Well, Social Security is under attack again, and the attacks are serious, even more so now that Democrats are in power. Paul Krugman put up a good column today.

A lot of the Beltway establishment has a thing about Social Security — in a way, by the way, they don’t have a thing about Medicare, which is a vastly more important long-run problem. No matter how much you talk logic or numbers, they’re obsessed with the idea that Social Security must be cut; as I wrote back when, somewhere back in the 90s talking tough on Social Security became a badge of seriousness, and facts just can’t make a dent in that social convention.

Indeed, facts don’t matter, but action does. And we need serious action now to once again save the program from predators.

In my time, the first serious attack on the program came in the early 1980’s when Ronald Reagan was president. It was full frontal, and failed miserably. They quickly learned that the program was extremely popular, that it was a third rail. They backed off, and did two things:1) Using JuJitsu, they instituted the largest tax increase in history, applied solely against working people and retirees receiving benefits; 2) they set out to convince the younger generation that the program could not be sustained, and that they would never receive benefits. (Most youth that I have talked to echo that choice bit of propaganda.)

The next, and more serious attack,came in the late 1990’s, when Bill Clinton was president. As revealed by aides after he left office, he was set to spring a secret privatization plan on us, and it had gone so far as to have measurements be made of the amount of keyboard input time would be necessary to set up the new private accounts. Fortunately for all of us, Clinton is a sleazeball, and his presidency was jeopardized by the Monica scandal. To shore up support, he needed to rally his base, and so became a champion of the program. The “Lock Box” was created.

But it was close. Too close.

The next attack came from George W. Bush in 2005. He said he was going to spend some “political capital” to privatize the program. But since he was perceived as a right wing Republican, and since he had very little capital, it was easy to mount opposition, and the plan quietly died.

We are in trouble now, serious trouble. One, a Democrat is in office, and two, his administration is offering assurances that the program is safe. Assurances are nothing more than a disarming tactic. As with the Public Option, the linchpin of health care reform, Democrat assurances are probably meant to forestall ground-level organization. They will then, in Clinton fashion, spring on us the fully developed privatization plan.

These are Democrats. I may not know much, but I know Democrats.They are far, far more dangerous than Republicans. Now is the time to join organizations that exist to prot3ectSocial Security, and spend what money and effort you can for that cause.

MoveOn is running a campaign.

National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare Preserve

Preserve Your Social Security

And, of course, write to your representative and senators. Be polite but firm. Tell them that the issue is important, that if they betray trust, you will vote for their opponent in the next election. (That makes your one vote into two.) It takes courage to vote for a Republican to punish a Democrat, but it is easier to unite against Republicans. Only Democrats can undermine Democrats.

From Glenn Greenwald: What political courage looks like:

Park 51 opponents have made much of the fact that polls show majority support for their view, as though public opinion should dictate where religious minorities can congregate. A new poll today reveals that 62% of Americans — a record high — now oppose the war in Afghanistan. By the reasoning of project opponents, shouldn’t that mean that public opinion should be honored with a withdrawal from that country? After all, religious freedoms are not supposed to be dependent upon the approval of majorities; the whole point of such liberties is to protect minorities from majoritarian frenzies. By contrast, wars are actually supposed to be fought only with the support of the citizenry. If majority sentiment should prevail, a far more compelling case can be made that it should do so with regard to Afghanistan than with the religious liberties of a minority group.

Asking for political courage from politicians who represent the most frightened and neurotic people on the planet is a fool’s errand. Of course they know what is up, how wrong what they are doing is. But what is there to make them do the right thing? In American politics, doing the right thing is its own punishment.

Transcript of secret White House conversation earlier this week:

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: Bobby – what are you doing going off on progressives like that? You fuckhead! We may hate them, but we need them.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: Yeah. My bad. I just get so frustrated with them. They’re not voting the way we want. They’ve been a little hard to manage.

President Obama: Yeah. Bad move. Now we have to give them something.

Emanuel: Shit! See what you did, ratfuck? See what you did? OK. Done. What can we give them? Let’s think.

Obama: Can’t be anything important.

Gibbs: Can’t hurt anyone in congress – you know – can’t be something they have to take a stand on and maybe get hurt.

Obama: Symbolic. Empty. Meaningless. Think, guys, think!

Obama supports ground zero mosque! Obama supports ground zero mosque!

David Sirota goes all junkyard dog on Harold Ford

David Sirota assured himself that another Democratic Leadership Council member will never appear on his show. Harold Ford, former DLC head and member of Congress, supported Clinton’s trade deals and Bush’s tax cuts and wars while in congress, came on Sirota’s show to talk about his personal courage.

Sirota was having none of it. Click on the link to hear the ten minute interview. Great fun!

Cryptography is a science of deduction and controlled experiment; hypotheses are formed, tested and often discarded. But the residue which passes the test grows until finally there comes a point when the experimenter feels solid ground beneath his feet: his hypotheses cohere, and fragments of sense emerge form their camouflage. The code “breaks.” (John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B, as quoted in The Code Book, by Simon Singh)

If only … people would treat politics like cryptography. The breaking of the ancient Greek Linear B was an intellectual accomplishment of historical significance – a remarkable feat. Understanding American politics is far less complicated. It is coded and needs to be unencrypted, but once done is quite easy to understand. There are several basic rules:

1. Assurances mean nothing. In fact, assurance are as often a means of disarming opposition. For instance, Obama’s campaign pledge to support a public option had just that effect. Assurance we are receiving now that the Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire should not be trusted.
2. Politicians can favor something in public and fight it behind the scenes. And often do. Sen Michael Bennet’s (D-CO) public support of the public option as he worked against it was just such a maneuver.

3. Votes cast on bills can be real or fake. Perhaps this is the hardest idea to sell, even though it is so obvious. Once the votes are in place to pass or kill legislation, all subsequent votes cease to matter. They can be cast for cosmetic purposes.
4. Party affiliation is skin deep. Having two parties gives us the illusion of choice, but the same people finance each party and have power and leverage over them. So, when they go behind closed doors, it is about interests, and not parties. This gives rise to the notion that politicians ought to wear patches of their corporate sponsors, like NASCAR drivers do.
5. Politicians rarely appear on uncontrolled forums. There are always a thousand questions we would like to ask office holders, but they are never cornered on a public forum. They rarely take questions from the floor, and usually appear in scripted debates facilitated by professional journalists, who are taught not to be confrontational. Hosting a debate is a sure sign that a journalist is thought to be safe.

6. A politician who will not fight for an issue or idea is actually opposed to that issue or idea. When Democrats say that “the votes aren’t there”, what they mean is that they are not willing to fight for an issue. Ands that unwillingness is just another way of saying “screw you.”
7. Money matters, but power matter more. As I mentioned to my arch-enemy Rod Kailey below, the fact that wiretaps are everywhere in DC, and yet there are no investigations of those wiretaps, is telling. There are call girls all over DC, and office employees more than willing to canoodle the boss. There are free trips, junkets, tickets to sporting events, jobs for family members … and more. Each of these items opens the door for pressure. That’s how power works. They have to use force people to get people to do things they do not want to do. It takes power, and that power is knowledge.

That’s it. It’s cynical, I know. There are many good people in Washington, mostly in the career positions. But with elected officials, remember that once they get there, once they realize how easy it is to fool the public, once they realize that they will not be punished for bad behavior nor rewarded for good – once they internalize all of this, they are corrupted. An alert and informed public would vote them out on a regular basis, and good laws would prevent them from lobbying or accepting jobs or payment for themselves of their family members after leaving office.

The only answer is eternal vigilance, and that ship sailed long ago.

Well, the Colorado primary is over. The Obama-appointed Rahm-vetted Michael Bennet won, beating a more liberal contender, Andrew Romanoff. Bennet will lose in November, as a scandal erupted around him that was exposed by the New York Times in the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, 250,000 votes had already been cast by the time of the exposure. I’m a little concerned now that post card voting has real drawback. (The Denver Post had this story, and elected to sit on it.)

Romanoff got 46% of the vote -amazing given that Obama himself came here to support Bennet. It is testimony to the weakness of conservadems that there are such strong primary challenges, even to anointed candidates.

Now it starts … we are going to be told that yeah, Bennet ain’t that good, but he’s better than the alternative. But he’s not. He’s worse. Here’s an example of why: During the health care debate, after the Democrats had killed the public option, Bennet circulated a letter to President Obama demanding that he include a P.O. in the final bill. It was Kabuki Theater – when Bennet had a chance to insert such an option in the reconciliation process, he declined to do so.

That’s his salt. That’s his ethos. He’s a fraud. It is not better to have a fraudulent Democrat in office than a Republican of any stripe. With a Republican we can organize. With a Democrat, we are fractured and pointless.

I am officially changing my voter registration from Democrat to Green this week. I only signed up as a Democrat to vote against Bennet.

I know, this sounds like whining. And honestly, Romanoff was an unknown quantity, himself a former member of the DLC. So often in this country we do not have real choices. As with Jon Tester in Montana, even if you get the desired result, the power and corruption in Washington undoes them when they get there.

Ground-level organizing is not just another way. It is the only answer. However, when Democrats are in power, it does not happen. So where Democrats put up fraudulent candidates, I will vote for Republicans. So for Senate this fall in Colorado, I will vote for Republican Ken Buck.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs lashed out at the “professional left” in The Hill magazine. He did not name names. But he made some interesting comments:

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested. I mean, it’s crazy.”

“They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

“They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

“There’s 101 things we’ve done” (mentioning both Iraq and health care “reform”).

Follow just one line of thought: The Democrats gave away everything in the health care debate. They didn’t really even try. But to oppose such a sellout is said to be like wanting “Canadian Health Care.” He is adopting the extreme position to confuse the issue, to make it appear as there was no willingness to compromise on a reasonable deal on health care. It’s cagey perception management.

With Iraq, Obama is merely following through with the Bush agenda, permanent occupation. Nothing has changed. Afghanistan was on deck no matter who won the election. Guantanamo is still there and festering. Mere spying on Americans has turned into assassinating Americans. It is all as if George W. Bush were still in office, but … we are not allowed to say that. It’s “crazy.”

There is no mystery here. Gibbs hates lefties. So does Rahm Emanuel, and is logically follows that Obama too has a hard spot for us. Bill Clinton hated the left. But during his years the left was pretty much confined to the “Alternative Media” and Democracy Now! These days there are some prominent leftish voices out there, like Rachel Maddow, Elizabeth Warren, Glenn Greenwald, some blogs … and they are attracting attention.

In the Clinton years, the left was frozen out of the debate. Gibbs’ only frustration is that we have a foot in the door. This is, after all, The United States of America, and in this country, there are Republicans, Democrats, but if there is to be a left, we will hire actors to play them.

If Democrats are voted out of power in the coming six years, as they should be, the left will be blamed. And the ultimate insult will be this: Democrats will never acknowledge that having Democrats in power made no difference anyway. They are that dense.

Here is an interesting exchange that took place on a national call-in show yesterday regarding the recent ruling on Proposition Eight.

Caller: Hi Thom. I’m calling about that judge’s decision on proposition eight. It doesn’t make any sense!

Thom Hartmann: In what way?

Caller: Well that judge is just writing law. He’s sitting there making stuff up. We all know that marriage was meant to be a man and a woman.

TH: Where in the Cons…

Caller: It’s like every time we try to do the right thing Obama steps in and forces us to do the wrong thing.

TH: But it wasn’t Obama …Caller: I don’t care! He’s changing everything! I just want my country back! Now I can’t even know who’s living next door to me, or if I can let my kids out to go the store … TH: Have you read the rul… Caller: It’s like when we tried to clean up our neighborhoods and some socialist judge tells us we have to read people their RIGHTS when we’re just trying to fight to keep our country safe from the terr…TH: But what’s Miranda got to ….. Caller: I have a daughter and I want her to get married like anyone to a regular guy and now I can’t even know who she’s marrying because of some Obama judge telling me that she has to marry …. TH: But that wasn’t the ruling …Caller: It’s you guys and your socialist ideas that are making it hard for regular people to just be themselves what with people coming across the border now and living in basements …TH: Let’s get back to Proposition 8 – why do you think…Caller: The people of California SPOKE and said they don’t want Adam and Steve living next door and a judge tells them they can’t SPEAK! It’s socialism like when Obama took over GM and now cars are running off the highway everywhere … TH: Let’s try to stay on subject here … have you read the rul…Caller: I want my country back! You guys are ruining it for all of us with your immigrants living in basements and socialism and now gay people having to get married and my daughter can’t even talk to her friends because she doesn’t know … TH: Caller … I’m going to stop you here … let’s not talk over one another. Now, when I put you back on the air, I want you to tell me if you have read the judge’s ruling, and also where in the Constitution marriage is defined … OK? Alright. Put him back on. Caller – are you there? caller?

_____________________

OK OK … I made it all up. That call never happened. But doesn’t it sound like talk radio?

We have three days now where we

have no place we have to be, no motel reservations, no obligations of any kind. We are in Cooke City, Montana, which is not the end of the world. No Internet, no newspapers. I sit here in the parking lot of a motel where we stayed last week, as I know the password.

The web site for the Pilot-Index image is patmahan.com.

Enjoy my absence!