Letter fromfrom Heartland Heartland A Letter the the American

The predatory accumulation of wealth and power by a tiny fraction of our population is on an alarming path of exponential growth. At the same time, our access to the essential resources which provide the bedrock of our prosperity is on a clearly visible path of longterm decline. Jobsthe lifeblood of our middle and working classesare shuffled around the world like pawns in a game of corporate chess, seeking the minimization of labor cost in the poorest of countries, while providing goods and services to the most profitable markets of prospering elites. Despite rapidly rising productivity, wages have remained stagnant for more than 30 years. Now massive and persistent unemployment and underemployment make a mockery of what was once thought of as the American Dream. Education, hard work, and personal sacrifice no longer assure a secure standard of living. Where each generation could once expect a better life than the one that came before, we now bequeath to our children a world where their future is likely to be poorer than the past. Health care costs rise relentlessly each year and ever greater numbers of us are forced into the ranks of the uninsured and uninsurable, facing physical and financial ruin at the whim of fate. At the same time, public subsidies for education at every level continue to decline, foreclosing on the promise of upward mobility. Global environmental sustainability is sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit... and the seas are rising around us. ur historic twoparty system now exhibits the undeniable signs of longstanding internal rot and decay. One pillar of the systemthe Republican Party, the socalled Grand Old Partyhas been hijacked by corporatelyfunded antiintellectual extremists who summarily reject the founding principles of American democracy, historically grounded in a philosophical commitment to human rationality. The other pillar the socalled Democratic Partyis fatally divided: its dominant centrist faction appears to be held in an inescapable deathgrip by the global financiers of Wall Street. What remains of its progressive wing has grown too weak and timid to defend the interests of the vast majority against the unconstrained rapacity of the corporate elite. Our protections against cynical corporate funding and domination of public discourse and elections have recently been stripped from us by our highest court. The essential principle of the equal rights of all natural persons before the law, has at last been fully extended to the contrived legal fabrication of corporate personhood, while the voting rights of students and the poor are systematically revoked with fabricated claims of voter fraud. Our mainstream corporate media, in base abandonment of their calling to the fourth estate, uncritically accept, endorse, and propagate this cynical political charade.

he view from the American heartland today is a grim one, lying almost beyond our poor powers of description.

n the face of these grim realities, wethe people of the United States, the great mass of its diligent and industrial middle and working classespause in the faithful execution of our daily duties to rise in protest against this disgraceful and intolerable state of affairs. We commit ourselves to the development and support of a program of public education and political activism in steadfast opposition to the domination of our country by corporate elites. We propose to convene a nonpartisan coalition of diverse constituenciesmen and women of all races; students and teachers; workers, professionals, and unemployed; religious and non-religious; straight, lesbian and gayall under the campaign banner of Jobs Now!: real jobs, good jobs, living wage jobs, environmenContinued on the other side

Continued from the other side tally sustainable jobs that fulfill the promise of providing each and every one of us with a reasonable share of our collective social prosperity. We demand the immediate adoption of Full Employment as the overriding national economic policy goal. This demand, together with the implementation of effective enabling policy, will be known going forward as The Heartland Agenda. We invoke long-standing principles of legal, nonviolent, direct action in advancement of our cause. We issue a nonpartisan call to our current political leadership to join us in this campaign, or risk implacable opposition and electoral defeat. We encourage and implore our fellow citizens to shake off the sense of futility which now pervades our public discourse, and lend your full-throated voices to this campaigna Heartland Campaignfor the hearts and minds and souls of our people, our country, and our world. And to this end we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our personal honor. We, the People Kansas City, Missouri October, 2011
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