Rebuild the Dream (34 page)

But when it is time for them to pay their taxes, suddenly all of those dollars wind up in some tax shelter in somebody else's country. When it is time for them to create a job somewhere, surprise, surprise, all the jobs they want to create are in somebody else's country. When it is time for them to invest in new infrastructure and build factories, they cannot seem to find the United States of America on a map.

The American Dream works only when good employers are willing to pay good wages and fair taxes. The refusal of these unpatriotic corporations to pay either jeopardizes the American Dream.

Do you know what we used to call a country where global corporations were free to do whatever they wanted to do, where unions were systematically undermined, and where the government was being starved of tax revenue and other resources? We used to call those places “Third World countries.”

That is the vision that the cheap patriots hold for the United States. Their agenda would turn America into a textbook Third World nation: no rules for the rich, no rights for the poor, and no middle class to speak of. That's their utopia. They paint that up in all these patriotic colors and call it economic liberty. But it would be economic slavery.

If they want to live in a country like that, they are free to move to one. There are plenty of places in the world that already work that way. Just be forewarned, if you move there, you will end up working for pennies a day; you could be fired legally for any reason or for no reason at all; your kids will drink poisoned water; your kids' toys or your appliances might kill a family member; your neighborhood will be cloaked with toxic air.

America is a spectacular country because we've made it a priority to protect labor, equal rights, the environment, and the consumer. That's what makes America great. That's what makes America special. We do not excel only in the area of economic performance; we excel across the board. The cheap patriots want to shrink our zone of national achievement to GDP growth alone and sacrifice every other national value and accomplishment.

The cheap patriots seem to despise most of the American people, hate America's achievements, and fear America's government. How come such people get to be called patriots, but not us?

Pursuit of justice, without regard for individual liberty, can lead to governmental tyranny. But pursuit of individual liberty, with no concern for justice, can lead to corporate domination. The ideas needed to defend our freedoms cannot be one-sided and simplistic.

To the cheap patriots, we can say this:

Our problem is not that you are too patriotic. In a country as great as ours, there is no such thing. Our problem is that you're not patriotic enough. You have your arms around only one section of America. What about the rest of us? You have not embraced the full set of American values. You are talking about liberty, liberty, liberty. That is great. But our Pledge of Allegiance does not stop with the word “liberty.” It says, “liberty and justice for all.”

Finally, the very framework of the 99% needs some clarification and moral nuance. As I said in the introduction, a movement that defines itself as the 99% against the 1% cannot succeed in America. But a movement that defines itself as the 99% for the 100% cannot fail.

The 99%
versus
the 1% argument falls short in a lot of ways. The vast majority of Americans do not oppose their fellow Americans, simply because they are rich. To the contrary, more than perhaps any other people on this Earth, Americans admire success. What we detest is greed. We like economic winners; we hate economic cheaters. We cheer economic innovation; we despise financial manipulation. Like most people, I don't hate rich people who buy yachts. (The workers who build those yachts are
happy.) Americans don't mind when wealthy Americans buy expensive toys; we do mind when they try to buy governors and members of Congress.

There is a reason that both the right and left love Steve Jobs (for all his flaws) and hate Bernie Madoff. There is a reason that the original Occupiers claimed the space at Wall Street, not Silicon Valley. They respect successful entrepreneurs who create sleek and useful products.

Within limits, we like the risks and rewards that come with living in a market economy; we don't mind having winners and losers, but we go ballistic when anyone tries to rig the game. If some of today's super-wealthy outrage us, it is not because of their material success. It is because of their moral failings.

Furthermore, we expect everyone in America—the 100 percent—to do their best, to be good neighbors, and to contribute to the success of our country. In return for enjoying the support of the greatest nation on Earth, we expect those who do well
in
America to do well
by
America. We expect them to pay appropriate taxes, create good jobs here at home, to give something back to this country. In a crisis (such as the present one), we expect everyone to pitch in and help out without whining about it all the time. Those who live up to these duties and expectations have long held a place of honor in our society. Americans always stand with those wealthy patriots who stand with us.

Setting ourselves against the 1% has a logical and a moral limit: there's always a top 1% to be against. Take down the present
top 1%, and there's another 1% just below them. The real enemy is not the wealthy, but the corrupt. The real enemy is not the 1%, but rather those who stand with
only
the 1% and against the rest of us. And many of the 1% are on our side. Like Warren Buffett, there are many patriotic millionaires who think that corporations and the wealthy should be paying their fair share, who know the financial sector should be better regulated instead of rigged against the average investor. There is no need for us to set ourselves against people who actually agree with us. We need everyone in our country to be involved in healing our economy and fixing our democracy. That is our moral challenge: to ensure that everybody is a part of the solution.

In pursuit of this goal, if the 99% movement chose to embrace an American value—defending the American Dream—it would be even more powerful.

The villains are the worst of the 1%: those who care only about those at the very top, and care nothing about the rest of America.

The threat is that these villains will kill off the American Dream of opportunity for all.

The heroes are the 99 Percenters who care about the 100% and are willing to defend the dream.

The vision is the American Dream reinvented, restored, and renewed.

If we are willing to take that kind of stand, and be the 99% for the 100%, willing to fight anybody who wants to hurt America, but also willing to embrace anybody who is willing to be a part of the solution, then this movement will make history. We will be the generation that refused to let the hopes of our forebears die and who found a way to rescue and rebuild the American Dream.

W
E HAVE NO RIGHT TO SURRENDER OUR COUNTRY
to the dream killers.

Obama's supporters went from “hoping” too much in 2008, to “moping” too much in 2010. We skipped the important step in the middle: the one in which we launch the big, uncompromising fight-back for the things we believe in.

The time to take that step is now. It is never too late. We still have a chance to win the future we deserve. We can make America a land where it is safe, once again, to dream.

The American people are still restless, still searching for answers. Their discontent is obvious: so far, we have had three “change” elections in a row. In 2006, the American people voted for change—by giving Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid the reins in the House and the Senate. In 2008, the American people again voted
for change, electing Obama to the highest office in the land. In 2010, Americans voted once more for change, but this time in the opposite direction, handing a win to the Tea Party. And yet the underlying problems are still unsolved and seem further from resolution every day. The wheel keeps spinning. Nobody can predict the outcome of the balloting in 2012, 2014, or beyond.

The meaning is this: we are not in a right-wing period. Nor are we in a left-wing period. We are in a turbulent and volatile period. Those who maintain the courage of their convictions—and who continue to fight for their beliefs, on either side—will maintain the chance to prevail. Only quitters are assured of defeat.

For those of us who want to move America forward, we face two urgent tasks. In our heads, we need to kill the lies that excuse austerity and pave the way for national decline. In our hearts, we need to embrace the next American Dream—and remember the Dream that is America.

First, let's dispense with the lies. Politics in the United States now operates from a baseline assumption that America is suddenly too poor to pay for programs that would create jobs, strengthen the safety net, and build world-class infrastructure.

America is not broke; America is rich.

But that assumption is false; the premise is a lie.

America is not broke. America is the richest country in the world—the richest country in the
history
of the world.

Some people point to the federal government's deficit as an excuse for reckless cutbacks that would wipe out essential services for the 99%, while killing jobs in the public and private sectors. It makes little sense to devastate America's social programs; they are
not responsible for this mess. We didn't break the bank by helping grandma too much. Bush's wars and his tax cuts for the rich were responsible for wiping out the Clinton surplus and throwing us into the red. For those who believe the deficit is the number-one threat to America, their first goal should be as simple as this: go back to Clinton-era tax rates and military expenditures, and leave grandma alone. If we did that, by some estimates, we could pay the deficit off in about ten years, without destroying programs that are vital for everyday Americans.

Repeating the falsehood that America is broke is like telling people stuck in a burning building that all the exits are locked—when they aren't. Just repeating the statement, over and over again, makes people feel helpless. It freezes them in place and keeps them standing in harm's way, when there
is
a way out.

It bears repeating: America is rich, not broke. Everyone is so worried about China. Our economy is as big as two Chinas—and almost as big as all of Europe. Still, if “we” are broke, why are only some of us suffering, losing our homes and jobs and schools and healthcare, while others enjoy wealth beyond the wildest dreams of any previous generation?

Those Americans who have fallen out of the middle class—down into foreclosure, down into joblessness, down into despair—didn't trip and fall. They were pushed by high-priced lobbyists who rigged the game against them.

In other words: this is not a crisis; this is a scam. We are not broke; we were robbed. And somebody has our money. After all, who has the money that used to be in our pockets, in our schools, in our retirement accounts? Here is a subtle hint: who got a big bonus last year? Who got a new, private jet?

This is not a crisis; this is a scam.

Where is all of America's money going, anyway?

• Wall Street bankers were handed $144 billion in compensation in 2010—that's a record high.

• More than $1.3 trillion have disappeared into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, creating obscene profits for shady defense contractors like Halliburton and Xe (the company formally known as Blackwater, or whatever its new name is this week).

• Another big chunk vanished as tax cuts for the richest Americans. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy have stripped the national treasury of an additional $42 billion each fiscal year.

And let us not forget those offshore tax havens. Journalist Tim Dickinson, writing for
Rolling Stone
in November 2011, writes about the worst of the 1%: banksters J. P. Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs. He says,

[They] have $87 billion in untaxed profits stockpiled offshore. That's similar to the combined offshore profits of drug giants Pfizer and Merck at $89 billion. Tech giants Cisco and Microsoft have more than $61 billion they'd like to bring home [tax-free], while Big Oil companies Exxon and Chevron have $56 billion. The company with the most to gain, by far—with offshored reserves of $94 billion—is corporate America's most notorious tax scofflaw, GE.