CRUSHING THE MIDDLE CLASS II

While the middle class (or what’s left of it) is distracted by the power grab in Republican run States, Pete Peterson and his “Moment of Truth” operation works overtime to confuse the people I like to call the “popcorn boomers.” This is not a difficult task. Most of them live somewhere on Planet Fox and they are easily led to believe that the growing deficit can only be trimmed if and when entitlements are either banished into some political black hole or they are preferably re-routed into a massive tax break for the wealthy.

$2.6 trillion dollars sits in the Social Security coffers, much of it created after the 1983 reform that took into full account the retirement of the boomers. This isn’t what the “Moment of Truth” operation wants you to hear. They want you to think that Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting this country. They want you to think that despite the fact that you paid into this account your entire working life, that to expect a return on that money is not only greedy but unpatriotic. They want you to think, as Richard Eskow wrote, that “cutting is reform” in the same way that Orwell’s 1984 espoused “war is peace.”

And now Congress has the “gang of six”, a policy touting contingent of thieves and crooks working under the auspices of ‘bipartisanship.’ Republicans and Democrats working together to pillage the middle class, hopefully with their approval. If they can’t win approval, it doesn’t really matter.

At no point do these mavericks want you to think that any of these entitlements can be saved. They disguise their intent by shouting louder than the Left, using terminology that triggers the worst response in popcorn boomers. What are those words? Socialist, communist, Nazi. I’ve even heard a few words that are left over from the anti-union rhetoric of 100 years ago. Namely, Bolshevik, anarchist, bomb throwers.

Are there solutions? They are relatively simple in scope and easily implemented should congress ever recall that their signature purpose is to defend the American people. For Social Security, extend the tax cap beyond its current levels. For Medicare, restructure the health care system so that it is not so market driven (code words for greed driven).

But the right has several fronts going at once and the Left simply reacts to each firefight as they erupt. There are the culture wars (predominantly against women and gays), the corporate antagonists, the unions, and the entitlement forays. They manufacture tales about our founding fathers and they push the myths and superstitions that cradle modern religions and they lie, openly and boldly, about what constitutes a patriot.

The math is incredibly slippery in the hands of our current government. The fact that Obama is so terminally prone to ‘compromise’ weakens us all. In the same way that teachers in this country have been so demoralized by critics, progressives have been punked by a president and a good portion of the democratic party, leaving them stunned and gunning for retribution but on the defensive.

The plutocracy has established a beach head. Soon they will be at our doors and we will be the new slumdogs.