Oh dear, Jon!

This does NOT look like “good news” for the majority of human beings living in the US.

Is it possible that the “victory” of Barack Obama and the Democrats during the last last, unlamented, election is NOT really “good news” for any but the “few people in Washington” who will “congratulate each other for looking tough”, looking forward … as “they” say?

Isn’t it simply too bad that there were no actual options to “four more years”?

Isn’t that FACT really, really BAD NEWS for all of us who will not be trading congratulations?

Isn’t it amazing, in all the “good news” which you have shared with us this past year, with all the cheering and sneering, that NONE of the happy-talk, although you and others DID mention such issues, mentioned Obama’s “propensity”, that anyone seemed to actually ANTICIPATE what is, now, going on?

Too bad we aren’t prepared … but then, how much worse it would have been had the evil “other” won … so, there is that “good news” to continue to cheer about, even to crow about … isn’t there?

I mean all is not lost, the lesser (if, “more efficient” evil) won, right.

That is still the overarching “good news” … and all the rest of “it” is merely incidental, if slightly or minimally “unpleasant” news …

Although, I have to admit, your portrayal, above, makes Obama appear rather superficial and quite narcissistic … even a bit of a sociopath.

Probably need new glasses, although, as it turns out, I just picked up my new pair, yesterday … guess my vision is “going” faster than I had realized?

Does Obama still look “good” to you?

;~DW

We will go FORWARD with the planned austerity even though a significant majority of U.S. Citizens agree with you not just progressives.

Obama’s getting ready to punt on first down….again.

O is doing what he is told by the uber wealthy; he is not a leader he is a servant and not to the people but the PTB.

Agreed.

I will quibble just a little on taxing the rich. Their taxes don’t fund anything, never did, never will. That said I still want to tax them to help redistribute the income of this country.

I am not sure who coined that “entitlements” phrase, maybe Frank Luntz, but it is a terrible term.
I worked all my life paying into Social Security, Medicare and now I am told that my contribution is an “entitlement” I think not.
One of the first things we need to do is to end that term and fast.

Right. SS has loaned from it’s accounts back to the Treasury, which was used to bail out the banksters. Now, like really bad children they don’t want to pay it back!

And Obama is the quintessential doting parent.

Except he’s doting on the kids with our money, not his.

Evil is too weak a term for him, imo.

Obama, it’s our money, not theirs, and certainly not yours.

Pssst! He ain’t listening.

‘Homes for the homeless, jobs for the jobless, food for the foodless, lay your body on the grears-
Blame for the blameless, names for the nameless, shame for the shameless, lay your body on the gears!”

all is for all by the civilian conservation corps on acmerecords

I’d prefer that we eat the rich. But taxing them is the next best thing. The majority of Americans don’t care about the social safety net until they’re about to fall through it themselves. Otherwise we would have forced our government to provide actual health care years ago. We could have voted out all these people who continue to bargain away any semblance of a safety net. Instead, we re-elect them – apparently because they’ll hold out until the very last minute before they cave. I’d blow this pop stand in a minute if I could, but other countries don’t want us exceptional Americans if we don’t have enough cash – and who can blame them?

Actually Entitlement is the correct term but the propaganda machine has given it a pejorative meaning. If you are entitled to something you did something to earn that entitlement. Feeling entitled when you haven’t done anything to earn it is wrong. Rich people are not entitled to my respect until they show me something more than inherited money (are you listening Donald Trump).

I once was asked how I set my day rate as a photographer by a person who fanies himself as one of the deciders for others. When I explained it using the barometer any business would use, his response was “What right do you have determining what I should pay you?”

Seriously!

He would be a legislator who sees anything paid to anyone as an entitlement.

Obama promised to gut Soc Sec & Medicare during the 2d Debate. For sure, it is at least the ONE campaign promise that Obama intends to keep. You can count on it.

Hi jon

I applaud your motives, just want to give you some insight for winning this debate;

While there are some other reasons related to income inequality and marginal utility that I support taxing rich people, I primarily want them to pay taxes to fund a social safety net. Taxing the rich is not a goal it is just how you fund actual goals.

the real reason we want to “tax rich people” is the fact that they don’t pay as much as everyone else.

we don’t “need” them to fund our programs, we need them to stop avoiding the payment everyone else makes toward them.

progressive taxes were originally intended to offset the regressive nature of most other taxes, THAT’S why we add taxes to the wealthy, so they don’t pay less

Obama has been consistent and determined in his intention to dismantle, or at least severely weaken, the safety net and to further enrich and empower the 1%. Someone on another site likened it to imposing sanctions as the US does against other countries, making it difficult for people to obtain the necessities of food, shelter, medicine, and healthcare.

I am not sure who coined that “entitlements” phrase, maybe Frank Luntz, but it is a terrible term.

so true

should be something like “return from our investments” rather then “entitlement”

Good stuff, Jon.

No slack for our brave, progressive, just-re-elected preznint.

I don’t think so. I think the program has always been referred to as an entitlement. Right on the ssa website it says

SOCIAL SECURITY ENTITLEMENT REQUIREMENTS

.
Americans have just heard the word spoken with contempt for so long they forget some things we are genuinely entitled to.

My household cared enough about Social Security and MediCare to chose our candidates from the third party side of the ledger.

Both Barack Obama and the guy running for the House seat, Mike Thompson, had stated that Social Security needed to “be tweaked” or that it was a problem in terms of the nation’s deficit.

Neither man got my vote. In the case of Thompson, I simply couldn’t vote for anyone for that office. (Only two people running for the House; neither cares for Social Security.)

Are you kidding? Shame on that person!

Hope you get a dozen better clients to make up for that one.

they don’t want to pay it back!

The issue has nothing to do with borrowed money or paying it back.

The Department of the Treasury currently invests all program revenues in special non-marketable securities of the U.S. Government which earn a market rate of interest. The balances in the trust funds represent the accumulated value, including interest, of all prior program annual surpluses and deficits, and provide automatic authority to pay benefits.

The government paid out $600B in benefits last year including paying the Trust Fund $106B in interest on the borrowed money.

I think that it is really important to tax the rich because they have been avoiding paying any taxes on corporate earnings by keeping the profits overseas or in tax havens; and because, under the Obama-Bush tax cuts they have kept millions of dollars in income which should have gone to pay for government. Unfortunately, the CEOs and their lackies, the political class, have frightened us into thinking that we do not pay enough, into thinking that somehow we are getting things and services which we have not paid for. This is a 180 degree from the truth experience which those who want to exploit Americans and America repeat over and over again. We have been brainwashed into thinking that it is our fault that we have a government deficit. It is THEIR fault. The rich, Wall Street CEOs, the corporations have been exploiting us and taking our wealth. From this document from IPS, the scam perpetrated on all of us is made very clear:

http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/ceo-campaign-to-fix-the-debt

I totally agree. The republicans have won half the battle just by using, and hammering home, the word “entitlement” when referring to social security. Take note that most politicians, both D and R use it
I was harping on this at FDL 4 years ago, trying to get people to not use the word entitlement, but it never worked.

Can we all agree not to use the word ‘entitlement’ please.

“Send the robber barons straight to hell
The greedy thieves who came around
And ate the flesh of everything they found
Whose crimes have gone unpunished now
Who walk the streets as free men now”

“So you use what you’ve got
And you learn to make do
You take the old, you make it new
If I had me a gun, I’d find the
Bastards and shoot’em on sight
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right”

“We take care of our own…”

With lyrics like those, ya gotta wonder what The Boss is thinking about all the love he gave Barry those last few weeks.

See comment @10 above. You should also note that Democrats have adopted the same false meaning of entitlements and the millionaire Senators and Congressmen (D’s and R’s)do not care about Grandma’s $1178/mo. SS check.

Entitlement has a specific meaning in social policy. AFDC was an entitlement until it was “reformed” by the Clinton administration. That meant that if a person met very well defined criteria for a benefit program, then they must receive the benefit for which they applied.

Social security is more an insurance program, where people pay in from current income in return for a defined benefit at a later date. A better name for SS might be “Social Insurance” or “Public Retirement Benefits.”

He ain’t The Boss to me no more. I’d rather listen to Boots and The Coup:

“Capitalism is like a spider,
the web is getting tighter
I’m struggling like a fighter,
just to bust loose
It’s like a noose
asyphyxiation sets in
Just when I think I’m free
it seems to me the spider steps in
This web is made of money
made of greed made of me
Of what I have become
in a parasite economy”

DW, you have got it all wrong. Obama attacking the social safety net now is precisely the opportunity those who voted for him were waiting for in order to force him “left.” That’s the happy news. Here is where everything changes! Here is where the Dem party faithful get their leader to do what they think is right, oh ye of little faith.

To be fair, I never imagined that the cries of, “Oh my god he fooled us,” would have happened only a week after Obama’s reelection. Immediately going after the safety net is an even bigger “fuck you” to the liberals and progressives who voted for him than Emanuel’s “fucking retarded” comment. “I swear to God, DW, he said he wouldn’t hit me this time!”

“It is the bizarro version of what the Democratic party once stood for.”

Exactly what is so bizarro about this if Dem voters keep approving of it I can’t figure out.

Everyone who voted for this sociopathic corporate employee (or his Rep party twin) owns a tiny piece of the destruction of Social Security, which has fuck all to do with any notions of “purity,” “seriousness” or “practicality.”

Bull! By increasing the age of retirement they would be changing the date that those entitlements are due (since the funding of Social Security comes directly from those funds). Additionally, having those funds freed up allows them to spend the money on other general obligations.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061211165617AA4etf7

The fact that everyone, especially those on the “left,” agrees to use the word “entitlements” helps ensure that Social Security will be destroyed. It is a term that passively submits to authority by imagining that the money for SS is a gift from the Owners. Its use indicates acquiescence.

Because I am quite sure that SS is going to be stolen by rich people—and with a lot of help from what passes for the “left”—I wish (Ha!) that they would give me back every cent I have paid into it so that I can give it to folks who are worse off than me (I sure as fuck wouldn’t trust the likes of Obama to take care of that for me).

1 in 5 elderly folks are going to get to live on pragmatism. They sure as heck aren’t going to be able to rely on the safety net.

Like you I was hoping that we’d get at least a month before we’d have to say I told you so.

We US citizens are a scared and atomized lot who, in so being, have a hard time seeing how our lives are connected to and dependent upon the lives of those around us.

I recommend Paraguay. The Chaco region is a nice ranching area.

If one is going to force a politician’s hand, they have to be ready to do it as soon as the votes are counted. Or do we imagine that the President doesn’t immediately have things to do for those he works for?

The battered spouse is hit just as soon as the cops close the door to leave.

Hello DW,

Again I say if you voted for the two corporate parties you would be voting to slit your own throat. Glad I voted third party. Usually people say if you don’t vote you can’t complain, I say if you voted for the corporate parties you can’t complain because that’s what you voted for. Hang in there. :)

Sounds interesting. I’d have to brush up on my Spanish.

Now, now, DW, be fair! This is an FDL Action diary, and on FDL Action Jon has been consistent about calling out attacks on Social Security. It’s only on elections.firedoglake.com where he put out a steady stream of “good news” posts, never officially endorsing the Democrats, but perhaps spotlighting pro-Dem trends in a subconscious/subliminal cheerleading role. Apparently, having two separate niches at FDL led Jon to adopt separate personas for the two categories. But if you click on the “Jon Walker” name at the top of the post, you will see consistent diaries on this subject, in this tone; they were just overwhelmed by the approximate 3-to-1 ratio of elections.firedoglake.com posts also under his name.

Frankly, I don’t see the merit in this approach. But Jon has sought to keep his (semi-)cheerleading for Democratic electoral success separate from his criticism of the Democratic agenda, for whatever reason. I am hopeful that, with the election over, he can now speak in a single voice.

And I also remain amused. It’s only been five days since we “purity trolls” were being castigated and urged to “celebrate” the electoral “success” for “progressives”. Obama must find playing the “populist” role so tiring; now he’s right back to “pragmatism”. Like clockwork!

>>>
hey bruce, ‘you ain’t a beauty but, hey, you’re alright’ – boss? more like a psychophantic elitist wanna-be ..

‘the politicians and preachers agree, war is holy and greed’s godly – taking care of the poor isn’t part of their plan, that’s why I’m gonna lend my hand – I’ve always known’

lend a hand by the civilian conservation corps on acmerecords

Why do the CEOs of drug companies, insurance companies, doctor specialties, medical equipment corporations supplying useless stuff being defended by progressives? Why are these people entitled to taxpayer funding?

The US health care system is currently headed to 25% of GDP will resulting in shorter lives than in other “poorer” developed nations because the US health care system structures the entitlement funding for the wealthy among the providers, starving the grunt workers of the providers while depriving the patients of quality health care.

Obama understands that costs are too high and benefits too low, and the entitlements of the rich providers must be cut. Why can’t progressives understand that, or are the progressives the health care CEOs and high pay doctors who feel entitled to picking the pockets of taxpayers and patients.

I think you’re describing the “compartmentalizing’ advocated by the “progressive elite” such as Chomsky, Ellsberg, West, Piven, et.al. Vote LOTE (on the social issues, I think, since there was no gap on military policy), then go back to being the left opposition immediately after the polls close.

It was a little too nuanced for me then, and now I’m really glad I was a swing-state voter voting Green.

smedley butler said “war is a racket” -

i say “insurance is an amoral racket”

time to end the business that is designed to keep health care away from poor people –

health care for all is the American way

this is a no-brainer for a so-called compassionate and Christian country

Repubs make a specialty of ruining perfectly decent words with well understood meanings. They need to make those words which cover things people are satisfied with government about into negatives.

Liberal is one such word; entitlements another. Same end goal. Power and wealth for themselves alone.

Obama is a Democrat only in Bizarro World.

Logging in to say a fond ‘Hi’ to Popeye in agreement with and admiration for DW’s #1.

Isn’t it amazing how without a pause gears are shifted and now that it is no longer possible to accomplish what we might have demanded of our candidate before we voted, (a green New Deal comes to mind) – we’re on the bandwagon for precisely that. Why, we could almost be supposed to be politicians, we’re so good at this!

Obama got less votes than Bush II second term, but he doesn’t care about votes; he doesn’t care about pretending to have a mandate. He’s got the Republicans and they’ve both got the 1%.

But I guess Obama is still operating on his first set of endorsements, and that’s why he’s in such a hurry. Once his new term kicks in, he’ll for sure be listening to those voters.

“Like you I was hoping that we’d get at least a month before we’d have to say I told you so.”

It is much like religious folks who believe that their god is looking out for them. Then a tragedy befalls them. The obvious follow up question is, “Well, where was your god then?” Their response is, “Oh, he was with me all along. The tragedy was just part of his Divine Plan–these are the mysteries of Faith.” At which point one is inclined to ask, “So, what is the point of having faith that he is looking out for you? What is the payoff for this assumption if it does not yield results?” Answer: “Because if I don’t believe, Hell (i.e. the Republicans) awaits.”

Hey Juliania good to “see” you. I guess George Carlin was right, it’s a big club and “we” ain’t in it. :)

Heh, seriously?

Yahoo Answers?

President Obama was the first Democrat I am aware of to use that term. He validated it. No one will give up using it now.

A perfect example of why voting for a Republican simply because his personal ambition is best served by putting a (D) after his name is not the lesser of two evils, not even a little.

Why is anyone surprised?