Saturday, January 15, 2005

Social Security Scare of 2005

We must act now or else the social security trust fund might end up in Manhattan looking like a mushroom cloud ... or something like that.

The Bushies spent almost an entire year making false statements, misleading statements, cheating and lying their asses off, to scare Americans into supporting the illegal invasion of another country. Now they're trying to do the same with Social Security.

Here's how Bush plans to sell his new plan - the same way he and Condi (the original 'mushroom clouder') and crew sold Iraq to the clones:

The campaign will use Bush's campaign-honed techniques of mass repetition, never deviating from the script and using the politics of fear to build support -- contending that a Social Security financial crisis is imminent when even Republican figures show it is decades away.

Sounds about right. Lie. Repeat. Repeat again. Once more. And again. Again. And Again. Don't stop now. You're doing good now. Lie again.

OK - you get the point.

Over, and over, and over again. From the left (rhetorical left, that is), from the right, from above and below, front and back, from either and all sides. You'll never know exactly what time the attack is going to come, only that it eventually will, because it always does.

You won't know exactly who it is going to come from, but you know someone is gonna have to deliver it. Occupation soldiers around the world know that the people they're repressing will use any and all tactics available to them to get rid of the oppressors - including breaking any and all norms of behaviour, including the laws of war, armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, etc. Just as guerillas of oppressed countries will use women as human shields to conduct their raids, Bush and his allies will use reporters as human shields for their propaganda. It'll be a guerilla war of propaganda waged against Americans by Americans. And what tactics will the American terrorists use to wage this war?

"There are a lot of tools we used in the '04 campaign, from regional media to research to rapid response to having surrogates on television," he said. "That whole effort will be focused on the legislative agenda."
So there you have it. Regional media outlets who are easier to buy off will promote Bush's Social inSecurity plan. Private 'research companies' like CATO, The Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute will be paid off to conduct and promote 'research' which, imagine that, says exactly what Bush's folks want it to say. 'Rapid response' organizations paid for by GOP/Republican money, including astroturfing groups, will send out thousands of letters and make thousands of phone calls to people promoting the Bush agenda. 'Surrogates' like the criminal, CIA-agent-outing Robert Novak and the recently-busted Armstrong Williams will promote Bush's agenda on television and in print.

The Americans doing the attacking are hardly Americans in any positive sense of 'being American'. These people, Bush and his apologists, are the people who supported the Vietnam War, aided Saddam before, during, and after his gassing of the Kurds, and invaded Iraq - all morally reprehensible - all illegal - and all involved should be in jail, still. People who would probably call themselves Americans - people like Bush and his cronies - are hardly American in that they stand for almost no postive values. Decency. Democracy. Valuing human life. Bush and his conservative allies stand for just the opposite of all these things. No amount of words can change that reality.

Being born into U.S. citizenship hardly does a U.S. citizen make - at least, morally and intellectually. Bush and his supporters may be U.S. citizens by the legal definition of the term, but that's about it.

Those of you out there who sat through Fahrenheit 9/11 will recognize these scare tactics immediately. The 'War on Terror' was dreamt-up by the powerful elites of our country - Bush and his cronies - to benefit themselves. That's all. If you bother to look at the evidence, you'll see that Bush and his friends are busy making us less safe, rather than more safe - as they claim. You have to start following their actions rather than their words. It requires work - a lot more work - but it's possible. If you start with a healthy dose of skepticism, everything will work out fine. If you start, instead, by believing that politicians are telling you the truth - giving them the benefit of the doubt - you are ruined. And we, as a country, are ruined.

Those of you there who did not yet watch Fahrenheit 9/11 will once again be duped into dragging your country and its people down. Afraid of a little movie. Disgusting. There's a word for that - moral cowardice. Go rent it from the library if you don't want to put money into Michael Moore's pockets.

Whatever excuse you use to justify your ignorance is just not good enough anymore. People are suffering tragically for your ignorance. We are all ignorant at some level, but some of us try to achieve enlightenment - however slight. The point is that we try - we're trying to become better citizens. By sitting in front of Fox News exclusively, you stay in your little cocoon of ignorance. This intentional ignorance is not ethical. It is not moral. Change your behavior - if not for the sake of your family and friends, then for the sake of your country - still, however improbably, the leading light of freedom in the world today.

Here, in Bush's weekly radio address, we note that the weasled one breaks out the scare-mongering talk - using highly-charged words like 'bankruptcy' and repeating them over and over and over to scare us all. He talks about Social Security being 'on the road to bankruptcy' - which is technically true - though that bankruptcy isn't scheduled to happen for another 70 years.

When was the last time the United States government fixed a problem on time, much less 70 years ahead of time? People would have to be complete morons to believe that Bush wants to fix Social Security. Bush doesn't give a flying fuck about Social Security one way or the other. His supporters despise it, though, and Bush and his cronies see an incredible opportunity to further enrich themselves and their corporate backers - Wall Street, in particular.

Yet the clones will believe anything Bush says, apparently.

For you clones out there, let me help you figure it out. It'll go something like this for the next few months:
* bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy
* massive debts, massive debts, massive debts
* bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy
* bankruptcy, terror, massive debts
* mushroom cloud.

Got it?

Then, after America is once again scared shitless, the Rethugs will ram a massive tax giveaway and Social Security-busting bill through Congress.

Mission Accomplished.

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