I have an exercise for you. Don’t worry: You can do it at your computer.

Think about all the reasons why a multinational corporation would choose to move jobs to another country. Lower labor costs? More efficient and better educated workers? Potential to contribute to the positive net effect of globalization and free trade?

Or perhaps it has to do with lax labor regulations in other countries. Or a country’s currency manipulation that artificially keeps the costs of that country’s exported goods low.

Certainly, it wouldn’t be because corporations are receiving generous tax incentives from the U.S. government for moving their jobs (and their profits) overseas. And yet they do.

That’s why today Senate Democrats have resuscitated the Bring Jobs Home Act, sponsored by Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow. House Republicans killed similar legislation before it could even get to the floor.

Stabenow’s bill would give businesses a 20 percent tax credit for moving their operations back into the U.S. and remove tax incentives for offshoring.

“We need to be exporting our products, not our jobs,” said Sen. Stabenow in a statement released Wednesday.

Republicans, pro-business SuperPACs and other corporate mouthpieces have shamelessly attacked efforts to punish currency manipulation, which enables China to keep the costs of its exports into the United States artificially low, which when combined with low labor costs creates an incentive to outsource American jobs.

Even more telling is Mitt Romney’s reluctance to talk about the negative effects of offshoring during his tenure at Bain Capital. Romney is no fool—praising the effects of outsourcing may be logical for a private equity manager—but he’s learned that doing so is politically volatile.

Romney, on the other hand, doesn’t much want to defend creative destruction. He boasts about building Bain, but won’t discuss it in detail because it opens up a conversation about those same unattractive consequences: lost jobs, bankruptcies, private pensions dumped onto the federal government.

Offshoring and outsourcing are business practices that are part of a larger pattern of redistributing wealth to the top 1 percent of earners and slashing benefits for workers, says economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

On the contrary, it’s often a way to replace well-paid employees who receive decent health and retirement benefits with low-wage, low-benefit employees at subcontracting firms.

Offshoring, outsourcing—whatever you want to call it, Americans overwhelmingly think that moving jobs overseas hurts the economy and is bad for American workers. So let’s bring good-paying jobs with real benefits back to the U.S

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There are people who become the face of a movement. They attend press conferences, head panels at conferences, and claim to speak for those who do not traditionally have a voice.

Then there are the “behind-the-scenes” activists. They are the people in back rooms who make repetitive phone calls, and do the tireless, thankless work which allows the faces of a movement to emerge. They allow others to take the credit and do not demand any for themselves. That was Maria Leavey’s role in her lifetime as a progressive organizer.

After her passing in 2006, the progressive community wanted to honor other activists and organizers who embodied Maria’s spirit. Today the Maria Leavey Award went to Samantha Corbin for her work as an actions coordinator for The Other 98 Percent.

Corbin’s work as an actions trainer at Occupy Wall Street has spread innovative protest tactics all over the country.

Borosage noted that the decision to honor Corbin was based on online nominations and voting on the CAF website.

Leavey not only helped bring media to the Campaign’s conference and link young journalists with powerful people in Washington. She was “tenacious, persistent, and creative,” in the words of Bob Borosage. He called Corbin’s work an embodiment of “the backbone of the progressive movement.”

“When you’re shut out of traditional media, you have to have some fun, get in the face of the media, and make them take notice,” said Alex Lawson of Social Security Works, who introduced Corbin.

Corbin’s modesty and humility as an activist showed during her speech. She took the emphasis off her own accomplishments and emphasized the struggles of other activists and organizers. Corbin also learned a very important lesson on September 16, 2011 at Zuccotti Park.

“Our liberation is connected because we share core values,” said Corbin. “At (Zuccotti) Park, (for example), the veterans were talking to the environmentalists, and they realized that their struggles were combined.”

She mentioned her involvement in the anti-stop and frisk march in New York City and how her participation reflected her values as an activist for money out of politics.

“In addition to my job, I will protest against stop and frisk and incorporate equity, justice, and love into my organizing.”

At the end of her speech, Corbin called on every person in the room to connect their struggles and stand in solidarity with others.

“We have to show up in every way. Every tactic is on the table. Everybody has to come. No one gets to sit this one out.”

At the Take Back the American Dream conference Wednesday, strategies and tactics were weaved with moving personal stories at a session on racial profiling with Gaby Pacheco, Rashad Robinson, Jasiri X, and moderator Cathy Montoya.

The panelists described racial profiling as a form of both physical and psychological violence that affects communities of color and, indirectly, communities as a whole. For example, if a hate crime is committed against an undocumented person or if an undocumented woman is raped, then there is almost zero chance that they will report the crime for fear of being deported. This makes communities less safe overall, according to panelists Pacheco and Montoya.

The conversation extended beyond the impact of Trayvon Martin, the Florida youth whose death by gunshot has ignited a national debate on race and “stand your ground” gun laws. Pacheco pointed out that such violence against black and Latino communities happens on a daily basis. The only difference was that their names did not trend on Twitter or hit the front pages of prominent national newspapers. As activists, it is our job to either create our own media or push the mainstream media to tell the stories of people who become victims of racial profiling. It is how we can politicize otherwise unconvinced people to rally to our side.

The Importance of Stories

Each panelist spoke of some type of personal experience with racial profiling. The panelists noted that experience of being stopped and assumed to be undocumented is parallel to the experience of a young black man being stopped by the police. The panelists and the audience both emphasized the commonalities between communities.

As an organizing tactic, Rashad Robinson pointed out that publicizing people’s personal stories in the media could move people who weren’t already on our side. Robinson also said that progressives needed to start talking to people outside the base through strategies such as building common ground through personal stories.

Audience members also shared their personal stories of racial profiling. Adam, a 17 year-old from Durham, N.C., once questioned a police officer’s rationale for profiling him and violating his rights. The officer then told Adam that he had no rights. Montoya, who is of Korean-Latino descent and says that she carries her passport with her everywhere in the South, recounted her experience of a Korean police officer profiling her in Alabama. Jasiri X shared the story of a 13 year-old black boy in Milwaukee who was shot by his 75 year-old white neighbor’s house for allegedly robbing the man’s house.

Combating History through New Tactics

Every panelist saw storytelling itself as a powerful organizing tactic. Jasiri X brought in the elements of art and culture as important tactics for telling stories. Hip-hop started as a mechanism for social commentary, and progressives can use that as a tool for spreading messages to communities of color about their experiences. Montoya especially emphasized the role of Latino hip-hop artists in the South in bridging the divides between black and Latino youth.

The panel also discussed mobile applications such as the one developed by the Sikh Coalition that can be used to report airport profiling. Websites such as Copwatch can also be used to monitor the behavior of the police, especially towards people of color. Recording a police officer’s actions and using social media to draw attention to racial profiling are all strategies that progressives can use to engage people outside the activist community.

The general consensus focused on a desire to engage people outside the progressive community in creative, innovative methods designed for and by the people who are most deeply affected by racial profiling and racist legislation. Empowering communities of color through various organizing tactics and social media can be the solution to a culture that justifies rampant profiling of black and brown youth.

At the 2012 Take Back the American Dream conference, activists Amanda Devecka-Rinear, Sarita Gupta, Ai-Jen Poo and Nelini Stamp all spoke at a plenary titled “The 99% Movement: The Next Steps.” The plenary focused on the successes of and future plans of a new social movement that Poo noted was “of the 99 percent and for the 100 percent.”

How the 99 Percent Movement Started

Devecka-Rinear traced the beginnings of the 99 percent movement. As an organizer at National People’s Action, much of her work focuses on fair housing. She connected the issue of toxic mortgages targeting communities of color to the housing crisis and pointed out the average person’s connection to Wall Street. The transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a service and finance-based economy also deepened the impact of the economic crisis.

She also pointed out a particularly sore spot for progressives and other social activists: “Although we are doing worse, the banks and the corporations are doing better than ever,” Devecka-Rinear said.

Plenary attendees were also asked to identify how they have contributed to the 99 percent movement. The responses were diverse, ranging from electoral involvement to direct action at various Occupy encampments.

Nelini Stamp, an Occupier and member of the Working Families Party, provided a more specific timeline of Occupy Wall Street and laid out the next steps of the Occupy movement. She talked about personal stories posted on websites such as We Are the 99 Percent and how Americans are connecting their own struggles to the larger conversation about income inequality. The work of Occupy Our Homes across the country has led to more awareness about the housing crisis and its deep connection to toxic Wall Street banking practices.

Every speaker and participant noted the amount of hope and optimism contained in this nascent social movement.

The Participation of “Non-Youth” and Direct Action

The all-woman panel acknowledged the necessity of older activists, and Poo in particular connected this issue to the aging population. Gupta and Poo, both co-directors of the Caring Across Generations campaign, emphasized the need for dignified, well-paying jobs in the elder care sector that would offer affordable services to all families.

According to Poo, an American turns 65 every eight seconds. This not only affords a great challenge for our government welfare systems, but it also is a great opportunity for social activists to involve older people in the issues that affect them the most.

Sarita Gupta enumerated the accomplishments of Jobs with Justice, especially in its nonviolent direct action curriculum. According to her, over 50,000 people benefited from the direct action training, the largest in history. The 99% Spring also saw multiple direct actions at shareholder meetings for companies such as Sallie Mae, Bank of America and Verizon Wireless.

Both Gupta and Poo emphasized the importance of alliances across race, gender, class, and age. Stamp briefly brought up how the Occupy movement is starting working groups about the prison-industrial complex and its relation to race.

Targeting the 1 Percent

Gupta said she believed in targeting members of the 1 percent who make the decisions that impact our daily lives. She said that corporate board members were the people that the 99 percent movement needed to target after building a broad coalition of activists and supporters.

There was disagreement in the room about how best to achieve the goals that the 99 percent movement is seeking. Stamp pointed out that Occupy was not a body that endorses political candidates, while some attendees emphasized the need to register voters of color and push back against right-wing efforts to disenfranchise voters in various states.

Conclusion and Consensus

The general consensus was that the 99 percent movement needed to start talking about the economy that they wanted, more so than just the problems with the current economy. Talking across political lines and reaching out to those who may have a different political persuasion is crucial to the survival of the 99 percent movement. Most importantly, we must contrast the right-wing narrative of fear and divisiveness.

“We need to build a movement based on unity, love, and justice,” said Gupta

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Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., former CFTC chair Brooksley Born and others are none too happy about the 2013 financial services appropriations bill. President Obama had requested $308 million for the Commodities and Futures Trade Commission, an amount that House Republicans had severely undercut to $180.4 million. Frank, Born, and industry leaders made their displeasure known during a Capitol Hill press conference this morning.

The U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) now regulates derivatives trading and speculation, thanks to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Reform Act. Those financial instruments played significant roles in bringing the financial system to its knees in 2008.

Frank, Born, and other House Democrats used a multitude of sports and animal analogies to insist that Wall Street donations to Republicans were undermining the potential for financial regulation.

“What we have is the confluence of money on steroids,” said House Democratic Caucus Chair John Larson, D-Conn. “Now we are throwing the American people to the wolves.”

“The fact that the Republican Party is lavishing money on weapons systems that the Pentagon does not want while reducing the necessary funds for the regulation of derivatives, is a textbook example of terrible priorities,” said Frank in a Tuesday statement.

Anyone who can use Google can figure out that Wall Street is the only force in our country right now that is above the fray of party politics. In fact, it may be their only saving grace.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the top industry contributor to Frank’s campaign committee came from securities and investment. CFTC commissioner Gary Gensler, who was sworn in by a Democratic Senate, worked at Goldman Sachs for 18 years before going to the Treasury. A prominent House Democrat at the press conference even admitted to voting for financial deregulation in the 1990s.

Funding cuts for the CFTC and the Security and Exchanges Commission are problematic for progressives who want to protect average Americans, fix economic inequality and avoid another financial crisis. How exactly is that supposed to happen when the same people who attack moneyed interests at press conferences are quietly taking Wall Street donations?

Progressives have an obligation to call out politicians who say nice things about our ideals, while hiding their commitment to the status quo in plain sight. This isn’t to deny that the Dodd-Frank Act and other progressive Democratic efforts are responsible for significant Wall Street reforms. However, these regulatory agencies also need chairs and lawmakers who will tirelessly advocate for them without the stain of big bank donations – Democrat or Republican.

Senate Republicans this afternoon voted to block the Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 3220), yet another petty political move designed to stick it to the Democrats and eject President Obama from the White House.

Let’s be honest though – it isn’t some Democratic senator on the Hill who is going to feel the effects of this block. Not even Barack Obama himself will directly feel the effects of the Republican Party’s refusal to address important issues such as pay equity. It is ordinary working families who will be hit hardest by this latest example of Republicans turning a blind eye to issues that affect working Americans the most.

The Paycheck Fairness Act prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who discuss their salaries with their colleagues, closes loopholes in the Equal Pay Act, rewards employers who have fair and equitable pay practices, and helps small businesses adopt equal pay policies.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women who work full time on average still earn only 77 cents to every dollar men earn. The statistics are even worse for women of color.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also pointed out that 77 percent of Republicans support the Paycheck Fairness Act, along with 80 percent of men. He blamed Senate Republicans for being the only ones recalcitrant on the issue. Even Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney didn’t want to talk about equal pay.

Republicans insist time and time again that their party is not waging a war on women. They insist that the pay gap is a myth. Perhaps they fail to realize that women constitute over half of the country’s working population. Women’s earnings support families, buy groceries, pay for mortgages and college expenses. >

"To those of our colleagues who claim to be so concerned about the economy and the middle class, now is your chance to prove to your constituents that you really mean what you say," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. during debate.

Perhaps the vote to block the Paycheck Fairness Act was proof of how Senate Republicans truly feel about their women constituents. Last month Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, issued a statement calling the Paycheck Fairness Act “another election year distraction that will harm job creators,” a talking point that was repeated by Republicans on the Senate floor. It is clear that to Republicans on the Hill, women are a political “distraction” and not a living, breathing political constituency that deserves fair treatment in the economy.