Front page of the Huffington Post from Sept. 28.

As civil demonstrations and unrest spread across the globe, the Occupy Wall Street protest is spreading across the US. Rallies in solidarity with the Wall Street protesters are being organized in dozens of cities– including the Old Pueblo.

Occupy Tucson supporters are holding a “meeting” at the southwest corner of Stone and Congress in downtown Tucson on Saturday, October 1, beginning at 9 a.m. In just a few days, 282 people have joined the Tucson facebook page for this event.

For more information about the local and national movement, check out the Occupy Together website. The site has a list of protests, printable protest signs, and videos and photos of multiple protests around the country. In addition to spreading geographically, the Occupy movement is broadening, as unions join the “hippies and hipsters” (original corporate media label for the protesters).

UPDATE, October 1: The Occupy Tucson facebook group has added almost 200 members in the 24 hours since this post went up. They also now have their own website, OccupyTucson.org. It says that the meeting may move to one of the nearby parks– like by Veinte de Agsto Park, or the main library park–since the original location (Stone and Congress) was on private property.

Now in its 11 day, 1000s of protesters continue to occupy Wall Street to protest the corporate greed that is running our country into the ground. Understandably, since most media is run by corporations, there has been a news blackout about our “Arab Spring”. This is not unlike the media blackout surrounding the early pro-union protests in Wisconsin and sympathy rallies in 66 cities across the US.

Here are some links from the Huffington Post. Their bloggers have been covering the Occupy Wall Street story, although it has been absent from the Huff Po front page– until yesterday when there was a small thumbnail story (probably due to the 14,000+ facebook Likes and the 7,700+ facebook Shares).

Occupy Wall Street Protest Escalates On Eighth Day (VIDEO)

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Dig In As Tensions Rise With NYPD (PHOTOS)

Here is today’s story from The Nation, who rightly points out dismal coverage of Occupy Wall Street by the New York Times.

Correcting the Abysmal ‘New York Times’ Coverage of Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street website has Live Streaming Video.

The photos and videos on these links are dramatic. It kinda makes ya wonder why we are hearing all of this yammering by the right about class warfare– against the rich– because we want to eliminate their Bush II tax cuts, which hearing no news related to Wall Street’s war on the rest of us.

I hope you can view the video that I linked to above. I had to sign in to You Tube to see it because You Tube said it may be “inappropriate”. (I thought that You Tube labeling anything inappropriate was a real lark. Come on, isn’t “inappropriateness” part of You Tube’s charm?)

Hmmmm… anyway, I didn’t see anything inappropriate in the video– unless you call NY police arresting people holding American flags and chanting “We are the 99%” (referring to the 99% of Americans who are not rich) inappropriate. (You can also check out other videos by the same videographer here.)

Approximately 25 stalwarts representing National Nurses United, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), and MoveOn.org braved 108 degree temperatures to protest outside of US Senator Jon Kyl’s suburban Tucson office on September 1, 2011.

The lcoal demonstration was part of a national movement to encourage Congress to think about Main Street– rather than Wall Street– when making spending (and cutting) decisions in the near future. Kyl’s office was chosen as the site for the local demonstration because he has been appointed to the Super Congress, which will make tough spending and cutting decisions this fall.

Kyl’s staff locked themselves in a conference room as peaceful protesters knocked on the office door and chanted outside.

Since Kyl’s staff refused to open the doors and listen to local constituents, activists left dozens of Post-It Note messages on his door encouraging him to save social safety net programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and unemployment), tax the rich and corporations to raise revenue, and put Americans back to work.

To watch other videos from around the country, click here.

‘Nuff said.

On August 31, 2011, join Progressive Democrats of America Tucson Chapter, local MoveOn activists, and local nurses at Jon Kyl’s Tucson office (yes, he has one) at 6840 N. Oracle Rd., Suite 150, 6 p.m. Click here for a map. Click here to RSVP.

Arizona Senator Jon Kyl is a member of the new Super Congress which will decide our future and the future of our children and grandchildren. Tell Kyl to “have a heart”– not an ideology.

 Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), MoveOn.org, and local nurses are joining forces here in Tucson and nationwide to tell Congress that we are fed up with their coddling Wall Street, their failed 30-year experiment with trickle down economics, and their blatant disregard for Main Street America.

In a pre-Labor Day demonstration on Thursday, September 1, 2011, Tucson nurses and members of PDA and MoveOn will gather at the Tucson office of Senator Jon Kyl to urge him to “have a heart.” Kyl– not know for having a heart, except when it comes to corporate or military welfare– has been appointed to the 12-member Super Congress which will decide on future budget cuts– and hopefully revenue increases– to lessen the federal deficit.

Nationally, nurses are coming together to promote their Main Street Contract and urging all Americans to take the pledge to work toward achieving these goals:

• Jobs at living wages to reinvest in America.
• Equal access to quality, public education.
• Guaranteed healthcare with a single standard of care.
• A secure retirement with the ability to retire in dignity.
• Good housing, and protection from hunger.
• A safe and healthy environment.
• A just taxation system where corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share.

If you want to work toward these goals, come to Kyl’s office at 6840 N. Oracle Rd., Suite 150 at 6 p.m. Click here for a map. Click here to RSVP.

Here’s more information about the event in Tucson from the organizers…

As a member of the congressional “Super Committee,” Arizona Senator Jon Kyl has the power to be a “Super Hero” by making corporations and Wall Street pay their fair share. Or he can be a “Super Villain” by enacting budget cuts that will hurt millions of elderly, low income and middle class Americans. Join Progressive Democrats, Southern Arizona MoveOn, and local nurses for a September 1st “Main Street” action at Senator Jon Kyl’s office in Northwest Tucson. Tell Senator Kyl and the rest of the Super Committee to “Have a Heart.” We will be writing heart-shaped “heartfelt” messages to Sen. Kyl asking him to defend vital programs and make corporations and Wall Street pay their fair share.

Meet at 6 p.m. in front of Senator Jon Kyl’s office in Tucson for a speak out and sing along. We will videotape the event and send footage, along with a care package of heart-shaped letters asking Sen. Kyl to “have a heart” and defend social programs.

Let’s make sure our member of Congress is standing up for us by creating more jobs and putting our economy back on track for us—not just the rich and big corporations. I hope you can join me and other local MoveOn members.

Here’s background from PDA…

In more than 60 locations from Maine to California, the 170,000 registered nurse members of National Nurses United will be hosting events aimed at healing the damage done on Main Streets all over America by Wall Street’s special interests.

It may be that summer is coming to a close and fall is just around the corner, but for millions of people all over the country, months of economic hardship have made simple pleasures like holiday weekends or even backyard barbecues all but fond memories as homes are foreclosed, savings depleted and families struggle to make it from day to day. This is not the reality we want for our neighbors, our communities or ourselves. It is not the future we want for our children or our nation.

Not everyone has suffered, though. Quite the contrary. Those with the highest incomes and the most wealth have seen their fortunes expand even as millions lost what had taken them years to attain. So, if we are to challenge and to change the course before there is no turning back, we have to come together with our allies and fight to take this nation back.

PDA will join the nurses in these actions and events to show our solidarity. And, PDA fully supports the nurses’ Main Street Contract for America campaign, (click here to take the personal pledge). We stand with all who have suffered and are still suffering financial trauma and job loss, healthcare injustice, retirement insecurity, inadequate or unsafe housing situations, and other preventable damages to our communities. Nurses bring compassion, caring and community with them as they host events, and as any of us lucky enough to have been part of previous actions can attest, the nurses also bring passion, clarity and joy to the struggle.

For those for whom it is impossible to get to one of the many sites for the events, it is also possible to participate virtually by signing and sharing a petition in support of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) structured strongly enough to make sure that those who caused the damage on Main Street are the ones who pay to repair that damage. The FTT could raise more than $350 billion dollars to help all of our communities. If you tweet, you can also use the Twitter petition targeted to Representative David Camp as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee to Support the Wall Street Transaction Tax. And better still, send these links far and wide within your own networks of friends and allies. This campaign is growing stronger every day, and the nurses want us all on board.

Let’s make this the best possible pre-Labor Day celebration of our shared commitment to one another. Join in. There is no time to waste.

Given: System-wide, US healthcare costs have been on an upward trajectory for decades.

Given: The #1 reason Americans go bankrupt is that they cannot pay their medical bills.

Given: As we grow older, our healthcare (and health insurance) costs increase.

Given: Baby Boomers are entering their Golden Years, and between 2010 and 2040, the US population over 65 years of age will double.

Given: Fiscal hawks at the state and federal level want to reduce, dramatically change, or eliminate government-backed health insurance (Medicare and Medicaid), as well as social safety net programs (ie, Social Security, food stamps, and unemployement).

Given these facts: It is not difficult to see how the colliding forces of an aging population, increasing healthcare costs, and decreasing government support could create a perfect storm in US in the not-so-distant future.

New research published in the September 2011 issue of The American Journal of Medicine gives us a glimpse of what that perfect storm may look like.

Using statistical modeling, scientists from the University of California, San Francisco and Columbia University reported that without significant changes in risk factors or treatments, “…the aging of the US population will result in a sizeable increase in coronary heart disease incidence, prevalence, mortality, and costs.”

More specifically:

• “…incident coronary heart disease [new cases] is projected to increase by approximately 26%, from 981,000 in 2010 to 1,234,000 in 2040…
• “Prevalent coronary heart disease [is projected to increase] by 47%, from 11.7 million to 17.3 million.
• “Mortality will be affected strongly by the aging population; annual coronary heart disease deaths are projected to increase by 56% over the next 30 years, from 392,000 to 610,000.
• “Coronary heart disease-related health care costs are projected to rise by 41% from $126.2 billion in 2010 to $177.5 billion in 2040 in the United States.”

The public health and economic consequences of these projections are staggering– particularly if extremist Teapublicans like Congressman Paul Ryan and sheep-like followers (including Arizona’s own Jeff Flake) have their way.

Let’s assess the current situation…

• 52 million Americans don’t have health insurance.
• 61% of bankruptcies in the US due to medical costs.
• 9.1% of Americans are unemployed.
• Teapublicans– with the help of President Obama– want to fix the “deficit problem” by cutting entitlement programs WITHOUT cutting military spending or raising revenues or creating jobs (which would boost the economy).

If you think income disparity and greed are destroying our country now, just wait. If Teapublicans like Michelle “down with entitlements” Bachmann, Rick “minimum wage” Perry, Mitt “the oligarch’s baby” Romney, Sarah “cut NPR to balance the budget” Palin, Jeff “I was against austerity before I was for it” Flake*, and, of course, FOX “the poor need to pay their fair share” News have their way, there will be literally millions of sick, elderly Americans living at the subsistence level without healthcare services or medicine.

Is this the future we want?

The balanced budget deal passed earlier this month is the only one in history that includes cuts in spending and no increases in revenue. We need sanity in government, and I’m not sure we’ll get it from the Gang of 12.

We need to put people back to work– at good-paying jobs (not the kind Perry created in Texas)– so they can contribute to the economy and contribute to Medicare and Social Security through their paychecks. To control healthcare costs, we need universal healthcare– instead of this hybrid system that allows insurance companies to continue their rape of the American people. We need to eliminate the Bush era tax cuts for the rich and cut tax loopholes for individuals and corporations. We need to end the wars and cut military spending.

Yes, we need sanity in government.

* In all fairness, this is also the position of Senators Jon Kyl, John McCain, and Mitch McConnell and Congressmen John Boehner and Paul Ryan.

This graphic, based upon Department of Labor statistics, shows that overall middle class income has decreased with union membership.

According to Michael Moore, the beginning of the end was 30 years ago yesterday. On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers who had defied his back-to-work order. They had been on strike only two days. From Michael Moore’s The Day the Middle Class Died.

From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, “When did this all begin, America’s downward slide?” They say they’ve heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent’s income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how “lowly” your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.

Young people have heard of this mythical time — but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, “When did this all end?”, I say, “It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981.”

Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to “go for it” — to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.

And they’ve succeeded.

Thirty years of trickle down economics later…

Productivity is up, wages are in decline, union membership continues to decline, corporate profits are breaking records, unemployment and housing forclosures are ravishing the middle class, Americans are going bankrupt due to sky-rocketing medical costs, and income disparities between the richest 1 percent and the rest of us are ever-widening.

Meanwhile, Congress– owned by big business and paralyzed by ideology– fiddles while Rome burns.

Americans are weary from grinding recession and disenchanted [putting it mildly] with our out-of-touch government. After the recent debt ceiling fiasco and the shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to an ideological, anti-union battle, a full 14 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to a recent CNN poll. (A commentator on National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show quipped that the 14 percent who said they approved of Congress’ performance must not have understood the question.)

And why shouldn’t we feel disenfranchised by this corporate-controlled government? In poll after poll taken during the protracted debt/deficit battle, Americans said they favored a balanced approach to deficit reduction– one that decreased spending + increased revenues– but that’s not what we got in the end. What we got was a Tea Party dream, a deficit reduction deal based solely on cuts which will likely cost the US 1.8 million jobs. Congressional Teapublicans– including five from Arizona (Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Phil Gossar– even scared Wall Street and financial markets worldwide with their intransigence and extremism.

From Noam Chomsky’s America in Decline…

For the public, the primary domestic concern is unemployment. Under current circumstances, that crisis can be overcome only by a significant government stimulus, well beyond the recent one, which barely matched decline in state and local spending – though even that limited initiative probably saved millions of jobs.

For financial institutions the primary concern is the deficit. Therefore, only the deficit is under discussion. A large majority of the population favor addressing the deficit by taxing the very rich (72 percent, 27 percent opposed), reports a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Cutting health programs is opposed by overwhelming majorities (69 percent Medicaid, 78 percent Medicare). The likely outcome is therefore the opposite.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes surveyed how the public would eliminate the deficit. PIPA director Steven Kull writes, “Clearly both the administration and the Republican-led House (of Representatives) are out of step with the public’s values and priorities in regard to the budget.”

The survey illustrates the deep divide: “The biggest difference in spending is that the public favored deep cuts in defense spending, while the administration and the House propose modest increases. The public also favored more spending on job training, education and pollution control than did either the administration or the House.”

The final “compromise” – more accurately, capitulation to the far right – is the opposite throughout, and is almost certain to lead to slower growth and long-term harm to all but the rich and the corporations, which are enjoying record profits.

Is Tucson the new ‘Hooverville’?

Homeless shanty towns-- Hoovervilles-- sprang up during the Great Depression. (Photo Credit: Dorthea Lange for the Farm Security Administration.)

What has all of this got to do with life here in Tucson? Plenty. Two recent studies show that: 1) Tucson has the highest rate of poverty of any major city in the sunbelt and 2) Tucson has the “sickest” housing market in the US.

These statistics– coupled with Arizona’s Starve-the-Beast-Feed-the-Capitalists state government and Teapublican Congressional representatives–Gosar (CD1), Franks (CD2), Quayle (CD3, Schweikert (CD5), and Flake (CD6)– paint a pretty bleak future for the Old Pueblo.

What can we do about it? A few weeks ago at a City Council meeting, political activist Jim Hannley suggested that the Tucson Mayor and Council set up a citizens’ commission to study local poverty (Check out the video at about 3:16 minutes in part 2.) In 2007, then Tucson City Councilman Steve Leal’s office compiled a “Poverty and Urban Stress” report. With dozens of statistical graphics, the 90+ page document details poverty, educational attainment, crime, and other urban stress indicators citywide and by Council ward. At the time, the Arizona Daily Star lauded the report and the City Council agreed to revisit the report annually… but didn’t. That was 2007– before the market crash of 2008 and the ensuing recession. Obviously Tucson’s economy– as well as the state’s and the nation’s– has slid since the report was created.

Repeatedly, the Tucson City Council has bowed to local business interests, at the expense of citizens and workers. The City’s budget– like the state’s and the nation’s– has been cut by cutting jobs, thus worsening our economy by increasing unemployment.

It’s time for Tucson’s Mayor and Council to take the long view on our economy. Leal’s report should be updated and expanded to include multi-year trend data. After the update, a citizens’ commission focusing on poverty, the local economy, and jobs should be created to study the data and make recommendations based upon economic research and best practices from other cities.

As Tucson celebrates its 236th birthday this month, it’s time for Tucsonans to stop grumbling, to start fighting for economic and social justice, and to take a lesson from The Little Engine that Could: I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

It’s highly ironic that the current social and political battle over our nation’s debt and deficit is occurring this week with the 46th anniversary of the signing of Social Security Act of 1965 on Saturday, July 30.

After a long political battle dating from Harry Truman’s presidency to Lyndon Johnson’s, Johnson signed this legislation creating universal, single payer healthcare insurance for the nation’s elderly (Medicare) and indigent (Medicaid).

From The Nation…

With reporters and photographers surrounding them, Johnson took a place beside former President Harry Truman, who the sitting president thanked for “planting the seeds of compassion and duty which have today flowered into care for the sick and serenity for the fearful.” [Emphasis added.]

These healthcare reforms were part of Johnson’s Great Society, which had two primary goals: to eliminate poverty and to eliminate racial injustice. After his landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964, Johnson and his progressive Democratic Congress enacted forward-thinking reforms that were reminiscent of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and began the full-on War on Poverty, which reduced the poverty rate significantly over the subsequent 10 years. Many important Great Society programs– aimed at improving labor, healthcare, and education for poor and working class Americans– are still in existence: Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, student loans for college, work study, and Head Start. These programs were strengthened under Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

It is so sad how far we have fallen from this level of compassion. The programs of Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society– programs that have provided a social safety net for millions of Americans and wiped out many inequities of the past– are now facing a full-frontal attack by conservatives, bankrolled by big business.

Republican Congressmen would have you believe that the nation’s financial problems can be fixed by just cutting spending– specifically dramatically changing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (long-term spending) and dramatically cutting other discretionary (non-military) spending (ie, food stamps, children’s healthcare, food safety, pollution abatement, etc) which actually makes up less than 20 percent of the budget. Oh, yeah, and they want to protect oil subsidies, corporate tax loopholes (which allow multinational corporations like Bank of America to pay no taxes; tax loopholes for the rich; continue the Bush era tax cuts that they fought so hard for in December 2010; dismantle Social Security (so retirement funds for those under 50 can be gambled on the stock market); and offer more tax cuts (more trickle down economics).

At a time of high unemployment, high gasoline costs, high food prices, escalating college education tuition, skyrocketing healthcare expenses, a disintigrating social safety net, and soaring corporate profits– Republicans want workers, the elderly, and the indigent to “tighten their belts” to protect the profits and tax breaks of corporate jet owners, big oil, big pharma, big insurance, and Wall Street gamblers and corporate execs everywhere.

From the Associated Press (via the Arizona Daily Star)…

Two years after economists say the Great Recession ended, the recovery has been the weakest and most lopsided of any since the 1930s.

After previous recessions, people in all income groups tended to benefit. This time, ordinary Americans are struggling with job insecurity, too much debt and pay raises that haven’t kept up with prices at the grocery store and gas station. The economy’s meager gains are going mostly to the wealthiest.

Workers’ wages and benefits make up 57.5 percent of the economy, an all-time low. Until the mid-2000s, that figure had been remarkably stable – about 64 percent through boom and bust alike.

Executive pay is included in this figure, but rank-and-file workers are far more dependent on regular wages and benefits. A big chunk of the economy’s gains has gone to investors in the form of higher corporate profits.

“The spoils have really gone to capital, to the shareholders,” says David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff + Associates in Toronto.

Corporate profits are up by almost half since the recession ended in June 2009. In the first two years after the recessions of 1991 and 2001, profits rose 11 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

And an Associated Press analysis found that the typical CEO of a major company earned $9 million last year, up a fourth from 2009.

Driven by higher profits, the Dow Jones industrial average has staged a breathtaking 90 percent rally since bottoming at 6,547 on March 9, 2009. Those stock market gains go disproportionately to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, who own more than 80 percent of outstanding stock, according to an analysis by Edward Wolff, an economist at Bard College.

But if the Great Recession is long gone from Wall Street and corporate boardrooms, it lingers on Main Street:

• Unemployment has never been so high – 9.1 percent – this long after any recession since World War II. At the same point after the previous three recessions, unemployment averaged just 6.8 percent.

• The average worker’s hourly wages, after accounting for inflation, were 1.6 percent lower in May than a year earlier. Rising gasoline and food prices have devoured any pay raises for most Americans.

• The jobs that are being created pay less than the ones that vanished in the recession. Higher-paying jobs in the private sector, the ones that pay roughly $19 to $31 an hour, made up 40 percent of the jobs lost from January 2008 to February 2010 but only 27 percent of the jobs created since then.

Hard times have made Americans more dependent than ever on social programs, which accounted for a record 18 percent of personal income in the last three months of 2010 before coming down a bit this year. Almost 45 million Americans are on food stamps, another record…

Federal Reserve numbers crunched by Haver Analytics suggest that Americans have a long way to go before their finances will be strong enough to support robust spending: Despite cutting what they owe the past three years, the average household’s debts equal 119 percent of annual after-tax income. At the same point after the 1981-82 recession, debts were at 66 percent; after the 1990-91 recession, 85 percent; and after the 2001 recession, 114 percent. [Emphasis added.]

At a time when Americans can least afford it and the income gap between the richest 1 percent and the rest of us is larger than the Grand Canyon, Republicans are asking for even further financial sacrifices from Main Street Americans AND they are willing to throw the world into financial crisis as they cling to their trickle down ideology of protecting the rich while casting the rest of us aside. If they want to “fix” Social Security, they should put Americans back to work at good-paying jobs. According to 2009 figures from the US Census, 14.3 percent of Americans (and 20.7 percent of American children) are living in poverty; 43 million Americans– the largest number ever.

What can you do about it?

Call your Congressional Representatives today and tell them to vote to:

• raise the debt ceiling (and stop the grandstanding),
• raise revenues (by cutting military spending, eliminating corporate loopholes that allow them to avoid paying taxes, eliminate Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, etc.),
• protect the programs that benefit millions of Americans: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment, college tuition grants, etc.
• solve the deficit problem by putting Americans back to work.

Here are the numbers:
CD8 Gabrielle Giffords: 520-881-3588 (local) or 202-225-2542 (DC)
CD7 Raul Grijalva: 520-622-6788 (local) or 202-225-2435 (DC)

CD6 Jeff Flake from Mesa (We need to lean on this guy who wants to be our next Senator.):
480-833-0092 (in Mesa) or 202-225-2635 (DC)

Senator Jon Kyl 520-575-8633 (local) or 202-224-4521 (DC)
Senator John McCain 520-670-6334 (local) or 202-224-2245 (DC)

What else can you do?

Progressive Democrats of America’s Tucson Chapter is holding a demonstration to show support for protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on Saturday, July 30 from 10 a.m. – noon at the corner of Speedway and Campbell.

MoveOn.org is calling on us– all of us– to visit our Congressional representatives’ offices today, July 26, at noon and tell them to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Don’t let extremist Teapublicans destroy our economy and our country’s social safety net– as they play chicken with President Obama and the world financial markets over raising the debt ceiling. (If you know anyone who lives in John Boehner’s Ohio district, forward it to him.)

From Move On…

This weekend, it became 100% clear that Republicans would rather see America default, Social Security checks stop going out, the stock market plummet, and unemployment soar than give one inch on their position: that the very richest people and most profitable corporations shouldn’t pay one penny more in taxes.

Even after the president offered Republicans a debt-ceiling deal most MoveOn members probably consider unconscionable—with trillions in cuts, even to Medicare and Social Security—speaker Boehner still walked away from the table.

Republicans hope the threat of default will be enough to force Democrats to sacrifice and compromise even more.

But Democrats like Raul Grijalva are standing strong. Rep. Grijalva is one of 80 Democrats who have joined Leader Pelosi in saying that cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits are off the table. Over the next few days, Rep. Grijalva will face extreme pressure to cave into every Republican demand and let irresponsible threats drive terrible decisions in Washington.

That’s why, with other leaders of the American Dream movement, we’re putting out an urgent call for every patriotic American to show up outside progressive congressional offices on Tuesday at noon to deliver a crucial message of support: “Thank you for protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Keep standing strong.”

Can you deliver the message to Rep. Grijalva at his office on Tuesday at noon?

Yes, I can drop by on Tuesday!

We’ll follow up with all the details and a link to print your own “Keep standing strong” signs to bring to Rep. Grijalva.

Then you just have to show up on Tuesday here:

738 North 5th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705

We need to show as much public support as possible, so please pass this along to anyone else you know who could join in on Tuesday. This is a moment when we need to bring the progressive movement together to show our strength and show our boldest leaders that we’re with them. 

Let’s get out there on Tuesday and let leaders like Rep. Grijalva know how important it is to keep standing up to Republican threats. We can’t let Republicans crash the American economy to protect tax giveaways for the rich.

As someone who lives in CD8– Gabrielle Giffords’ district– I received a different version of this MoveOn letter urging CD8 residents to go to her office (3945 E. Fort Lowell Road, Suite 211) to encourage her to support the position that Pelosi and Grijalva have taken. I don’t know how many people will show up at Giffords’ office, but I think it’s a good idea because it emphasizes that CD8 residents need to have a dog in this fight.

Raising the debit ceiling and reducing the deficit by cutting corporate subsidies and tax loopholes for the rich– while protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid– are crucial issues. If you can’t go to your Congressional representative’s office today in person, contact them. Here is their contact information: Raul and Gabby.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' staff sponsored a deficit reduction town hall on June 30, 2011 in Tucson.

The featured speakers at a recent deficit reduction town hall in Tucson– David Walker from the Comeback America Initiative and Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition– were well-versed in how bad the US economy is, the dangers of out-of-control spending, revisionist history on how we got here, and the right-wing solutions for fixing our financial problems.

The ideas covered in the talks (eg, government is too big; we need to cut spending; entitlement programs are burying us economically; healthcare reform costs too much; corporations are taxed too much; Washington is in gridlock) were almost as disturbing as the budget-balancing ideas that were left out (eg, end the wars; drop our inefficient and costly, capitalism-based healthcare system for single-payer national healthcare; put people to work at good-paying jobs, so they can fuel the economy and contribute to Social Security; end the Bush era tax cuts; raise the Social Security contribution cap; close corporate tax loopholes; disincentivize sending US jobs to other countries; end the war on drugs, legalize marijuana and tax it; invest in research to create new good jobs going forward; invest in public education and subsidize college to grow our next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs; end our love affair with trickle-down economics).

Walker repeatedly said that both Democrats and Republicans are to blame for the out-of-control spending that has increased the deficit and the debt. Ironically, Walked never mentioned trickle-down economics or Presidents Ronald Reagan or George Bush #2– two people whose failed economic policies did more to bury our country in debt than anyone else. He said that the deficit and debt were under control until 1982, when magically everything went south– with no mention of who was elected in 1982 and what he [Reagan] did to destroy the economy.

Walker did give Presidents George Bush #1 and Bill Clinton credit for being fiscally responsible and reducing the deficit but didn’t mention that they both raised taxes (something Republicans in Congress refuse to do now). He also never mentioned that after Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich and controlled spending, he oversaw the longest economic boom in US history and handed George Bush #2 a budget surplus. In fact, when Walker mentioned the recent 10-year period where all hell broke loose financially, he left out the role of Bush #2 and his Republican-controlled Congress, who cut taxes, started multiple unfunded wars, spent money we didn’t have, handed pharmaceutical companies a blank check with the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and oversaw the largest economic collapse since the Great Depression. This is revisionist history at its best… or worst.

The evening ended with small-group, interactive deficit-reduction roundtable discussions where people could share ideas. Check out this post which includes a link to the New York Times’ deficit reduction exercise if you want to try your hand at reducing the deficit and debt.

This town hall was awash right-wing ideals. So, why was it sponsored by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ staff? And, why was Giffords’ staff overtly suppressing free speech at the event? It should have been sponsored by the Tucson Tea Party. Check out the video for clips of the speeches and discussion.