Dave Johnson, a fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future, sends us this.

The Take Back the  American Dream conference opened Tuesday with a discussion on the “Contract for the American Dream.” Deepak Bhargava of the Center for Community Change began by saying that there is a movement in America today and it’s not the tea party—it’s the American Dream Movement. People are working to build a huge movement that can meet this huge moment.

Our political system captured by powerful interests and angry voices.  The American Dream movement is an effort to knit together the grassroots organizing that is already going on around the country and spark and inspire more. Reaching out to thousands of people through house parties and other events.

Justin Rubin of MoveOn described how the Contract for the American Dream was created by millions of Americans. First, dozens of organizations such as MoveOn and the Center for Community Change asked people what should be in a Contract for the American Dream. 

We put the call out, got 24,617 ideas for how to fix the economy. Ideas were submitted by folks from all walks of life.

Then we debated. We received 6,141,909 ratings online. We had 1,500 local gatherings to debate these ideas and talk about what would make sense in people’s local realities.

All of this boiled down to this contract. These are ideas to create good jobs and make the American Dream real.

We can afford these things. America is not broke. Crucually, those who do well in America must do well by America. But the economy has been hijacked by the wealthiest 1 percent.

The next step is to organize around the contract. Said Rubin:

Millions of people in America understand that something is wrong and are hungry for these ideas. We can change what is happening in Washington by organizing around this contract.  We can make it a household word and the touchstone for organizing the movement we need to build.

Click here to read the contract.

United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard joined in the discussion, emphasizing the nation’s need for good jobs and how a robust manufacturing industry is fundamental to job creation. Gerard said that we need to convince our intellectual elite in the country that manufacturing matters.  The United States has lost 58,000 factories, and 10 million industrial workers have lost their jobs. All those factories paid taxes and each of those workers generated five or six other support jobs. Gerard, who received a standing ovation, concluded:

There is no way out of this economic mess unless we start creating things again and creating economic wealth. We have to push our politicians at every level, we need a manufacturing strategy in this country.

The reality is that of 20 leading industrial democracies, 19 have manufacturing/industrial strategies, and we do not.This mess started 25 years ago, and we have to start now to set things right. We need to revive manufacturing to create good jobs now.

Also on the Contract for the American Dream panel, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) described how the America she grew up in is now fading.

We are falling behind in so many ways.  We don’t want to return to the days of dirty smokestacks and unsafe workplaces. But we cannot accept as a “new normal” this America in which all the growth and wealth has gone to the top. So the Contract for the American Dream is our blueprint. It is a patriotic vision of an America that is yet to come.

Where Rep. Schakowsky spoke of the America she remembers, Erica Williams of the Citizen Empowerment Laboratory spoke to those of us who grew up in the America that we have now. Now people aspire to college but maybe could not afford it. Young people who could afford school come out now and can’t find jobs. People know something is wrong.

When you talk about saving democracy, you are asking what is the hope for those of us who grew up in this America. We are in the moment where we have to rescue our democracy. States are passing legislation that suppresses votes. Voter ID laws are not about IDs, they are suppression. There are some people who are consistently at the short end of every stick. Young people, people of color, working people.