* I apologize for the flowery prose.

No apology necessary. It was brain candy!

The great truth to the American economy, and this comes out in every reasoned analysis, is that when the wealthy and businesses pay their fair share of taxes, the economy takes off like a rocket. Always does, and everyone benefits from it. Otherwise, you get the kind of nonsense we're in now.

You should apologize, you silly!!!!...Flowery, Smowlery...who the hell cares. Hillary fainted today and the Republifucks were saying..."Ohh, and she's uhhhh, fifty-seven years old." Like, no illicit sex here, no pregancy possible, etc. etc. She was TRYING to deLIVER a speech on SS and of course, the subject of its "reform" under Bush made her sick.

Nobody seems to care about this one little fact: Do you want to pay for your parents upkeep and health needs and housing, food...etc.? Even Bush lovin' AARP realized Bush is full of shit.

I want all LC'rz to know I have fully recovered
from last Thursdays Inaugeral shit in DC. My complexion is again sweet and dewy and almost wrinkle free from the eight hours on my feet in the freezing cold which had rendered it like sandpaper with glitches. But it was worth it. My feet have unfrozen too. I listen to the reports about the so-called free elections in Iraq, and I want to barf. Can't wait to march in the Global Demo Protest Against the War March 20, 2005.

Bush is toast!!!!!

Of course there is no apology needed, good minds welcome good writing.

I've come to think that now that Bush is in his second term they're playing the long game. By this I mean the continuous harping about Social Security not being around for those under 30 is having some effect on them. There was a report on NPR last week that noted that younger workers who are less informed believe the Bushite propaganda. The more informed young workers are the less susceptable they are to the line.

Also, the Republicans did poorly with voters under 30 and this age group is larger than the boomers. The party that connects best with this 'echo boom' as these children of the Boomers are sometimes called will have a tremendous advantege in future decades as they age and their rate of voting increases as it always does with age.

This makes education key. Currently many young people have concerns that Bush's policies are harming their future. That and the possibility of a draft helped Kerry last year. If the young can be informed that Social Security WILL be there for them as well as their parents the slight advantege the Democrats currently enjoy with this age group can be built upon.

We're the party of Social Security and we can eventually be the party of National Healthcare if young people know that the 70 year intergenerational compact is alive and well and will work for them.

Good analysis. Like everything else the Bush machine does, the SS destruction scheme is based on ideology. It is not about any sort of utilitarian rational analysis. The machine put Bush into place to accomplish a preset agenda that has become a sort of religion. Just as Iraq made no sense, SS destruction makes no sense. But it doesn't matter, because it fulfills a deep psychic need to destroy. Hitler had that need. So does Bush and those backing him. If it eventually leads to their own destruction, they will see themselves as going down in glory.

Well, that may be for the ideologues.. But I always thought that the real reason for the more pragmatic right-wingers was the flood of cash to Wall Street.

Related:

Why don't we call the privatization crowd "privateers?" On contract to loot the treasury of others for the benefit of the King? The graphics are simple; even Capital One has some ideas.

Imagine Cheney in a spot ad, spouting an "Arrrrhhhh,", and grabbing the small stipend from a poor elderly couple. (Preferably in front of their ramshackle southern shack.) Perhaps he can give them cat food as conversative compassion.

There are endless ways to paint this, and every region of the country is in play; the poorer, the more in play. In case you didn't notice, that means the south; pension triumphs over rascism.

Related:

Why don't we call the privatization crowd "privateers?" On contract to loot the treasury of others for the benefit of the King? The graphics are simple; even Capital One has some ideas.

Imagine Cheney in a spot ad, spouting an "Arrrrhhhh,", and grabbing the small stipend from a poor elderly couple. (Preferably in front of their ramshackle southern shack.) Perhaps he can give them cat food as conversative compassion.

There are endless ways to paint this, and every region of the country is in play; the poorer, the more in play. In case you didn't notice, that means the south; pension triumphs over rascism.

Eventual dismantling of Social Security, and other "entitlements" is a core belief of the conservative right. There is an easy, simple way to prove that the goal of Bush is eliminating, not "modernizing" SS. Here it is: we ALREADY have what he is proposing.....its called IRA's (as in INDIVIDUAL retirement accounts). Anyone who wants to can plow retirement savings into the Stock Markets and take their chances. So Bush's privatization/personalization plan already exists (funny how you never hear that mentioned in this debate) and since it does, there *has* to be another reason for this new Bush Push, and that is to begin the end of SS. People who think Bush ever, ever comes up with a plan to help the common man are fooling themselves, big time.There is always an ulterior motive.

Want a quick and easy guide to Republican thinking right now? Just look at what the John Birch Society was saying back in the 60's. No. I am not kidding. The Birchers have taken over the country.

Yes, this is what it is all about. The right is seeking to destroy social security (as it always has longed to) because it is a government program that has been spectacularly successful. It is because it represents a stunning contradiction to their dogmatic view of the political economy, that it must be destroyed.

I thought the prose was good, and it never would have occurred to me to note it had you not mentioned it.

Everyone admires your writing gifts, Yuvall, there's absolutely no need to be self-concious about being yourself. Not hardly.

Speaking of the Roosevelt legacy, Spitzer's speech the other day makes many of the same points. He really highlights how regulation protects capitalism. Not sure where the text of the speech is but here's a link about it.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/31/222514/800

The Birchers?! Ha. What, are you my grandfather?

They hate him for betraying his class. For giving the working man a break. Roosevelt called them economic royalists. He was right. If they overturn FDR then 1896 here we come.