Monday, February 23, 2009

The Last Slice of Pizza -OR- MINE! field

The ultimate culmination of Saint Ronnie's desires is near. Like most things Reagan, he hadn't thought it through adequately, or perhaps at all. The end justified the means regardless, right? If you can't control it, kill it. Make it e-vil. If it is e- vil it must be demonized. If Government is still seen as a necessary e- vil, and you control the government, you can remove the necessary. You can, with very little arm-twisting, indulge and co-opt promoters of the public good and assure their efforts will not survive the gauntlet assembled to divert or derail intended benefit.

Wake the fuck up! We've been had. The last dollop of goodness of the New Deal hangs there just beyond reach. Despite half a century of persistent effort, Social Security is still not e-vil enough to kill. It remains a fortress in the American way of life.

Social Security is the Bailey Building and Loan in the United States of Pottersville.
The scene playing out right now is this one:

GEORGE: Just a minute –– just a minute. Now, hold on, Mr. Potter. You're right when you say my father was no business man. I know that. Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan, I'll never know. But neither you nor anybody else can say anything against his character, because his whole life was...Why, in the twenty-five years since he and Uncle Billy started this thing, he never once thought of himself. Isn't that right, Uncle Billy? He didn't save enough money to send Harry to school, let alone me. But he did help a few people get out of your slums, Mr. Potter.
And what's wrong with that? Why . . . Here, you're all businessmen here. Doesn't it make them better citizens? Doesn't it make them better customers? You . .. you said . . . What'd you say just a minute ago? . . . They had to wait and save their money before they even ought to think of a decent home. Wait! Wait for what?

Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken-down that they . . . Do you know how long it takes a working man to save five
thousand dollars? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about . . . they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this
community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him, but to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well, in my book he died a much richer man than you'll ever be!

POTTER: I'm not interested in your book. I'm talking about the Building and Loan.

GEORGE: I know very well what you're talking about. You're talking about something you can't get your fingers on, and it's galling you. That's what you're talking
about, I know.
(to the Board)
Well, I've said too much. I . . . You're the Board here. You do what you want with this thing. Just one thing more, though. This town needs this measly one-horse
institution if only to have some place where people can come without crawling to Potter.


Social Security has been galling our Potters since its sperm met its egg. It not only worked better than expected, it remained outside the grasp of its haters.
They've been pecking away at its flanks since the first cells divided. They diffused the momentum toward national health care back when we had a functional non-profit system of hospitals by "giving" coverage to seniors through Medicare. Successfully saddling the SS system with its costs, then systematically taking over and privatizing the health care system FOR PROFIT.

60s Progressives made a pact with the devil thinking national health care would logically follow. In the progressive world, Peace, Education and Health Care have battled a constant barrage of distractions with a singular purpose; creating OPPOSITE WORLD. That in which the words written and spoken have the exact opposite intent of their stated purpose. For reasons we are told are too complex for our tiny minds to grasp, a better world isn't possible. Progressive is regressive? Law and Order is personal liberty. Risk is public; profit is private.

Greed and selfishness elevated to virtue? Common goals and dreams are e-vil?
Packaged for consumption by the fabricated consumer society? Cutting taxes to Zero to usher in prosperity?

WTF? All this because one government program has remained out of reach? Yep. It just galls them. They can't take their ball and leave knowing there's a few trillion $$$ they don't own.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There must be a lot of good air today, so many thoughtful people are writing so many thoughtful posts.

And then there's me.

Thanks for this.

Regards,

Tengrain

Larue said...

I'll echo 10G for this post. Thass a good un.

My take on it all is sooner than later there's gonna be a percentage of our SS, per each worker, taken out of our hands, and forced into the privatization.

The guise it will likely fall under will be to help 'stimulate' our dying economy.

And then they'll take another percentage, and another, till it's all gone.

It's how they roll, decade after decade after decade.

Cuz like you said, there's a $Trillions they don't own, yet.

It's them or us. And they's winning, so far.