A Plan for the American Dream Movement

Van Jones said attendees at this week’s Take Back the American Dream Conference, which concluded on Wednesday with a rally outside the Capitol, should keep the lessons they learned handy in coming months.

“Save your notes,” Jones said at the conference’s press gathering. “This is the first draft of history.”

Jones, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and founder of the non-profit organization Rebuild the Dream, spoke with other leaders of the progressive movement to rebuild the American Dream about principles and specific plans for mobilization.

“We are at a turning point in America right now,” said Justin Ruben, the executive director of MoveOn.org. “What we see at this conference—this growing American Dream Movement that is more visible here than it has been at any point yet—is really the newest political force in America, one that will drag our political debate back to reality.”

(VIDEO: Jobs, Not Cuts Rally)

Officials at the conference said the movement is continuing to gain momentum, and the “Jobs, Not Cuts” rally that capped the three-day event was proof.

Robert Borosage, co-founder of the Campaign for America’s Future, laid out the three major goals for the American Dream movement:

• Pushing the “jobs, not cuts” agenda with intensive actions and citizen mobilization across the country.
• Engaging one million leaders across the country over the next year in 100 major state and local actions, including pushing back on restrictive voting laws, taking on efforts to curtail the right to organize, and a range of other issues.
• Recruiting and supporting 2,012 progressive “American Dream” candidates in 2012, from school board to Senate.

“Americans all over the country are dreaming of jobs,” said Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO. “We are working together to hold all politicians accountable for putting America back to work.”

Leaders said they intend to act on the crowd-sourced Contract for the American Dream, which was derived from the suggestions of more than 130,000 people and 1,500 house parties—almost double the number of initial gatherings of Tea Partiers.

The movement will continue with days of action nationwide from Oct. 10-16, culminating in a massive day of action on Nov. 17—two months after the Occupy Wall Street protests started and the night before recommendations are due from the Congressional deficit-reduction supercommittee.

Organizers said they intend to hold the supercommittee accountable for creating jobs and asking the wealthy to pay their fair share rather than suggesting further damaging cuts.

Jones and other movement leaders agreed that the conference and movement would not have been the same three weeks ago, before the Occupy Wall Street protests began. There’s now an explosive energy for the movement’s ideals of protecting the middle class, taking an “enough is enough” mentality with corporate greed.

But Jones, who dubbed the coming months-long period of activism the “American Autumn,” warned that this first draft of history is indeed a draft.

“Be patient,” he told reporters after the conference. “We’re nine weeks old.”

In an interview with Campus Progress, Jones said the goals of the movement are really “goalposts” and that more details about policy aims and specific actions will emerge in coming weeks.

What’s important at this moment, Jones said, is working to harness the raw energy of the moment, to amplify the “Jobs, Not Cuts” rallying cry, and to tap into Americans’ basic desire for change.

“Listen, most Americans wouldn’t know [Senate Republican Leader] Mitch McConnell if he ran over their dog,” Jones said. “We want to reach the Laundromat and sports bar crowd.”

Jones said the American Dream Movement should also aim to support the Occupy Wall Street movement, but without trying to take it over.

“It’s not their job to come up with strategies for derivatives reform,” Jones said of the protestors, noting that it’s unfair to ask them to make specific policy demands. “They are focusing attention on the problems of joblessness and hopelessness.”

Emily Crockett is a staff writer with Campus Progress. Follow her on Twitter @emilycrockett.

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