by Arianna Huffington

'Third World America': Why I Wrote the Book and What We Need to Do to Save America's Middle Class

Growing up, I remember walking to school in Athens past a statue of President Truman. The statue was a daily reminder of the magnificent nation responsible for, among other things, the Marshall Plan.

Everyone in Greece knew someone who'd left to find a better life in America. That was the phrase everyone associated with America: "a better life."

I was 16 when I first came to this country, as part of a program called the Experiment in International Living. I spent the summer in York, Pa.,, staying with four different families. I went back to Athens and then soon on to Cambridge and London. But part of me remained in America.

When I came to live here in 1980, I knew that this time would be for good -- and that there was no other place I'd rather live. Thirty years later, I still feel that way.

But something went wrong -- terribly wrong -- and put our country on a very dangerous path that threatens to transform us into Third World America.

It's a jarring phrase, I know, one that is deeply contrary to our national conviction that America is the greatest nation on earth -- as well as the richest, the most powerful, the most generous, and the most noble. It also doesn't match our day-to-day experience of the country we live in -- where it seems there is, if not a chicken in every pot, then a flat-screen TV on every wall.

So why did I call my book, which is being released this week, "Third World America"?

For me, it's a warning, a way of saying that if we don't change course -- and quickly -- that could very well be our future.

Wherever I looked, and in so many of the stories we covered on the Huffington Post, I kept seeing all the ways the middle class was getting the short end of the stick.

It was the way that Washington rushed to the rescue of Wall Street but forgot about Main Street. It was the daily drumbeat of depressing statistics: One in five Americans unemployed or underemployed. One in nine families unable to make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans on food stamps.

What became clear while writing the book is that the decline of the middle class was no accident. Middle-class America didn't suddenly lose its mojo. It was the result of tricks and traps. Tricks in the ways we financed our homes. Traps in the ways credit-card companies used hidden fees and fine print and skyrocketing interest rates to get their hands on our money, driving more and more people into debt.

Here's the bottom line: The fix is in. The game is rigged. The dice are loaded. And it starts in Washington, where special interests run the show -- and where lobbyists outnumber elected officials 26 to 1. Unfortunately, there are no lobbyists for the American Dream.

Given this, you might be surprised to hear that writing "Third World America" ultimately left me feeling hopeful. But it did. It's because, as I was traveling around the country or discovering online sites where people affected by the economic crisis are gathering and connecting, I was again and again struck by the resilience, creativity and acts of compassion taking place all across America.

They convinced me that we can turn things around, as long as we demand more from our political and business leaders -- and more, much more, from ourselves.

I'm in no way letting Washington off the hook. Indeed, the last section of the book, which is filled with the specific steps we -- as individuals, as families, and as a country -- need to take to save ourselves from a Third-World future, starts with what must be done to fix a democratic process that is badly broken and to put millions of Americans back to work.

At the same time, this moment in history demands that we stop waiting on others -- especially others living in Washington -- to solve the problems and right the wrongs of our times.

There is no doubt: Times are hard. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to wallow in despair or rage against the fading of the American Dream?

The preamble of the Constitution starts with "We the People." And we have never needed the active participation of each one of us more urgently than now. We can't save the middle class and keep America a First-World nation without each of us making a personal commitment and taking action -- without each of us doing our part. We can't just sit on the sidelines and complain. It's up to us: We the People.

Winston Churchill reportedly said, "America can always be counted on to do the right thing, after it has exhausted all other possibilities." Well, we have exhausted a hell of a lot of possibilities, and for millions of the unemployed, the underemployed, the ones whose homes have been foreclosed, and the ones who've declared bankruptcy or can't pay their credit card bills, the process has already been deeply painful.

It's time now to do the right things.

 

Available at Amazon.com:

Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream

 

What We Need to Do to Save America's Middle Class