Obama Flips Social Security Off Again.

Okay, if I know that Social Security has nothing to do with the $1.4 trillion deficit or the $13.8 trillion debt, President Obama certainly knows. In fact, he knows the SS surplus has funded President budgets for decades! Why? Because, once again, I know, and I'm not exactly the brightest bird in the flock.  I didn't even have to look it up...I just knew.

Yet, despite his obvious intelligence,  he continues to make statements like the following:

"Actually, I think that if you talk to economists, both conservative and liberal, what they'll say is the problem is not next year. The problem is, how are we dealing with our medium-term debt and deficit, and how are we dealing with our long-term debt and deficit? And most of that has to do with entitlements, particularly Social Security and Medicaid." - President Obama

You see, Social Security and Medicare represent the last vestige of an American society governed by the people and for the people...or at least, as much as that statement has ever held any truth. Therefore, they remain the targets of the Republican demolition squad. Why? Because to completely unravel the remaining tattered threads of the people’s “safety net" - those same threads that former President Roosevelt’s New Deal and former President Johnson’s Great Society wove together that created a network to cushion the blows that can result from occurrences beyond our control - completes their agenda to eliminate protection for the people.  But, President Obama is not a Republican. He is a Democrat...one, who promised he would work on behalf of the people for a change.

He knows we the people are already suffering from an economy that has devastated our savings, home values and retirement security, so why is he  trying to impose measures aimed at cutting working-class living standards? And falsely citing Social Security and Medicare as the biggest problems in dealing with the long-term debt and deficit? Especially, when it's not true.  Moreover, why has President Obama tried to put Social Security on the chopping block (Conrad-Gregg Commission) from the moment he took office?

Anyway, here's the truth: The $1.4 trillion deficit nor the nearly $13.8 trillion debt have anything to do with SS. SS has taken in more revenue each year than it has paid out in benefits for the last 30-years. The excess revenue has been invested in U.S. government securities that the federal government "borrows" from to spend on other things.

Yet, despite the innocence and contribution of social security, increasing the retirement age to 69, making citizens work longer so they pay more into the system, and then, in turn, giving them less when they retire, ranks up there as one of top solutions offered at the expense of the American public.

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When Greed and Ignorance Eliminate Truth

Miles Fiedler (Dallas Roberts), a fictional think tank analyst at a fictional New York City based federal intelligence agency on AMC's new show, Rubicon, in a frenzied state, said something like, 'When you incentivize sons of bitches should it be any surprise the world's going to hell', and right there, he summed up what's wrong with our once great nation.

After decades of  encouraging  greed, power and profit to trump everything else, it's no wonder our financial system transformed into something that only works for those at the very top.  As John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard says, “We have turned an industry of stewardship and turned it into a industry of salesmanship”.

Greed has replaced the integrity of the marketplace. Our financial system is now a financial industry whose agenda includes making the ignorant more ignorant, which in turn makes the wealthy, wealthier.

Questions are not stupid; the stupidity is in not asking them. Once you engage yourself and start inquiring, every effort will be made to make you feel stupid and worthless. Just know, the more stupid and worthless you are made to feel, the closer you are to the truth.

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." -- Adam Smith. (1776). Wealth of Nations

"Out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service." -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, speech in Philadelphia on June 27, 1936

"These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936 speech

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Get Out There And Make Obama Do It.

An audience member attending the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival, stood up and questioned the book panel, tackling the subject of "The Great Repression" if he should continue to maintain his faith in President Obama. Naomi Klein immediately responded with, "Obama needs your pressure, not your faith". She then shared the following anecdote she heard about FDR:

Eleanor Roosevelt said that when FDR would meet with civil rights leaders who would make demands that he didn’t think was politically possible at the time, he would respond, paraphrasing FDR: "That sounds like a great idea - I want to do it. Now get out there and make me do it. Create the conditions in which I can do it.”that's "that's a good idea, now get out there and MAKE me do it!"

Faith is defined as a belief that is not based on proof. President Obama is not God, therefore cannot perform miracles, so our faith, in and of itself, does not help him achieve what he has promised.

Do you think the banksters, the corporate elite, the international power brokers, etc. rely on their faith in Obama to get what they want? Hell no! They harass, and continuously exert as much force as they can muster. So, it's absolutely essential that we, the people, get off our collective ass and counter that force by organizing and creating independent movements that can offset the power and wealth of that infinitesimally small group of elites, who can only hope we, the people never rise up and challenge them. They will cave when the only alternative is revolution.

Breaking up the banks, who caused the meltdown, and ensuring that they never are allowed to get so big that they distort our politics and take down the economy would be a good start.

This applies not only to our economy, but to all the issues President Obama addressed while campaigning, including education, health care, and equal rights for GLBT citizens.

Politicians cannot afford to appear weak when campaigning, therefore they make promises that sound as if they can handle it as long as they have our support, because they would never get elected if they campaigned by telling the public, "I promise....but, only if you force me to do it." So, especially in times like these, it's not enough to place our hope in President Obama, we must make him do it. That's not only what Obama desires, it's something he requires.

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Stimulus, Stabalizer, Spineless or Strategy?

While many conservatives complain President Obama's stimulus package is far too costly, many liberals complain Obama's stimulus package does not go far enough. At the insistence of Republicans, President Obama, in the spirt of bipartisanship and unity, has pared it down even more.

Although the stimulus package sounds like a huge sum of money, relatively speaking, it "only" amounts to approximately 2% of of America's $15 trillion GDP. Economist Paul Krugman says, "Obama’s economic policy should be bolder, not more cautious than FDR’s economic policy" and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs calls the stimulus package a "fiscal pinata" in his article, The Stimulus is a Fiscal Straitjacket.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, said, Roosevelt was "too worried about the whining of the anti-stimulus crowd that he confronted," and that if anything, Roosevelt didn't go far enough.

Others have said the following regarding the potential of the stimulus package :

"The largest spending bill in history is going to turn out to be the war in Iraq. And one of the things, if we're going to talk about spending, I have a problem with is when we leave out that extraordinarily expensive, damaging war in Iraq, which has caused much more harm than good, in my judgment.

And I don't understand why, from some of my conservative friends, building a road, building a school, helping somebody get health care, that's -- that's wasteful spending, but that war in Iraq, which is going to cost us over $1 trillion before we're through -- yes, I wish we hadn't have done that. We'd have been in a lot better shape fiscally. -- Barney Frank

"But when I look at it in its entirety, I fear that we may soon look back and say that we missed a huge chance to go bigger and bolder. After all, there were three flaws with the old economy that has crashed:

1. It favored consumption over production
2. Debt over smart savings;
3. Environmental damage over environmental renewal.

Some parts of the stimulus package seem to be more of the same -- trying to prop up the old, failed economy. That strategy simply won't work -- but we could waste a lot of money and time trying. Instead, we need a new direction for our economy. You can't jump halfway across a chasm -- you just end up falling into the abyss." -- Van Jones, author of The Green Economy

"First of all, there's a question of magnitude. The overall stimulus is about 6 percent of GDP. We did not exit the Great Depression without a stimulus that amounted to about 25 percent of GDP -- we called that World War II... The second problem is with the mix... Only $335 billion worth goes to job creation -- that's about 3.5 million jobs, about $100,000 a job. Three-and-a-half million jobs is only two percentage points on the unemployment rate. That's not enough. I would get rid of the tax cuts and use the entire package for job creation... There are lots of great public works projects that would be well worth supporting. And, in the near term, what about CCC-type activities that put people to work right away, cleaning up public parks, weather-stripping homes, offices, schools, government buildings?" -- Rick Levin, Economics professor and President of Yale

"I am not suggesting that the United States start a world war in order to solve the world's economic problem. But I am suggesting a strategy that could be called the fiscal equivalent of war.

It would consist not merely of updating or repairing the nation's infrastructure, but in undertaking massive new investments that would expand the scope of American industry, and address other urgent problems in the process: global warming, over-reliance on petroleum, and the need to revive America's domestic manufacturing capabilities—not just to provide jobs, but also to provide tradeable goods that can reduce the country's current account deficit." -- John Judis article, Not Doing Enough from the New Republic

With so much at stake, it's natural to criticize and speculate that President Obama might be wasting a crisis or, a ripe opportunity to act; or that he is failing to take advantage of the leverage he currently has; or that politics should not enter into his economic decisions; or that we should stampede rather than tiptoe, etc. However, to be fair, we should also consider the possibility that President Obama might be one step ahead of all of us.

Abraham Lincoln, who President Obama more than admires, was a man who connected the dots, as Joe Biden once said was so important. Rather than a quick study, Lincoln was a deep study, as he considered every side of the question. James M. McPherson author of Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief said, as a lawyer, Lincoln's strategy was to focus on the main point, conceding minor points to his opponent, therefore lulling them into a false sense of complacency. Lincoln reserved the main point, on which the entire case turned, to pounce.

In addition, according to McPherson, President Lincoln forced the hand of the Confederacy, rather than start the war himself. This gave him the upper hand by providing him with a united North, due to his reasonable actions.

In the same way, isn't it possible that President Obama might be taking a page out of President Lincoln's book, so to speak? At first he tries to resolve the issue at hand - the economy - in a reasonable and cooperative manner, in hopes that his opponents will respond in the same way. Fully realizing his opposition may snap the extended "olive branch" in half, his initial peace offering should be enough to unite the people behind him, thus giving him the fresh impetus required to tackle the structural changes that must take place for our economy to function in the 21st century.

After all, look at Obama's choice for White House chief of staff: Rahm Emanuel, the pitbull politician...the killer strategist.

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They Starved So That Others Would Not

More than 44,000 men registered as conscientious objectors during World War II. It wasn't their fear of being killed that inspired them to register, rather a fear that they would have to kill another human being. Most of these men were deeply religious people who could not picture Jesus going to war therefore neither could they. It was clear from their actions Jesus superseded even the President of the United States.

Far from cowards, these men dedicated themselves to serving their country the best they could while at the same time standing up for what they so strongly believed in. Thirty-six of the 12,000 who successfully avoided going to battle signed up to participate in an experiment which would literally starve them in hopes of finding how best to take care of the millions of people who would hopefully be liberated from concentration camps abroad.

Dr. Ancel Keys, author of The Biology of Human Starvation, closely monitored the 36 CO's diets and energy expenditure for 6 months in an effort to re-create the conditions of those in the concentration camps in Europe. There would be a period of normal eating; three months of semi-starvation coupled with the physical exertion of walking an equivalent of 22 miles a week, and then a year long rehabilitation phase.

These men are every bit as much heroes as the soldiers who went to war...maybe even more so. Instead of taking lives, they gave and continue to give life to many people who would otherwise succumb to starvation. They knowingly participated in this excruciatingly painful experiment gaining nothing in return. They were not paid, nor did they receive veteran benefits, purple hearts or any type of reward. This type of experiment is not likely to be repeated and will remain the fullest account of the physiological effects of starvation we have now and in the future.

"Never in the memory of man has there been a war in which the courage, the endurance and the loyalties of civilians played so vital a part," -- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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