The American Dream, the Meta-Brand and Special Effects: These are the things that Van Jones really likes
The Netroots Nation Conference – or as its referred to on Twitter, #nn11 – is a get-together of internet-savvy progressives who like to talk about their internet savvyness. For good reason—the Internet is really important. We’ll talk more about internet importance re: campus activism in the posts to follow, but to sum up my feelings as I sit on a Greyhound bus heading home from Minneapolis: this conference felt like being around someone who knows they’re hot and you know they know you know they’re hot. You know? And I don’t (completely) mean that in a trivializing or negative sense. The Internet is important because the people who attended this conference are the ones who make it so. They are the ones who make social networking sites like Twitter into tools that facilitate dialogue over immigration. They are the ones who create statewide blogs to make local politics accessible and understandable. They are the ones who send you 768,608 Facebook event invites that you maybe attend because you want to, like, support workers rights or something. You know who I’m talking about. Maybe you’re one of them; maybe you should have been there. They are the ones sitting in the back of the room looking at a TweetDeck while picturing <3s whenever someone mentions Google analytics (<3!).
And these are the ones who gathered in Minneapolis last weekend to become more coordinated, more skillful, and more… progressive. Why? To win real victories in the movement for social justice. This reason, this method of movement building, is why Van Jones came to the Netroots. He, like a growing number of Americans, realizes that the power of the people lies not just in the grassroots, but in the netroots – in organization online. He wants us to do exactly what I’m doing now, which is carrying on a message. And the message, apparently, is the American Dream Movement.
But let’s back up because actually I’m sorry I said we’d be talking about Van Jones. We’re not—or at least we shouldn’t be. Van is just the messenger. A charismatic leader, as some would say, with good ideas. . . . I’m not going to swoon over the man (but hey look at this picture of us together), instead I’ll let you click here, here, and/or here.
If you’re like me, you hear the words “American” and “Dream” together and feel icky. The American Dream is a narrative that runs deep in many of us; it claims that if you work hard you will be rich. You will shed your rags and roll in your riches. Cause you know—if you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, anything is possible [cough].
I’m pretty sure I don’t need to tell you that this narrative isn’t true, it isn’t real, and the topic of so many sociology papers (so, so many). Cause who benefits from American Dream? Not me, and probably not you (unless you’re the CEO of a multi-national corporation. In which case, stop it.).
Van would say that this popularized narrative is not the American Dream, but instead the “American Fantasy.” As stated during his keynote address on Saturday, “that’s what the corporatizers have turned the American Dream into.” Rather, Van continues, “the American Dream is that hard work should pay.” See the difference?
Now why is this redefinition so important? Well, you can blame it on the Tea Party.
The Tea Party, Van explained, did this thing where they built a network of formally disconnected issue areas/organizations (like the people who hated taxes separate from the people who hated big government separated from the people who like women’s rights). They came together under one banner (not coalition, which is apparently very different). This banner has no single leader, no office building. Van said something like, “If Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin decided to drop out tomorrow, the Tea Party would go on.” This is what makes it/them so powerful/scary. The Tea Party is not tangible. Their values bring then together.
By some measures, that’s what the left did with Obama in 2008. Remember how all different sorts of people who cared about all different sorts of things came together? Remember that? Well, it was great (got the man elected and what not) except now we’re learning that people are fallible. The American Dream (the brand Van is suggesting) is unbreakable and should become the counter Tea Party, the counter “meta-brand.” How does this brand work and why is it so meta? To be honest, I still don’t fully know what meta means, and you might not either, but I know that whatever it is it would require labor, women, civil rights, LGBT/queer activists and so on to come together united by our principles, our values.
To be honest, I have some reservations when it comes to jumping on the dream-wagon. I’m not convinced that we can rebuild a narrative that is today so pervasive. As we become increasingly global, is this nationalism (that we have a dream, take that everywhere else) actually still helpful? I don’t know. And, what does it mean to dream verses demand? Isn’t it the right of working people to earn a living wage, gave access to healthcare and education so on? But yes and whatever, whatever demands are confrontational and I know, I know we need to be strategic and maybe its really not that big of a deal or more importantly not practical to be scared of nationalism if we want to build something real big like a movement in the Unites States [deep breath]. Right?
All hesitations aside, what I like about this meta-brand is that it requires mass participation to matter. We are central to the process and we are called in this early stage to go on rebuildthedream.com (or twitter, or facebook) and participate and get excited. And we can engage in this process and, I don’t know, add to the voices saying free education is a right and central to the American Dream, for example. Or maybe even that workers rights are human rights. What would you say? What is the American Dream to you? What do you think of the Meta-brand?
Oh, and what about these special effects Van likes? Well, he included some snazzy ones in his power point. They were like fireworks and maybe made me want to reach up with jazz-hands. You should probably experience it (and his whole presentation. Click here).
Caitlyn Dubois is an intern at the Jobs with Justice national office. She attends Smith College.
