Framing the fight on social security and against the Ownership Society. Civilized Society. I can't think of any other way to get around "Ownership Society". If they sell that concept, seems to me that it will be over the cliff time for social programs in America and all over the world.
"This morning I ran across a couple of articles that contained reference to the leaked Wehner Memo of Jan 3. While we could be content to argue the facts and figures that make up the amount of a monthly social security check, this memo discloses the truth of the stark reality facing us. It is a truth we had better not ignore. The memo bluntly states Social Security "will be one of the most important conservative undertakings of modern times." Further, that there "is going to be a monumental clash of ideas" and that "At the end of the day, we want to promote both an ownership society and advance the idea of limited government." Finally, for anybody who has followed the Republican fight against social security, it is clear dismantling the program is what they mean when they say "For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win -- and in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country."
This is not a fight about whether we'll retire at 65 or 67 or 70. It is not a battle about whether blacks or women are cheated. It is not a battle about whether the youth will get more than they deserve under the current system, as the memo also contends. It is not even a battle to remind people that this is also a program to insure against poverty should one become disabled or the breadwinner should die, although that is important. It is clearly a battle about the "philosophical landscape of the country." It is a battle about who we are as a people. It is a battle about the "Ownership Society" and what it really means.
It is hard to fight the concept of owning things. Who is against owning a house, investment portfolio, or insurance policy? You'd have to be insane or skipped through the tulips a bit too long to be against those things. I don't know of a Democrat who is against those things, I don't even think Ralph Nader is against those things. They certainly excel at choosing the exact marketing phrase that will appeal to the egos of the masses. As I was digesting the boldness of the declarations in that memo, I couldn't even begin to imagine how we would fight this concept. Then I read Will Pitt's piece, One For All. It is a harrowing and moving story about Will and his mom and a tragedy that grace turned into a miracle, it is absolutely a MUST READ. But it also shines the light on our path out of this neocon nightmare.
Writes Will, "Yet it was a Republican named Oliver Wendell Holmes who said, 'Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society.'"
Civil
1. Of, relating to, or befitting a citizen or citizens: civil duties.
2. Of or relating to citizens and their interrelations with one another or with the state: civil society; the civil branches of government.
3. Of ordinary citizens or ordinary community life as distinguished from the military or the ecclesiastical: civil authorities.
4. Of or in accordance with organized society; civilized.
5. Sufficiently observing or befitting accepted social usages; not rude: a civil reply.
6. Being in accordance with or denoting legally recognized divisions of time: a civil year.
7.Law. Relating to the rights of private individuals and legal proceedings concerning these rights as distinguished from criminal, military, or international regulations or proceedings.
Civilized
1. To raise from barbarism to an enlightened stage of development; bring out of a primitive or savage state.
2. To educate in matters of culture and refinement; make more polished or sophisticated.
We are a neighborhood, a community, a Civilized Society. All one has to do is take a look at the SS memo and the 99 programs George Bush plans to terminate to know that he is advocating an Abandonment Society. We are simply better than this.
Will concludes:
"This is not worth of a nation that thinks of itself not only as great, but as good. Being good costs money, and involves sacrifice. Being good involves doing what must be done to take care of the weakest among us, rather than living them at the mercy of a kind of economic Darwinism that would have made Jesus vomit on his own sandals in disgust. Being good means taking the time to see through the words of wolves who would sell us a bitter pill while dressed as sheep. The system as it stands needs work, but not the kind of work that has been proposed. A great nation can do better. A good nation must do better.
My mother had the life of that young man delivered into her hands, and she chose to lift him up to a higher place despite the sacrifices she was forced to accept. Each of us holds the life and well-being of our neighbors in our hands. We can choose to lift each other up, or we can shrug and decide it isn't our problem. If we are indeed a community, if we are indeed good, we can make the choice to do that lifting.
Make the choice"
memo
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_01_02.phpWill's piece
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021305A.shtmlhttp://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=371
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