Weird! Anonymous is *horrible*, but harming the 99% is nothing to worry our little minds about?

[MannyGoldstein]

178. So what am I missing here?

First off, I think I've accurately predicted everything Obama *could* do unilaterally on Social Security since he appointed Simpson and Bowles to do their dirty work. He can't announce cuts to Social Security, and I've never said that he would. He can only propose cuts, which he has, and agree to cuts, which he has although he was rebuffed by Republicans. By all accounts, he was dismayed when the Republicans turned him down last July.

Second, I don't get your obsession with predictions. Who cares what I predict? It's actions that count.

A family friend of ours was born in the 1920s in Germany. In the 1930s, when Hitler started yammering that the Jews should be eliminated from Germany, her dad actually believed Hitler's spew and moved the family to France, then the US. Most of their relatives pleaded with him to stay, that Hitler was bluffing and posturing. We know what came next. She has few close relatives left, of course.

I tell this story not to compare Obama to Hitler, but to demonstrate the ability of people to shrug off what people say, loud and clear, as bluffing and posturing when it's inconvenient to believe otherwise. People usually mean exactly what they say, particularly when they say the same things for years and work elaborate plans, like appointing the most ardent haters of Social Security from both parties to a "debt commission", using cooked numbers to "prove" that Social Security has a funding problem, repeatedly dissembling about the original purpose of Social Security, and so forth.

You may be right: this might all be an elaborate ruse. But it would be dangerous folly to count on that hypothesis.