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You’ve probably heard by now about the One Nation Coming Together event in Washington today, which brought either “thousands” or as many as 200,000 people to the National Mall for jobs, justice and education. Regardless of the comparison to the Beck rally in August, One Nation appears to have been a success, getting labor and progressive groups fired up before the midterms.
I attended the largest rally associated with One Nation outside of DC. At LA City College, a multicultural variety of labor members and progressives gathered for a similar rally, which culminated in Get Out the Vote events throughout the city. I’m terrible at estimating, but I’d put it at 1,500 people.
Behind stages proclaiming “One” and “Demand Change,” labor leaders, activists, actors like Danny Glover, musicians like Tom Morello and politicians like Maxine Waters rallied the crowd, calling for better jobs, equal rights and social justice. A young man named Diego from the Latino Equality Alliance typified the views of the speakers. “I’m 23, undocumented, queer and unafraid,” said Diego, a student at UCLA with a 3.8 grade point average. “Can our country risk losing students like me?”
In addition to social issues like immigration and gay rights, the big topics at the One Nation LA event were jobs and foreclosures. One woman, who described herself as “one of the few” to get a loan modification from the government’s HAMP program, said she wanted to see others get the same treatment. Another woman, Deborah Beer from ACCE (basically the reconfigured remnants of ACORN), spent a year with JPMorgan Chase trying to get her own modification. She started organizing with other troubled borrowers, and she proudly announced that JPMorgan was stopping foreclosure proceedings in 23 states (the crowd seemed well aware of the foreclosure fraud issue). “That doesn’t mean the foreclosure crisis is over,” Beer cautioned, but she vowed to keep fighting.
The labor-heavy crowd (I saw members from SEIU, ULTCW, UAW, CWA, USW, AFSCME, CSEA, UFCW and AFTRA) was certainly far more progressive than the mainstream Democratic Party, although statewide campaigns in California like Jerry Brown’s and Gavin Newsom’s were there, along with representatives from Organizing for America. I saw signs that said “Recall Reagan’s tax cuts,” and a T-shirt about Race to the Top that said “It’s a Right, Not a Race.” Activists from the stage called on the President to bring home troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, and close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. My favorite sign said “TEA: Tax Executives a Lot,” Which actually spells TEAL, but I’ll give the sign holder the benefit of the doubt.
“We are here today to fight for good jobs for everyone, a secure home, justice for all people and quality education for our children,” said LaPhonza Butler, the President of the SEIU Long-Term Care Workers. And after the event, participants did just that. They trained to canvass neighborhoods and then went out in the community to get out the vote.
Danny Glover summed up the event by saying it was a chance to “continue to fight for the change we voted for in 2008.”
Some pictures below.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA)
crowd
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Any talk of Prop 19, or was that vorboten by the PTB?
TEA baggers say Taxed Enough Already. Tax Executives alot, TEA, could be Tax Executives Abundantly or Tax Executives Appropriately.
But were there any Real Americans™ ? /s
O/T They have got their hooks firmly into us, the taxpayers, and they aren’t going to let go.
Count on Sequels to TARP
. . .
“Our roster of bailout candidates includes the clearinghouses, created under Dodd-Frank, that are meant to increase the oversight of derivatives trading. Because most derivatives transactions are expected to go through these clearinghouses, they will be “systemically important” under the law. As such, Dodd-Frank specifically provides that “in unusual or exigent circumstances,” the Federal Reserve may provide such entities with a financial backstop, including borrowing privileges.
“Remember this: Financial backstop is just another term for a taxpayer bailout. And the major banks and brokerage firms are the members of the clearinghouses, so a backstop would essentially be for them.”
LINK.
Blackwater and other “security” firms kicked out of Afghanistan.
Alot. lol. We have our own tea-bonics.
Release the Animal Spirits…
Set the prisoners free!!
Attended the rally in DC. I would guess at least 80 thousand, Maybe even 100 thousand or more.
The speakers were generally good, but no specifics about HOW we are to create the radical change they were advocating other than voting in November. I can choose between a the doggiest Blue Dog or a Republican and know that either will vote to cut social security and cheer-lead endless war. No third party on the ballot. I will write in a name, but this cannot be all I can do.
But Vote Democratic was the message, nothing more. My teenage son surveyed the tens of thousands of demonstrators and joked, “There are enough people here to state a revolution in this town.”
That started me thinking and contrasting this boring, polite, ultimately meaningless rally with what is going on in Europe. I do not advocate violence or the destruction of property. This is wrong and not productive.
But what if the speakers had talked about the need for non-violent civil disobedience? What if they had advocated that as many people as possible stay on the mall, to establish a Camp for Jobs and Justice, as Martin Luther King was planning before he was killed?
What if they had preached non-violence and the way to peacefully resist arrest? What if they had explained what happens when you are taken into police custody and how to respond to questions and police treatment?
What if they said that tents and food were being delivered, that the porta-potties would be maintained, and that we were staying as long as possible?
What if they announced that those who chose to stay and those who could act as reinforcements later, would remain until Congress passed a massive job creation bill and pledged not to touch social security?
That would require commitment, discipline and sacrifice from large numbers of people. The question is, are Americans ready for that? If not, how can we create a mass movement that would be?
In my town I saw a new bumper sticker, “End the Fed.” He looked Republican to me.
You must have missed the Native American comic.
I think you completely misjudged the purpose of the rally. If they had done what you say, it would be incredibly counterproductive. Sure it would get the news cameras, and the Tea Bagger treatment, that is not what this rally was about.
The purpose of it was to bring movement leaders together from all over the country to encourage them in a get out the vote effort.
The idea that there was no unifying message is not true either, the message was to vote Democratic this election. I know it is the message because I put it forward. We even have a slogan, “Democrats bad, Republicans worse.” We have leadership, this rally was a meeting of the guard.
If they did what you suggest, not only would it take all kinds of energy away from their get out the vote efforts – what the next month will be properly focused on, but it also would bring disastrous press to them. I guess that is why you suggested it.
Yesterday was bullshit.
I was so disappointed.
Wish I’d stayed home.
Next time I will.
Yep.
That’s ALL it was.
A Democratic Rally. For some reason I’m not even remembering now I was thinking it was going to be something different.
A Democratic pep rally.
Yeah, like I wanted to be part of that bullshit.
These Democrats deserve a pink slip, not a pep rally.
I was initally told it was a rally for Jobs, so my unemployed husband, myself and two teenagers made the trip. The day before the rally I watched MSNBC and became aware the rally was just a GOTV for Democrats.
It’s absurd. One speaker got cheers for saying social security should not be tampered with, that the retirement age should not be raised and there should be no change in the cost-of-living increase.
But my Democratic congressman, John Adler, says on his website that he would support the changes recommended by the catfood commission, and they apparently include — wait for it — raising the retirement age and reducing the yearly Cost of living increase.
This is insane. I come to a rally and am told that social security should not be touched but the only thing that it is apparently so very important that I do is vote for John Adler, who is on record to do exactly that!
And you do not see the absurdity of this?
By the way, what I described is exactly what Martin Luther King was in the midst of planning prior to his assassination. Others told him it was “counter-productive” as you just did, but King did not agree with them. He was determined to go ahead with the poor people’s march ending with civil disobedience, a tent-city of poor people and activists, that would almost certainly end in mass arrests.
It’s a commentary on how far to the right the American public is, including most progressives, that an idea advanced by the patron saint of progressivism, Martin Luther King, is considered extreme and politically counter-productive.
This is why there is nothing like the civil rights movement today, and it is why Americans sit by watching while their social safety net is shredded, while the rich amass a greater and greater share of the wealth and there is more and more economic inequality.
King is somewhere turning in his grave at what purports to be liberal and progressive at this time in history.
PS: Next time you organize a rally, indicate in the emails that the rally is going to be about re-electing Democrats. Then my family and I could have stayed home.