2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThey Want to Destroy Social Security (circa 1935)
Yesterday, I wrote that all the crocodile tears that the Right Wing sheds for the supposed insolvency of Social Security are just a cover story for what they really want to do, i.e., destroy Social Security. My Tea Party opponent is a perfect example of this: he calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme; he calls Social Security and Medicare robbery; he calls them unconstitutional; and somehow were supposed to believe that hes the one to save them.
So it has ever been. So it will ever be.
Germany introduced Social Security in 1889. It came to America only 46 years later, in 1935. When the Social Security program was introduced here, one of its most vociferous critics was former Republican President Herbert Hoover. Having led America into the Great Depression, Hoover wanted to make sure that no one led it out. (Does that ring a bell?)
According to an Associated Press report on May 6, 1935 (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1928&dat=19350506&id=79MgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6WoFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1522,2944240), and a New York Times report on May 22, 1938 (sorry, no NYT link), Hoover attacked Social Security in apocalyptic terms. Regarding the security for seniors that the program would provide, Hoover said that we can find [the same economic stability] in our jails. The slaves had it [too]. Hoover said that programs like Social Security would put Americans in cages: Our people are not ready to be turned into a national zoo.
Its odd that Sarah Palin hasnt deployed the same metaphors. Yet.
Hoover said that rather than indulging in programs like Social Security, Americans should cling to their family life, to their homes, to their individual self-respect, to their rights, to their individual liberties. He urged that we must not shift from the self-made man to the government-coddled man.
I know that this sounds just like Paul Ryan, but it was Herbert Hoover. Really.
Hoover added that the way to achieve genuine social security was not through government handouts, but by saving pennies and producing more.
Yes, those pennies sure add up, dont they? Save five of them, and youve got a nickel. Or, in Mitt Romneys case, a quarter.
Hoover said that he believed in private charity, not government handouts. He predicted that government programs like Social Security would destroy private charity, one of the most fundamental of inspirations in the spiritual growth of the family or individual.
Now you know whom Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum got their ideas from.
With unemployment in America approaching 25%, Hoover said that social programs like Social Security simply werent needed to feed, house and clothe people. We could do that by the simple methods of bread lines, barracks and dungarees. The government could do nothing to ameliorate these problems; the only answer was courage and vision in adversity.
This sounds like something that Mitt Romney would say, right? Either that, or something equally vacuous.
Herbert Hoover led the Republican effort to strangle Social Security in its crib. And now, 77 years later, Republicans are trying to suffocate Social Security as it lies in bed.
At least theyre consistent.
When a right-wing Republican talks about how to save Social Security, I dont know whether to laugh or (like John Boehner) cry. Republicans have as much interest in saving Social Security as they do in saving the whales. Or the rainforest. Or the Queen. Or the last dance. Meaning none.
Courage,
Alan Grayson
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,611 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)ProfessionalLeftist
(4,982 posts)SILVER__FOX52
(535 posts)ALWAYS with Alan.
pacalo
(24,721 posts)the vulnerable people.
Private charities, particularly churches, are not equipped to handle the degree of distress of those in need on a continuing basis, just as individual states cannot handle disasters without help from the federal government. Just ask my governor, Bobby Jindal.
tokenlib
(4,186 posts)..they have no idea that this GOP breed actually has the balls to carry though and will try to destroy it if they get into power...
The GOP has sown the seeds of the "big lie" of insolvency for so long that even the DLC refugee dems have fallen for the deceit..
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)FDR being a rich guy doing stuff like this was a no-no.
It was betrayal & the Republican Party that emerged from Roosevelt's reforming of the Democratic Party has been hellbent on destroying every bit of his New Deal piece by piece by piece ever since.
The New Deal was a bribe to the Poor to stave off Revolution.
The Poor were happy to just be able to move to this new creation called The Suburbs & raise families as human instinct commands them to do.
They didn't want much. They didn't want what they COULDA got. A true socialist system which checks the power of money & puts society's needs above capital acquisition.
Just being a little comfortable & able to work & raise their families was all they wanted.
So Roosevelt gave it to 'em.
The Republicans were mad even over THAT little gesture.
What's the big deal?
The Poor didn't reject the enslaving money system & were willing to let capitalism still have most of the say.
They would spend the new little monies they had on products so the money came back to the Rich anyway.
Guess the Rich just didn't like that money taken off the top.
All money is THEIR money in the Rich Man's eyes.
"Only WE decide who's worthy enough to receive our crumbs," say the Rich.
So they have been trying to figure out a way to roll back all that the New Deal put together.
They found hope when the Southern Dixiecrats left the Democratic Party because LBJ signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act & broke up that little fiefdom of Black Oppression.
Using the energy of these ignorant bigots, they chipped away at all the New Deal legacy accomplished piece by piece.
High tax rates of 94% in the 1940s & 1950s & 70% in the 1960s & 1970s got dropped to 28% by the end of the 1980s.
They robbed & raided the Social Security & Medicare funds trying to break them.
And now they demonize these programs as 'Entitlements' as if people didn't earn or deserve them.
Democrats who SHOULD oppose & stump this reckless irresponsible contingent roll over like Rover when the rubber meets the road.
We'll see if the Democrats still got will to fight if they get elected in 2012.
At this point, I don't get my hopes up.
John Lucas