Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Yesterday on MSNBC, Campaign for America’s Future Co-Director Robert Borosage previewed today’s “Defend The Dream” rallies, organized by MoveOn.org and a broad coalition of progressive organizations, slated to take place across America today. He discussed why these rallies are so important if we are to take what began in Wisconsin and build it into a movement that can save the middle-class from the excesses of Wall Street. Excerpts are below. Find a rally near you.

***

Politicians never lead a parade or start a parade. They just rush to get in front of it after it’s started. People start the parade, and this parade was started in Wisconsin. And it’s going to sweep across the country…

…Wisconsin caught people’s attention. you know, when the Democrats left the state and workers rallied and then other workers came to their aid, people started to see that what was at stake … there was a war on the middle-class.

And the question is really who’s going to pay to clean up the mess that was caused by Wall Street’s excess. If you can send that ticket to nurses and to cops and to teachers, then the middle-class is going to continue to decline. That suddenly became clear in Wisconsin…

[Next,] people have to tell the story and make sure that everyone knows what’s at stake. That’s the social media [and] that’s rallies across the country.

[Today,] there’ll be rallies in places across America. On April 4th, on the anniversary of [Rev. Martin Luther] King’s assassination, who was killed in Memphis when he was standing with workers trying to organize a sanitation workers’ union, people are going to be asked to go out of their workplaces and organize their own demonstrations in front of their workplaces to express solidarity — not simply with the workers in wisconsin, but with middle-class people who are under assault across this country.