Sixty (or sixty-four) US senators, depending on whose count you believe, sent a letter to Obama urging that he take up tax "reform" and entitlement "reform" this year. This almost certainly means tax cuts for wealthy people and benefit cuts for Social Security recipients. And the senators are evenly divided by party, so this is not exclusively a Republan effort. Democrats out there: you are being completely abandoned by your party. It doesn't matter if there's no constituency for the recommendations of the Fiscal Commission: the bastards are going to do it anyway. Democrats will doubtless take the hit in the 2012 election... all except for Obama, who may well skate free.
Here's what Digby has to say about it. And here's David Dayen's take.
If my Social Security benefits are taken away or (even worse) privatized on me, while I may begin with nonviolent action, I shall renounce all my previous commitments to nonviolence. If at that time I have no reasonable income on which to live, after paying into that damned system all my working life on the promise of a "contract across generations," I shall commit mayhem. Against whom? well, that remains to be determined, doesn't it? But if I find myself with no motivation to live, and the reasonable prospect of starvation facing me, I can tell you I'm not going out alone.
This has been a public service announcement from the crippled old fart who refuses to take baldfaced theft lying down.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
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Steve, how well I know your feelings on this subject about now. We need to be part of a larger underground of resistance and help one another in practical ways. It's happening, but won't be easy in these days ahead----particularly for those of us who are older and ill. Chris Floyd has been particularly eloquent in response lately. Here : http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2107-further-thoughts-on-politics-and-despair.html#disqus_thread
ReplyDeleteI will stand with you!!!!!
ReplyDeletemandt, Kay... thanks, both of you. These are dark times.
ReplyDeleteMr. Dayen's comment pretty much echoes my own. It could get quite ugly and they shouldn't forget that a great many of us go armed with canes at all times.
ReplyDeleteYes, fallenmonk, I'd roll my walker over their toes, if I could catch up with them...
ReplyDeleteSeriously, this is not good. As one who believed even as a youth that every person has the right to a minimum of dignity in his or her old age, I find myself espousing an "eat the rich" attitude: crank up those taxes to the point where there's no need to raid the Social Security trust fund as Bush reportedly did.
Failing that, they'd better watch out for my wheels...