's available to all Americans, and reform it to provide even more cost-effective, quality care. The Affordable Care Act is a good start and we must implement it -- but it's not enough. We can save trillions of dollars by joining every other industrialized country -- paying much less for health care while getting the same or better results.
V. Make Work Pay: Americans have a right to fair minimum and living wages, to organize and collectively bargain, to enjoy equal opportunity, and to earn equal pay for equal work. Corporate assaults on these rights bring down wages and benefits for all of us. They must be outlawed.
VI. Secure Social Security: Keep Social Security sound, and strengthen the retirement, disability, and survivors' protections Americans earn through their hard work. Pay for it by removing the cap on the Social Security tax, so that upper-income people pay into Social Security on all they make, just like the rest of us.
VII. Return to Fairer Tax Rates: End, once and for all, the Bush-era tax giveaways for the rich, which the rest of us -- or our kids -- must pay eventually. Also, we must outlaw corporate tax havens and tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. Lastly, with millionaires and billionaires taking a growing share of our country's wealth, we should add new tax brackets for those making more than $1 million each year.
VIII. End the Wars and Invest at Home: Our troops have done everything that's been asked of them, and it's time to bring them home to good jobs here. We're sending $3 billion each week overseas that we should be investing to rebuild America.
IX. Tax Wall Street Speculation: A tiny fee of a twentieth of 1% on each Wall Street trade could raise tens of billions of dollars annually with little impact on actual investment. This would reduce speculation, "flash trading," and outrageous bankers' bonuses -- and we'd have a lot more money to spend on Main Street job creation.
X. Strengthen Democracy: We need clean, fair elections -- where no one's right to vote can be taken away, and where money doesn't buy you your own member of Congress. We must ban anonymous political influence, slam shut the lobbyists' revolving door in D.C., and publicly finance elections. Immigrants who want to join in our democracy deserve a clear path to citizenship. We must stop giving corporations the rights of people when it comes to our elections. And we must ensure our judiciary's respect for the Constitution. Together, we will reclaim our democracy to get our country back on track.
Not to be outdone, and never one to avoid recycling an old idea if possible, Newt Gingrich is trying to create a new crowdsourced Contract With America via Facebook. It's called Team 10, as in the Tenth Amendment, the Holy Grail for right-wingers who hate shared responsibility and shared sacrifice.
Probably the most disturbing aspect of the multifarious effects of Fox News' right-wing propaganda machine and its Tea Party offspring is the way it has utterly taken over the lives of so many senior citizens, who lap up every word as the gospel truth and have become increasingly radicalized by talking heads like Glenn Beck.
Even as they project their own intentions onto the likes of the unions, the Fox acolytes and the Tea Partiers have effectively become a brownshirt corps of mean-spirited, vicious thugs. It's deeply disturbing to watch people in our parents' generation viciously attacking liberals with increasing venom and violence.
The latest example took place last weekend in the quiet little retirement town of Roseburg, Oregon. It's a pretty little burg on the I-5 corridor in western Oregon that is mostly populated with senior citizens of various stripes. Via Carla at Blue Oregon, we happened upon this story in the local paper:
A small political gathering of about 18 liberal thinkers at River Forks Park Sunday afternoon erupted in conflict when about 35 members of the conservative tea party intruded upon the meeting, waving flags and holding signs accusing the rival group of being communists, Marxists and socialists.
The liberal group — organized by MoveOn.org — decided to leave the park and move its potluck to a nearby home. Members of the conservative group followed, parking at the entrance of a private lane leading to the home to continue their protest.
Roseburg Democrats Dean and Sara Byers said Monday they told tea party members who followed that they were not welcome to drive down the lane to their home.
The Byerses said they got out of their car to stop vehicles from entering the driveway and one tea party member almost ran them over.
Sara Byers said she was so shaken she called 911. She said a Douglas County deputy called about an hour and a half later and said he had been unable to respond because of other incidents. Byers said she was still considering filing a criminal complaint against members of the tea party for harassment.
A leader of the tea party group, Rich Raynor of Roseburg, disputed the liberal group's version of events.
“They are liars,” said Raynor, director of Douglas County Americans for Prosperity. “That is what communists do.”
The latter confrontations were not videotaped, but the Tea Partiers themselves proudly posted the video of their invasion of the MoveOn picnic. Moreover, it clearly documents how they effectively broke it up -- by threatening the attendees with intimidating speech and making it clear they wanted the group to clear out. What it doesn't show, of course, is that they followed these folks to someone's private home and tried to invade the gathering on private property as well.
Here's the script the proud authors of the video provided:
Self professed communist Van Jones teams up with MoveOn.org to promote the American Dream Project, aka I want what you have worked for. Promoted here by the Douglas County Democratic Central Committee members. Challenged by Americans who love freedom!
I have an idea. Let's end class warfare. If you want more, get up earlier and work harder. It works wonders for your self-respect.
We had to disable comments. They were vile, vulgar, threatening...typical Chicago thuggery stuff.
One thing that's clear from both the script and from the video is that what has the Tea Partiers especially exercised about MoveOn is the fact that Van Jones is now working with them to promote his Rebuild the Dream project. The Tea Partiers kept repeating "Van Jones!" "Van Jones!" almost mantra-like, and then calling MoveOn a bunch of "communists."
We talked for a good twenty minutes. Since so much of what we do here at C&L is focused on dealing with the the Right's inevitable attacks on progressive initiatives -- and particularly the lies and smears that are part and parcel of those attacks -- and Van is one of the foremost victims of their lie-and-smear campaigns, I wondered if he had some thoughts on how we confront them.
Van was talking about how a wealthy fringe is financing the effort to destroy the American Dream for the nation's working-class people:
C&L: They're spending a lot of money to promote that, too. They have their media machine, and they're able to propagandize largely at will. And we know that, you know, a lot of what they do, they're gonna do this time around just as they've done it in the past, is they're gonna lie and they're gonna smear us. Any ideas? I mean, you've had to deal with that pretty up close and personal. Any ideas how we deal with that?
JONES: Well, I think we have to have some courage. I mean, one of the things -- I mean, I went through it, and you would like to be -- I think one of the reasons liberals and progressives are so vulnerable psychologically and emotionally to these smear campaigns is because we have some unacknowledged desire to be liked and seen as good people. And so that becomes a soft underbelly when you're dealing with people who don't care about the facts, and who are willing to say anything.
And so there's a crucible that every movement has to go through where it comes under heavy, unfair attacks and criticism. And you have to be willing and able to push back as best you can, but also not to get absorbed into the food fight.
In other words, I think there are three mistakes you can make. One is to say that it's just too tough out there, it's a contact sport, I don't like it, I'm not gonna do anything. Let the bad guys win without a fight. In other words, they so discourage and demoralize people that people will just defeat themselves and they won't even try to make the country better. That's the main mistake that people make, and I think you break through that just by having examples of people picking up and fighting on.
The second mistake that people do is they get so kind of above the fray that they just don't respond to nonsense and to foolishness. I've been accused of having made that mistake, of kind of ignoring these people too long, and people have accused John Kerry of making that mistake. So that's another mistake that you can make, of just ignoring these people too long and not be forceful about setting the record straight and demanding some fairness.
C&L: You were were trying to turn the other cheek in a lot of ways, though, right?
JONES: Yeah. Exactly, and eventually, you know, I figured out that the human body only has four cheeks on it and I think all four ran out. So at some point you've had enough.
It's difficult to stay optimistic as a liberal. Between being drowned out by right wing media, ignored by the mainstream Democratic Party and dodging hippie punches left and right, it's easy to sink into a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness.
But that's what all those opposing forces want you to believe.
Van Jones has been studying the various effectiveness of political parties, movements and campaigns, and he thinks it's time for liberals and progressives to come together to use the most successful strategies to make our voice not only heard, but listened to.
Now, these [various liberal groups] are massive constituencies and DC has nothing to say to any of them. We think that it is time to give them a vehicle, and a voice, to speak and to be heard in the organizations that are carrying the fight for them, to not just be left to fight alone. But now, most of the people in those categories are fighting and they’re fighting every day. But they’re fighting alone, and even the organizations that are fighting for them are fighting alone. We think that the simple act of creating a common banner for these groups and for these constituencies to begin to coalesce under could gel to change the conversation.
In addition to this roll out, house meetings are taking place all over the country, training people to use these techniques, social networking tools and strategies to gain momentum for a Rebuild the Dream summit in DC.
As much as I derided them, I cannot deny the effectiveness of the tea party to gain and hold the attention of elected officials. But here's the dirty secret that both the complacent Democrats and the self-important tea party caucus doesn't want the rest of us to know: we outnumber them. At their most effective, the tea party only gathered 150,000 people one single time for a rally in DC. Hell, Wisconsin STILL gets that many protesters at the capitol building months later. But we segregate ourselves into specialized groups and refuse to coordinate our efforts, thus diminishing our strength and effectiveness.
By rallying around the single banner that every American deserves the right to realize the American Dream, we can work together to show Washington DC that we are a force that can be reckoned with.
This speech is probably the apex of this years' Netroots Nation conference. Watch Van Jones call for a new movement to recapture the American Dream, call out the Tea Party, and send a special message to Glenn Beck.
I say "probably" because the closing keynote isn't underway yet, but I'm betting it will not top this.
(Nicole:) Van Jones delivered the keynote address to the crowd of progressives at Netroots Nation 11, including our own David Neiwert, Susie Madrak, BlueGal and Driftglass. There is perhaps no better symbol of the battering the progressive movement has taken than Van Jones: smeared, demonized, marginalized and abandoned by the White House in an effort to diffuse the caterwauling conservatives. But rather than licking his wounds and going gently into that good night, Jones has continued to fight against the darkness.
Jones comes to this group of diverse liberals with their pet causes and urges them to rethink our fight. It is exactly the kind of cajoling that we need as we daily prove that we are not members of an organized party and building a game-changing progessive movement is almost exactly like herding cats. So Jones calls for progressives and liberals to rally around not a charismatic individual but around the meta-campaign to protect the American Dream.
Now, some of you all are liberal, you might have a few progressives in here, so let me make sure you understand what I mean when I say killing the American Dream. I’m not talking about killing the American “Fantasy”, okay? The American Fantasy: everybody’s gonna be rich, you buy a lot of things, you’ll be happy? No, that’s an American Fantasy, which means it’s the American nightmare. That needs to go. That needs to go. We don’t believe in that. We don’t believe in that at all.
I’m talking about something much, much deeper than that. Something that we had in this country until the commercializers turned it into something else. The American Dream was simply the idea that hard work should pay in our country. That you should be able to get up in the morning in America, and if you willing to and are able to work, walk out your front door, go to a dignified job, put in a good day’s work and come back home with a paycheck that you can feed your family with and give your children a better life. That’s the American Dream. That’s what our parents fought for and our grandparents fought for and we should not let it be taken away from us on our watch. That’s the American Dream.
And we have Dream killers. Dream killers, who have a wrecking ball agenda for our country. A wrecking ball for America. But they painted that wrecking ball red, white and blue. And they think we’re going to salute their red, white and blue wrecking ball? They got another thought coming in the United States of America. No. It’s time for the deep patriots to stand up to the cheap patriots. It’s time for the deep patriots who love this country and who love everybody in this country, no matter what color you are or who you want to marry or what kind of piercing you got in your nose, we love everybody, we are the deep patriots. They’re the cheap patriots and I’m tired of them questioning us and what we stand for.
I wrote that on a little card that stays on my desk as a reminder when I start stressing too much over the bobbleheads and politicos who forget that their games affect real people. I admit I'm not always successful in finding love and kindness in my heart. Especially for someone like Glenn Beck, who seems to want to instigate violence. Van Jones has even more reason to not find love or kindness towards Beck. After all, it was Beck who led the charge to get Jones out of the White House. But if you think that Van Jones is going to give Beck the satisfaction of being nasty, you got another think coming:
Despite the best efforts of Glenn Beck to ruin Van Jones, Jones is back, standing tall, a righteous man vindicated.
While receiving a prestigious award Friday night from the NAACP, Jones refused to lower himself to Beck’s level. Rather than giving Beck the tongue lashing he so richly deserved; Jones rose above the ugly, divisive, mean spirited little man that is Glenn Beck.
Last thing I want to say is this: To my fellow countryman, Mr. Glenn Beck. I see you, and I love you, brother. I love you, and you cannot do anything about it. I love you, and you cannot do anything about it. Let’s be one country! Let’s be one country! Let’s get the job done!
With that short, brief, powerful message of love and redemption, hope and promise, Jones destroyed Beck. The contrast could not be stronger: Beck is a petty and vicious snake in the grass, a vile serpent, a vessel of rumor, innuendo, and evil; while Jones is a hero, maligned but resolute, rising above Beck and the filth of the right wing smear machine.
Some times, the best revenge is turning the other cheek.
John V. Santore at Media Matters makes a convincing case that what Glenn Beck is doing in attacking President Obama's appointees as "communists" and "Marxists" is simply a new form of McCarthyism.
Now, what do we do about it?
Step 1: Expose both Beck and his enablers for what they are: liars, smear artists, and political charlatans.
In the wake of Van’s resignation, some have wondered whether kicking the Beck hornet’s nest makes sense. I’ve got two thoughts in response. First, Beck and Fox trying to change the topic and counter-attacking with such force is probably a good indicator that we’re getting to them; if anything, now would be the time to go harder. Second, I believe we have no choice. Beck has promised to take his witch-hunt to others in the administration, and has set his sights on Cass Sunstein as his next target. He has no plans to stop, and neither should we.
But it’s not just “czar”-hunting that’s at stake here. The right wing media machine, of which Beck is now one of the leading members, is the single greatest force standing in the way of change. They have already helped derail the conversation on health care, elevating accusations of Obama’s alliance with the Third Reich to some semblance of credibility. And they will do the same to the upcoming debates over clean energy, immigration, and every progressive policy priority. We simply don’t have the luxury of ignoring them. We must challenge them head on, expose their distortions, take away their advertisers, and position their views where they belong: far outside the bounds of any rational political discourse.
Beck has been boasting that he took down Jones by simply using Jones' own words and repeating them.
Well, folks in glass houses ought to think carefully about the wisdom of throwing stones, if you know what I mean.
The catalog of Glenn Beck's toxic discourse is long and nasty. When it comes to giving advertisers something to think about, the well is deep and dark. No doubt a lot of it is going to be bubbling back up into public view soon.
Because nothing brings down the liars and crooks like the light of day, shining brightly under the rocks whence they crawl.
These wingnuts are just getting warmed up. That was self-evident yesterday on Fox, when not just Glenn Beck, but Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly piled on as well. These guys are now headed straight for the rest of Obama's progressive appointees, and ultimately are after Obama himself.
Beck had on Michelle Malkin to help him line up the next row of victims, who appear primarily to be John Holdren and Valerie Jarrett. Hannity, too, clearly has Jarrett in his sights; he featured a clip from her chat at Netroots Nation, talking up the value of having someone like Van Jones in the administration.
But really, this bus isn't just aimed at progressive appointees. It's directed ultimately at Obama himself. Beck made that clear in his segment with O'Reilly (who miraculously comes off as the voice of reason in all this), when he essentially admitted that the purpose of this whole campaign is to paint Obama as a closet Marxist who secretly wants to transform America into a communist state.
In other words, this is about delegitimizing the Obama presidency. That's been their purpose from Day One, and they appear to be right on schedule. With a helping hand from the Obama White House itself.
Rep. Mike Pence has been on the forefront of pushing this Van Jones scandal created by Glenn Beck (good to see he gets his walking papers from such an impeccable source, isn't it?), calling for his resignation and saying that Jones' "extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this Administration or the public debate."
On Friday, Pence, who describes himself as “Christian, Conservative, Republican, in that order,” said Jones’s “extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate.” Beyond the obvious here (the hate-filled rhetoric we see every day from racist, right-wing wackos, including those in public office), it is an interesting comment considering that Pence is an extremist right-wing evangelical Christian who has taken thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Blackwater’s owner, Erik Prince. Prince has also donated to Pence’s Political Action Committee “Principles Exalt a Nation.” In December 2007, three months after Blackwater operatives gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, Pence and his Republican Study Committee, which serves “the purpose of advancing a conservative social and economic agenda in the House of Representatives,” organized a gathering to welcome Prince to Washington. “Not only has Mr. Prince personally been targeted by partisan warfare repeatedly over the past months, but the use of contracting throughout the government has been under attack by this Congress,” Pence’s committee’s statement said. Should Pence resign for cavorting with and accepting campaign cash from a man who allegedly “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” in the words of a former employee?
