Third Way has been trying to privatize Social Security since 1990s. This is not playing chess.
This is for real. Our Democratic leaders have been inundated with propaganda since the late 1980s when the DLC was formed.
There is no way now that President Obama needs to be concerned about following through on his wish to use the social safety nets to achieve a "Grand Bargain". Only those up for re-election need to be concerned.
Seniors are nervous now that both parties are letting them down. I think that though Obama does not have to worry about re-election.....those running next year most certainly do. And that's a shame for many of those who really care.
Jon Cowan, the Third Way president, started writing stuff about this long ago. One article he addressed to Grandpa and Grandma, asking them to give up some of their entitlements so their grandchildren would not have to suffer.
Baloney. But many Democrats have listened.
1993 An Appeal To Grandma And Grandpa by Jon Cowan now Third Way president.
Dear Grandma and Grandpa:
We write to ask for your help. We're in a financial mess, and unless everyone in our family gets together to fix the problem, we're heading for "economic and fiscal catastrophe." That's not a phrase we picked up on MTV-it's from a recent U.S. government report on the budget deficit.
..."We are not ungrateful. We respect and value the sacrifices you've made for our country and have no desire to take money away from those in need. But our generation is in trouble. We were educated in a collapsing school system. Our incomes and skill levels are lower than any previous generation-by the year 2000 over one-third of younger Americans will be living in poverty. And we will be the first Americans to inherit a lower standard of living than our parents.
We're not asking that your generation solve all our problems. And there certainly are many other programs that also must be cut to get the deficit under control. But Social Security must be considered, just like everything else in the budget.
But that's not all he wrote. Jon Cowan was a very busy little conservative bee through the 90s. Still is.
In 1995 he called for privatizing Social Security.
Op ed from Third Way prez Cowan calling to privatize Social Security.
Despite the truth about this imminent collapse of the system, Senate Democrats recently killed the balanced-budget amendment with claims that it left Social Security vulnerable to budget-balancing. And House Republicans swore in the 1994 elections that they'd never touch the program. Why this doublespeak from both parties? A simple political calculation: Older Americans vote, and Generation X doesn't.
Unfortunately for America, this lie-to-get-elected approach is disastrous for our long-term fiscal outlook and will squander any hope of repairing the system before the crisis strikes early in the next millennium.
The time has come to reinvent Social Security based on a "cut and privatize" approach that will be fair to all age groups.
He then puts forth 3 principles to follow, one of which is to lower our expectations about the future benefits.
He also offered to "give workers the option of putting their money into private pension programs that offer far higher returns and sounder prospects than today's Social Security system."
President Obama has put benefit cuts on the table willingly, though they are calling it other stuff like Chained CPI.
Enough Democrats will go along with it to get it to happen. Unfortunately the end result will be a lot of anger and frustration next year when election time rolls around. He is not being fair at all to our more progressive Democrats.
It is not chess, it is a deliberate process planned through the years by our Democratic think tanks.
It is playing with peoples' lives and stressing them out. Most of us thought the safety nets would be untouchable if we kept Democrats in power. But the President just warned his own party's Senators about not cooperating.
That is not playing chess.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Snyder, Walker, Scott, Brewer, the list goes on. Once Detroit goes under the management of one person, how long until they get their democratically elected government back? Goodbye democracy. 
And most of the time when I post about education, the posts drop rapidly. 
Fat fingers. 
Last edited Thu Mar 14, 2013, 10:08 PM - Edit history (2)
"My Life" by Bill Clinton, pages 381-2, 813, 854, 878-9, 907-8,934 (pages enumerated from Index which discuss the term "Third Way."
at pages 381-382:
I was amazed by some of the criticisms of the DLC from the Democratic left, who accused us of being closet Republicans, and from some members of the political press, who had comfortable little boxes marked "Democrat" and "Republican." When we didn't fit neatly in their ossified Democratic box, they said we didn't believe in anything. The proof was that we wanted to win national elections, something Democrats apparently weren't supposed to do.
***
The principles and proposals I advocated could hardly be called Republican-lite or lacking in conviction. Instead, they helped to modernize the Democratic Party and later would be adopted by resurgent center-left parties all over the world, in what would be called "Third Way." Most important, the new ideas, when implemented, would prove to be good for America....
These are Bill Clinton's own words, but they could have easily enough been written by President Obama, who described himself as a "New Dem." I have no link, but heard him say this in an interview. Of course, I immediately recognized that term and knew instantaneously that I am much farther left than he.
I point this out to answer your question "... do the people you name self-identify as "Third Way"?
I believe you overstepped when you referred to the terms Third Way or DLC as "bogeyman terms." Obviously, these are legitimate terms used by people who want to be recognized as having separated themselves from -- now I will openly make up a term -- Classic Dems.
I have read several bios about Clinton, one of which specifically mentioned his search for a term to particularly identify his brand of politics. He wanted to differentiate his brand of politics from the DLC, from whence he came, thus the search for a different branding. He came up with the term Third Way, but I do not believe it truly stuck. New Dem in the political world today is synonymous with Third Way.
The DLC (Democratic Leadership Conference) openly publicly published its membership list, so there was no secrecy about it. I think of the New Dems as the "remains" of the DLC with a few having left and some new having joined.
Sam
Edited to add President Obama's declaration of being a New Democrat:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19862.html
"Surrounded by 65 moderate Democrats on Tuesday in the State Dining Room, Obama was happy to portray himself as simpatico with a group of members who are largely socially liberal but fiscally more moderate to conservative."
And in doing so, I can *gasp* actually take the discussion in any direction that I want.
And how could I possibly "drown out the critics" when they post the same basic OP day, after day, after day for weeks on end.
Oh yea .... welcome to the internet, and DU.
Who did you think was going to pay for your Social Security? The workers who made your Prius?
of brainwashed short-term thinkers anxious to devour what's left of a dying planet and its sick people! Me richer faster! Me richer faster! Me richer faster! Me richer faster!
How refreshing.
As soon as they do, their views on the safety net will change.
Sounds like they are parroting talking points.
I love it. That cat must have been a happy cat. 
expressing concern about the the takeover of our party and democracy by wealthy special interests again.
