In order to respond, alas, we have to understand, and that means going through the looking glass.
So wrote Richard Kim of the tea party movement's latest bogeyman--the Cloward-Piven strategy, which demagogues like Glenn Beck proclaim is the strategy for destroying America and putting in place totalitarian socialism. It sounds ridiculous, Richard notes, and that's precisely why it has such power.
He joins us in studio to explain where this grand conspiracy theory came from, and how it plays into larger threads within the rise of the organized, angry right under the Obama administration.
Max Rameau is a longtime activist for land rights and housing, and with mortgages, foreclosures, gentrification and construction playing such a huge role in New York's response to the economic crisis, who better to take us on a walk around the Lower East Side?
On a recent visit to the city from his hometown of Miami, the founder of Take Back the Land joined Laura and organizer JoAnn Lum of the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops and Beyond Ground Zero, and talked about housing issues across the country.
Since the earthquake in Haiti in January, we've been bringing you updates from the Ciné Institute, a remarkable organization that has helped Haitians tell their own story of recovery and rebuilding. In this segment, we see the story of one young volunteer who spends her days helping her neighbors, providing care and lifting spirits.
Finally, what does trust mean when it comes to politics anyway? Laura has some thoughts.
Thanks for covering this; it’s important. You asked a good question in the interview: Are the Tea Party right’s anti-democratic tactics (especially intimidation and violence) similar to other moments like this in U.S. history and “we’ll get through it” or are they a more ominous, serious threat to our democratic institutions. I think it’s important to say that THE ANSWER DEPENDS ON US. Insofar as scapegoating, smear campaigns, scare tactics and raw intidimation and violence go unchallenged in our political mainstream and insofar as they are successful in achieving their political goals, we have a bigger problem. Our response has to be to organize — to democratically mobilize our constituents in opposition both to the underhanded means and to the ends of the Tea Party movement.
By Dorothee Benz on March 30th, 2010 at 6:32 am