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When governments fall deaf to social reality, it’s up to working people to get loud. Obama’s jobs speech proved that the Democrats – like the Republicans – suffer from massive hearing loss, unable to listen to the millions of people suffering from the intractable jobs depression. After mounting pressure from labor and community groups, Obama promised a paltry $447 billion for his American Jobs Act, much of it going to corporations as tax giveaways while the program is to be paid for, in part, by “deficit reduction” – cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other social programs. Such an insulting “solution” to the deepening recession must be shouted down in the streets, but labor and community groups don’t seem up for the challenge.

With so many millions of unemployed and a labor movement under assault, rage can be easily channeled into massive, pro-worker demonstrations, assuming that inspiring solutions are put forward as demands. Unfortunately, the far-right Tea Party has taken much of the initiative, using the bait of fake populist rhetoric while switching to pro-corporate solutions.

Sadly, labor’s complete lack of action to organize their constituents and wider community is directly responsible for much of the Tea Party’s success, with big corporate money being the other prop. This dynamic will become more volatile as the jobs depression lurches on; more working people will be lured by anti-immigrant and anti-Islam and anti-union “solutions” to the recession unless an alternative is put forward.