Thursday, December 9, 2010

Where Did This Guy Go to College?

At his press conference on Tuesday, Obama said: "This country was founded on compromise. I couldn’t go through the front door at this country’s founding. And if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn’t have a union."... Is he saying that Emancipation and Civil Rights were the fruits of COMPROMISE?  Is he attributing Emancipation and Civil Rights to back room deal-making and soul-selling, just like his tax cut deal?  This is self-serving historical inaccuracy. And, in the context of his complaint about progressives feeling "sanctimonious about how pure [their] intentions are and how tough [they] are," Obama's comment must be read as another put-down of the social movements (and soldiers) who fought for transformational change.

Obama Wrongly Describes the Origins of Welfare as the Origins of Social Security -- AGAIN


At his Tuesday press conference President Obama repeated the claim he
first made in his interview with Jon Stewart six weeks ago: that
Social Security began as a program for widows and orphans. (See my 10/31/10 posting for a clip from the Stewart interview).

At the most elemental level, this is a false claim as Social Security
actually left out widows and orphans when it was enacted in 1935. It
was only in 1939 that Social Security provided for widows and orphans
-- and then only if they were heirs/survivors of husbands/fathers who
were covered by the Social Security system.

Social Security was exactly the opposite of the program Obama
apparently thinks it was created to be. It was pegged to the white,
male worker who was employed in jobs that were available mainly to
white men. It was tied to white, male lifetime labor patterns of
uninterrupted employment. It was (and is) based on contributions from
wages.

Social Security was and is a contributory social insurance program.
The program that initially "only affected widows and orphans" (quoting
from the President's press conference) was welfare -- mothers's
pensions, as it was called in the Progressive Era, then Aid to
Dependent Children, as it became in the New Deal.

Does Obama think that Social Security is welfare? ....ahhh... That
explains everything! No wonder he is so quick to sacrifice Social
Security to the cause of deficit reduction. He must think ending
Social Security is the next phase of welfare reform (which he loved).
Dont be surprised if he tries to extend marriage promotion (along with
fatherhood, his alternative to welfare for single mothers) -- to
seniors.

For more on this see  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/08/while-whacking-left-obama_n_794061.html

Obama's 2 Trillion Dollar Sell-Out to the For-Profit Health Care Industry

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/08/industry-health-care-deals-haunt-white-house_n_793041.html

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Progressive Change Campaign Committee

Progressive Change Campaign Committee

Sign the petition to fight the Obama tax cuts for the rich!

The End of Social Security | MyFDL

The End of Social Security | MyFDL

President Obama's so-called payroll tax holiday is a shot in the gut of Social Security. Does he want to end economic security for the elderly? As Nancy Altman explains, the payroll tax holiday will ratchet up the pressure to cut and delay Social Security benefits because it means an expanded shortfall from the Social Security trust fund. Obama didn't get the 14 votes on the Deficit Commission needed to kneecap Social Security -- but I guess he found another way.

The Worst Off Get Screwed Over Again

Obama's soul-chilling, mind-numbing, spirit-sapping capitulation on the Bush tax cuts supposedly in a "deal" for extended Unemployment Insurance -- leaves out the more than 2 million workers who have exhausted their 99 weeks of UI.  By next year at this time, there will be an estimated 6 million 99ers -- so not only does Obama's tax deal spread injustice by fattening the rich, it will also spread misery and poverty.