Daily Kos

And across the country this week, groups are participating in a "national week of action" to protest both proposed cuts at the state and local level and the failure of Congress to pass both meaningful jobs legislation and responsible revenue measures that would ensure that we all pay our fair share. (In New Jersey, which has the second-highest personal income in the country, Gov. Christie vetoed a "millionaires’ tax bill," which would have assessed less than a one percent tax on people making $1.2 million a year.)

The groups also are pushing back at the media-driven tea party narrative. You know the story. In city after city (and often on government-owned land) small groups are gathering to extol their dislike of government, their right to bear arms, their contempt of anything Obama-related and, often, their fear of anyone who is anything other than white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant.

The media has leapt all over this narrative and often ignored the larger, pro-government, pro-public services protests, despite the fact that very often, we have the numbers and they don’t. (In Trenton, a tea party protest last month drew 400 people while our rally drew at least 35,000. So we outnumbered them by an 87-to-one ration. In Springfield, tea-baggers drew a more impressive 2,000 participants to a rally held at the taxpayer-funded Illinois State Fairgrounds, compared to our side’s 15,000.)

Full disclosure: I work for USAction. We support robust jobs legislation at the national level and our affiliates at the state level are helping organize many of these rallies. New Jersey Citizen Action was one of more than 100 groups involved in the Trenton rally, and Citizen Action/Illinois was involved in Springfield. Not only that, but USAction President William McNary effectively emceed each event.

We’ve seen the controlling narrative: angry Americans protesting taxes and "big government."

"Tea party" participants, including many older Americans who receive assistance from Social Security and Medicare, arguing that government spending is a thing to be feared and despised.

Now Americans from all walks of life are fighting back. Not against the tea party people per se – although in some places that is happening – but against cuts in services at the local and state level that threaten our schools, children, families and communities. These Americans are taking to the streets and filling up public hearings with a simple and increasingly common message:

We want to pay for the things that are important to us. For this to happen, everyone must pay their fair share, including corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

In Springfield, as protestors marched on the state capitol, they chanted, "Show some guts! Stop the cuts!" And in Trenton, USAction’s McNary made a most apt comparison: He linked the crisis in New Jersey to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and to the bridge collapse several years ago in Minneapolis. "The human needs infrastructure in New Jersey is falling apart, and that is a crisis," McNary said.

The clamor for keeping important government services (like schools) operating at current strength is not limited to Springfield or Trenton. Consider:

In Atlanta, protestors last month marked giant "X"s in red paint on buses and trains – indicating which ones would be eliminated if proposed, Draconian cuts to mass transit are implemented.

In Cleveland, hundreds of people this month crammed into a public hearing to oppose the city’s decision to lay off more than 500 teachers in order to make up a $53 million deficit. That decision would result in a 40-1 student-teacher ratio in Cleveland’s classrooms.

In Maplewood, New Jersey, thousands of students across the state cut school one day this week to protest Gov. Christie’s proposed education cuts. "We can’t cut, why can you?" the students chanted.

In conservative enclaves from Burbank, Ca., to Greenville, S.C. taxpayers similarly are protesting proposed cuts to the schools.

In Pennsylvania, USAction partner Penn Action is battling proposed cuts in Supplemental Security Income (which serves 67,000 children), pre-kindergarten programs, Head Start, libraries and adult and family literacy programs.

In Rhode Island, legislators are considering devastating cuts to cities and towns, further cuts to schools and higher education, cuts to public employee pensions, severe cuts to all state agencies, and potential cuts to Medicaid and other social services. Ocean State Actionand the Campaign for Rhode Island’s Priorities are actively opposing the cuts.

So what is being done to stand up for the new silent majority – those Americans who believe that government, effectively managed, can make a difference in people’s lives?

On the ground and in Washington, D.C., much is happening. On the ground, USAction affiliates coast to coast are rallying and organizing to oppose damaging budget cuts. In Washington, D.C., USAction has helped form Jobs for America Now, the nation’s jobs coalition. Jobs for America Now is supporting the Local Jobs for America Act, a $100 billion proposal that would create or save one million jobs in local communities, including in several areas this memo has discussed.

In early May, USAction and its state affiliates launched an intensive national program to train the next wave of urban, suburban and rural activists on how to organize around the most pressing economic issues facing our country. This new wave of activism will advance the broader movement to strengthen American communities and create jobs while reforming and rebuilding our economy.

Meanwhile, we are calling on the media to tell the whole story regarding taxes, joblessness and the role of government in our lives. We’re not holding our breath, though. The demonstrations, rallies and press conferences will continue not until the MSM decides to tell our side of the story but rather, until we put a stop to the hemorrhaging at the state and local level and at the same time get Congress to do its job.

Show some guts, indeed.