Yesterday, 255 affiliates of the progressive organization, Moveon.org, held rallies throughout the United States to protest recent debt ceiling deal cuts and call for “jobs not cuts.” Most of these rallies aimed to show that cuts in spending cannot solve the US unemployment crisis. They targeted congressional representatives who voted for the massive cuts and hoped to spark a national grassroots movement to challenge Tea Party extremism.
I attended the first meeting of a local North Carolina chapter back in July, before the debt ceiling crisis materialized. Despite the good intentions of participants, I immediately sensed that Moveon.org had a difficult road ahead. Only about a quarter of the 40 people who signed up attended the meeting. Though Moveon.org said this was going to be a truly grassroots movement, they submitted a heavy-handed eight-page meeting agenda to organizers throughout the country.