We should use the Dylan Ratigan rant as our Santelli moment (only real). We should use this moment as a catalyst to start a movement - like the Tea Party (except real) - that will advocate against the oligarchy. A movement that will pursue policies to remedy the insane concentration of wealth at the very top. A movement that will seek to take care of the bottom 98%.
Watching Dylan Ratigan's rant gave me some hope. And here is what I think: We need to use this moment to create a movement. Something like the Tea Party, but real.
There must be many, many people out there are fed up as I am. Robber Barons have killed the middle class and crashed the world economy. And no one seems to care. Obama will raise a billion dollars and he will be beholden to the Robber Barons - at best we'll get lip service about jobs. I can't go on much longer. Now that they've crashed the world economy there will be real human suffering for decades to come.
So, is the answer jobs. Well, yes, I want jobs, but that's a minimum - a minimum - of what I want. I want this crazy concentration of wealth at the top to come to an end. I want a broad middle class back. And I want a country that is takes care of its elderly, its children and its poor. That is what I want. I want Eisenhower era taxation on the rich. I want prosecutions of the fraud on Wall Street and I want as much of the money back as we can get.
And here is what I have come to believe. We should not organize as Democrats. The Democrats use us and we get NOTHING in return. We must organize as the bottom 98% and make the Democratic Party responsive to us - if they want our votes, they have to give us something (right now we get nothing - absolutely nothing). And that's not an exaggeration.
We should not support the Democratic Party or Democratic Candidates. We should support organizations that will fight for the poor and the middle class (the bottom 98%) and then support Democratic candidates only when that organization tells us to. We can't keep giving our money and our votes away for free.
Right now we have no bargaining power. We need a movement. We need something like the Tea Party, but real. And we should use this moment - Dylan Ratigan's rant - as a catalyst to start such a movement.