2012: Are progressives learning how to get their message out?

Although the decline of the middle class has been discussed for decades, if Netroots Nation is any indication political progressives are settling on the notion of the American Dream as their metaphor for what's at stake in the current struggles in state and federal legislatures over issues like taxes, public spending, union rights and gay marriage, and what can be won or lost in the next election. Van Jones has been advancing the idea (here is the closing section of his speech this weekend at Netroots) of branding the hundreds -- thousands? -- of progressive organizations that work for change the American Dream Movement (apparently, Equal Rights-Economic Justice-Labor-GLBT-Women's-Peace-Reproductive Rights-Environmental-Veterans-Corporate Accountability-Death Penalty Movement is seen as unwieldy).

Throughout the Netroots gathering, restoring or reviving the American Dream was used as a shorthand by union and economic justice activists to describe their determination to upend the Right's assault middle and working class Americans. Just today, Change to Win, a labor research and organizing coalition that focuses on the plight of middle class, introduced this video:

This afternoon in Minneapolis, progressive congressmembers, represented today by Reps. Raúl Grijalva, Keith Ellison and Jared Polis, launched a series of teach-ins -- Speakout for Good Jobs Now: Rebuild the American Dream -- that will travel the country in the next few months to hear how the economy is affecting average people and to build support for progressive Democrats running for Congress.

On Thursday at 8pm (est), Jones will join MoveOn.org Civic Action and others to launch a Rebuild the Dream campaign to kick start  the American Dream Movement.

The American Prospect devoted its March 2011 issue edited by Robert Kuttner to America's Endangered Middle Class: Why saving it is ground zero of American Politics. If progressives want a winning theme that the Right can't match, as Jacob Hacker argued in the issue, this is it.

Update: Sen. Al Franken was joined by AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Lee Saunders, Wisconsin Education Association Council President Mary Bell, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, UFCW President Joseph Hansen and Bob Kuttner for a keynote session entitled "Attack on America's Middle Class and the Plan to Fight Back," moderated by Ari Melber of The Nation.

Watch live streaming video from freespeechtv at livestream.com

See, also: Progressives Push For Job Growth On Tour by Sarah Kenigsberg (Huffington Post 2011-06-18).

2012: Apparently, we can't

Okay. Let's get this out of our system now. Because in just a few months we're going to be invited again to ignore our lying eyes and vote to extend for four more years what historians will one day call the Bush-Obama Era. And it would be nice, wouldn't it, if we didn't fall for the same bullshit twice.

2012: The United States is an economic basket case.

This can't be good for incumbent Democrats.
Despite what you read in the funny papers, the U.S. economy is still plummeting down Corbet's Couloir. During the 23 months of the bogus "Obama recovery," the average number of jobs created has been about 23,000 a month, a fraction of the 150,000 or so jobs a month it takes just to keep up with population growth, let alone grow the economy. Spending on infrastructure, a key to both job and business recovery, is virtually nil. "In 2010," writes Michael Snyder, "more homes were repossessed than ever before, more Americans were on food stamps than ever before and a smaller percentage of American men had jobs than ever before."

The rich are getting vastly richer while average Americans struggle to get by. Yet the Democrats are betting that the electorate won't be able to stomach pulling the lever for one of the graduates of the GOP's political clown school. But in 2012, once again only one item will be on the agenda: jobs, jobs, and jobs. And if past history is any guide, voters may once again think their only choice is to opt for "change."

The rest of the story: 20 Questions To Ask Anyone Foolish Enough To Believe The Economic Crisis Is Over by Michael Snyder (Business Insider 2011-05-30).