My Rural America Action Fund (MRA) is a non-partisan educational organization dedicated to mobilizing rural Americans behind public policies that advance the quality of rural life and secure a prosperous future for rural America. We believe the security, prosperity and well-being for all of America depends in part upon the almost 60 million Americans who live in rural communities having a full opportunity to contribute to and share in the American promise.
At MRA, we looked at regions of our country that have trended more and more distant from our country's traditional values as expressed in the preamble of the US Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common deference, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Understanding how our forefathers carefully balanced the needs of our country when they wrote this language, we asked ourselves, "How can we help people remember?"
We believe that the advancement of the common good should prevail over the demands of the privileges few. We believe that personal liberty is precious and should not be sacrificed under the ruse of providing security. We believe that a fair and just society helps ensure our domestic tranquility. We believe that workers' rights must be protected and that honest labor should be prized and rewarded.
We studied the news. Despite the proliferation of news media outlets, we found a lack of objective coverage about public policies which impact the lives of rural America 's citizens. Much "news" reaching rural America is actually propaganda from politicians or partisan rants emanating from the airwaves. We wanted to change that.
We thought about William Jennings Bryan, one of the most prominent leaders in the great populist Progressive Movement that supported the continual advancement of workers' rights and social justice. We share his view that people who work hard and contribute to our nation's wealth have the right to share in their nation's prosperity.
We remembered how the West was settled – people working together, using new solutions to confront challenges they had never faced before. They had to find new solutions for new never-been-solved-before problems!
We decided our first step would be to reach out to rural America, using modern communication and organizing techniques to mobilize rural Americans to promote public policies that assure:
- Rural America can continue to provide a safe and abundant food supply to the world; and
- The health and economic needs of the people who plant, grow and harvest this food.
Overall, MRA supports the traditional American values of liberty, community and shared responsibility. MRA can be counted upon to share the news while standing strong for policies that promote rural America's well-being in ways that help all of America join together to assure our country is powerful, just, safe and free.
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