Social Security: How Bush Plans to Ruin Another American Institution

[struggle4progress]

It's not enough that the President has you terrified over terror and sent thousands to die in Iraq. He's clipped the wings on Medicare, and now he wants to do the same to Social Security.
By Matt Hutaff Jan 12, 2005

<snip> The President is gearing up to spend between $50-100 million to convince susceptible Americans that the sky is indeed falling, and that if Social Security isn't changed to suit his whims the economy is hosed. <snip>

Its administrative costs are less than one percent of the overall amount of money the trust maintains every year, and depending on who you talk to, Social Security can stay in the black for another half-century. <snip>

This is an administration that has botched Medicare to the tune of $6 trillion by seeking to rework its benefits packages (over 300,000 men and women were dropped from expanded Medicaid programs this month in Tennessee alone thanks to budget shortfalls created by Bush) and has eliminated the possibility of allowing the importation of cheap prescription medication from Canada. They are incapable of thinking of responsible financial measures that would help resolves the growing economical crisis here. <snip>

http://www.thesimon.com/magazine/articles/canon_fodder/0721_social_security_how_bush_plans_ruin_another_american_institution.html

[indepat]

1. The American people are getting the government they asked for

[struggle4progress]

2. Only about 30% of Americans asked for this government. eom

[indepat]

4. Everyone who was qualified to register and did not vote for Kerry ratified

every known Administration policy and action and every planned policy and action IMHO. That's 70%.

[struggle4progress]

5. Cursing the general population is a cop-out. Yeah, we should ...

... have been able to stroll to a takeover of Congress and the White House -- but what do we learn from the fact that we lost? Let's stop wasting our time cussing about American stupidity, and let's get back into the full-time fight.

[indepat]

6. Has not the general population copped-out following the cop-out

of the Congress, the Supreme Court and the mainstream media?

[struggle4progress]

7. The general population is constantly subjected to a barrage ...

... of corporate messages designed to produce anxiety and to encourage consumerism as the antidote to that anxiety.

This mass-produced consciousness furthers specific socio-political ends: however, it is not intended to empower people, and it particular it is not designed to improve folks' ability to deconstruct propaganda.

The question "How can we best confront this reality, in order to change it?" is a scientific question, and answering this question will continue to require hard intellectual work on our part, combined with genuine experimentation, and a willingness to engage in our own efforts to mass-produce psychological tools that will enable people to study, understand, and modify realities.

[indepat]

9. "The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of our Collective Psychosis"

provides further food for thought. See http://baltimorechronicle.com/011305PaulLevy.shtml

"Bush's sickness is our own."

[struggle4progress]

10. I have two reactions to this:

(1) At an emotional level, I find myself pretty much in agreement with the author, that the current crisis involves some derangements of thought.

But (2) I don't consider the article useful from a scientific point of view. The article does not really provide any analytic tools that would empower its readers to act effectively against the regime. Nor is it likely to influence anyone who does not already agree with its thesis that Mad King George was elected by a nation of nutcases.

No doubt many Americans have views I find too bizarre to understand; some are downright flaky; a few are criminally insane. And none of this really explains *'s rise to power, nor does it suggest how best to resist. Whether or not * is simply out of his mind, the turkle did not climb up on that there post all by hisself. Behind * is an army of professional manipulators, whose salaries are paid by particular interests. These interests exist independent of *: if * did not exist, these same interests would have found another frontman to play the same role. As we attempt to understand reality in ever greater detail, we must be able to name those interests, to understand their actual (often conflicting motivations), to recognize and track their political mercenaries, and to be prepared to expose their manipulative psychological tricks. Of course these tricks derange people's thinking: the tricks are intended to do just that.

[indepat]

11. And they have done it very well

[fearnobush]

3. Resistence is not futile.

<>

[sarcasmo]

8. Spending 50-100 million of taxpayer funds.

Chimpy is trying to convince the soft Dems that this is right for the country. I'M thirty-six and have always said it wouldn't be around when I was sixty-five. I sure never thought SS would go away like this.