Today We're Thankful For... Alan Grayson, Part 5

Now we're getting serious. The clip above was edited by David Dayan and it's the one he worked hardest on and the one he's most excited about. I think you will be too. It's a little wonky-- but in an endearing Grayson way that sheds a lot more light on something existential for all of us than you generally read about in the media. This is Alan Grayson on the failure of our elites to organize the economy for the benefit of society at large. We need Alan, and men and women like Alan, in Congress. On this Thanksgiving Day, we should be happy he's decided to run again. If you'd like to help him win... please consider doing it here at the Blue America Act Blue page. Or do you agree with Leona Helmsley that only the little people should pay taxes?

Alan gave the keynote address, “What It Means to Be a Progressive," at the first meeting on the Florida Democratic Party's Progressive Caucus. Here are some excerpts:

What makes people care [about each other] is the human spirit. It is actually hard-wired into us.
 
And that is fundamentally why we [progressives], in the end, will win. Because we have a conception of what it means to be a human being that’s right. We are not just atoms bouncing off each other in a void. We’re not just selfish automatons, the way that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would have you think. No, we are people, and we do care about each other. We are progressives. And as a result of that, we actually think about, care about, and want to do something about the real problems in people’s lives.
 
Now, in the past few weeks, I’ve been shaking things up a little bit, by pointing out on national TV, on HBO and MSNBC and elsewhere, that we have 50 million people in this country who can’t see a doctor when they’re sick. We have 24 million people in this country who can’t find full-time work. We have 47 million people in this country who need the government’s help to feed themselves. And we have 15 million families in this country who actually owe more on their mortgage than the value of their home.
 
These are things that you will never hear Republicans talk about. But we do, because we care.  That’s why we do talk about that.
 
I pointed out that the United States now has the fifth most-unequal distribution of wealth in the entire world. The fifth most-unequal distribution of wealth in the entire world! And frankly, it’s not working out that well in Zimbabwe either. 
 
And that we are drowning in debt, and becoming debt slaves. Slaves to our debt. We wake up every morning, do our best to pay all of our bills, and end up a little further behind every single day. That’s the truth of the matter.
 
And these are things that you will never hear Republicans talking about, because they’re much more interested in seeing the President’s birth certificate. They’re much more interested in deciding whether the President is a communist or a fascist. They can’t make up their minds [about that].
 
...[W]e’re different, because we actually concentrate on the things that matter in people’s lives. And not only that, but we actually have solutions for those problems.
 
Again, this is a fundamental difference, because if you don’t know what the problem is, you’re going to have a really hard time solving it. And that’s why I feel that they’re so far off base, because every single Republican candidate for president, every single one, if you ask them, “What’s the fundamental problem facing this country?”, they will all give you the same answer. Their answer is that rich people don’t have enough money. They think that’s the problem. So we have to give them more tax cuts, more subsidies, more government contracts, more this, more that, in the vain hope that they will give some of it back to us.
 
It doesn’t work that way. It just doesn’t work that way... I think that if you know the problem, that’s the first step in actually finding the solution. And we do have solutions... [W]e should put these people back to work.