Introduction

Prescription for Change

America is one sick country. So many of our so-called "leaders" claim to want to fix her up, but they've got their pockets stuffed so full with corporate cash that they can't figure out the safest way to make it happen and still retain their power and influence.

When Congress has six corporate lobbyists for every single legislator, something is rotten in the state of Denmark*. And that's why America needs YOU, to help her shake off the sickness of corporate corruption and right-wing disease.


Me? What can I do to fix America? I haven't been elected to anything!


Pretty much everybody says that at first. Let me dispel a couple rumors about our government right here:

Number One, we don't elect "leaders" in this country. We elect representatives. Which means that anyone, even you, could represent your district's interests in Washington. There's no rule that says our representatives have to be high-powered lawyers or wealthy businessmen. A legislator in Nevada is a Las Vegas waitress. Patty Murray was a "mom in tennis shoes" before she got into politics. This is our country, so we ought to believe that we can govern it!

Number Two, we are the natural sovereigns of this country, not the rich multinationals, and we decide what happens in government. We elect the representatives, we pass the ballot initiatives, we determine the course of democracy in this country. Why do you think Bush and the neocons had to spread their lies all over the corporate media to fool us into going to war in Iraq? If they were really our "leaders" they could have done whatever they wanted and we would have just had to accept it. But because We the People decide what happens in this country, it's up to We the People to defend it from those who would attempt to destroy it for their own personal gain.

It's up to all of us to get involved and innoculate* our government against the selfish agents of destruction,

like Presidents who lie to get us into war;

like Vice Presidents who collude with energy companies to rip off US taxpayers;

like Supreme Court Justices who use their constitutional powers to get their friends installed in the White House;

like members of Congress who abuse their powers to feather their nests and push through legislation that serves the top 2 percent at the expense of all of us;

and like all those greedy corporations and industry associations that use their vast wealth to influence Congress and rake in billions of undeserved public subsidies, to the detriment of all tax-paying Americans.

If We the People are going to have half a chance at rebuilding our democracy, two things have to happen:

Number One, we have to get active in greater number than we've ever ammassed before;

and Number Two, we're gonna have to fight for a set of Progressive* changes to government that take our country out of the abyss of corporate selfishness and into a new age of wealth and prosperity for all Americans.


So how the heck dow we accomplish that?


First off, we have to decide that this step is actually necessary. Look around you. Is your house bigger, and your mortgage payment smaller, than it was 6 years ago? Are your out-of-pocket medical expenses smaller than they were 6 years ago? Is the air cleaner or the water purer than when Bush and his neocons came into office? Is the climate more stable and less prone to sudden catastrophic weather events?

It's time we accept the fact that We the People have been working harder than ever before and getting nowhere, not because our effort is inferior to those of the wealthy corporate bosses, but rather it's because we've been spending all our time working than engaging in the day-to-day struggle of rebuilding our democracy.

Civil society demands that the people who voice their opinion the loudest see the greatest eventual changes on their behalf. Care for an example? Look no further than Enron and the for-profit utility companies. They wanted the government to loosen their controls over how energy was traded, stored and marketed in this country, and because they had paid out millions in lobbying and public relations costs, they eventually got their wish. Deregulation made a few rich scumbags a whole lot richer, created a massive speculation bubble led by Enron and Kenny Boy Lay, and the People - that's you and me - ended up staring at our utility bills in horror. And those poor unfortunate souls who happened to have their retirement tied up in Enron stock?

They got Screwed.


So what do we do about it?

Look no further than the example of the Civil Rights Movement. There you had a few small groups - SNCC (The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led my Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a few others working to give black people access to the same rights we should all enjoy. But the effort wasn't successful on a wide scale until it really kicked up into a huge, nationwide, rolling grassroots Movement. That's how you effect change in this country for ordinary working and middle-class citizens. We don't have all the money that George Bush and Ken Lay can gain access to, but we have something that all the corporate cash in the world can buy - the People.

You want to get something done in this country, you've got to influence the People. It takes hard-core citizen-led activism - phone calls, emails, letters to the editor, websites, monthly meetings, direct actions, coalitions - all the things people have been doing to move progressive causes forward all around you for all this time, and yet it hasn't quite kicked into full swing, because you haven't lent your energy and your expertise to the cause.

Reading this book, you will no doubt come across some familiar faces, individuals who've distinguished themselves over the last twenty years by being out-and-out populist progressives with a desire to see this country live up to its highest ideals. But along the way, you're sure to come across some individuals you've never heard of. And it's these folks I want you to get to know.

There's Todd Iverson, the Longshoreman who created a new way for working families to get involved in politics. There's Arthur Miller, who parlayed his passion for activism into an annual march that honors unjustly imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier. There's Amy Goodman, whose internationally renowned news program Democracy Now! airs in hundreds of markets nationwide and which delivers hard-hitting, progressive news to a world hungry for honest reporting.

Each of the individuals profiled in this book took the skills they had and their natural talent for activism into a world that seemed to be only interested in power and profit, and they changed the way we think and live. These individuals are my personal heroes because they put it all on the line, for something bigger than themselves. From Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey's death inspired a movement to end the war in Iraq, to Ralph Nader, whose efforts on behalf of consumers have saved countless lives, to the story of my friend Marilyn Kimmerling, who has fought for human rights and economic justice for over forty years, all of these individuals took the path least traveled, the path of compassionate concern for our fellow human beings.

This is the path I'd like you to take, if you have the courage. So read on, my friends, and learn just how easy it can be to change the world.

Chapter One - The Commentators