Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Time to Begin Organizing Mass Protests for September



Okay, the politicos let us down with their delivery of a raw Satan Sandwich, and most of the corporate elites believe they have us over a barrel. But, as Keith Olbermann put it last night, "Even if our leaders don't know the difference between right and wrong, WE still do! We the People! And we will show them! To that end, we need to get mad, get outraged and ....get even! That is, by organizing mass public protests by September to get this unelected, constitutionally unaccountable "super congress" to back off ANY social spending cuts! (And in addition, to make whoever instigated any "automatic triggers" to that effect to back the fuck off!)

Here are the assorted points of outrage every American needs to know:

1)The proposed cuts would reduce discretionary public spending as a share of GDP to what it was in the 1950s. This is before the government had a major role in transportation, housing, education, safety, health, medical research or environmental protection. Also to the level it was before the NIH or the CDC, before HUD, before the EPA, before OSHA, before the Department of Education.

Logically, this means the retrenchment or degradation of ALL the above. THIS is the recipe for a third world nation.

To that end, we can't stand by as we allow corrupt assholes to dismantle all the advances so many have fought so hard for, with their blood, sweat and tears. We cannot and will not tolerate living in a nation that allows foods to be prepared with no safety regs, allowing worms, and parasites as well as salmonella to breed on everything from eggs to onions to tomatoes. Nor will we sit by and allow the corporate polluters to fill our skies and water with 87 cancer-causing toxins that will lead to a ninety percent increase in cancers even as Medicaid and Medicare funding is cut. Nor will we lie comatose as school meals and nutrition programs are eviscerated for school kids, or heating subsidies taken from elderly.

2) By slowly choking off public services, public investment and regulation, the deal sets the economy on a path to permanent strangulation. Every dollar cut from the budget, now or later, is a dollar less of private income. Already, the size of this dastardly Satanic deal totally neutralizes whatever benefit redounded from Obama's stimulus and puts the nation in negative stimulus territory - by a factor 4- toward a new recession or depression.

3) By cutting at Medicare providers, the miscreants that devised this "Satan sandwich" know full well that they aren't merely cutting this "entitlement" but eliminating it! They know that every round of provider pay cuts (when there ought to be a permanent Medicare doc fix) ensures fewer Americans will be accepted by anyone including family practice physicians. This means they will be taken back to the brutal days before Medicare!

The Plan:

I) Begin to correlate and organize a unified protest strategy as was done when Bush attempted to privatize Social Security in 2005. This means having a united front with hundreds of thousands on the march: seniors (from the NCPSSM, AARP, Senior League etc.) as well as other younger protestors from Moveon.org, Democratic socialists, Young Progressives, etc.

II) Note WHO is appointed to this "super committee" or "super congress", and particularly any appointee (in the Dem contingent) who is certain to tip the balance to the pro-defense spending side. That means, in particular, excluding an asshole like Joe Liebermann (a genuine defense hawk) - whose inclusion (say by a pussified Harry Reid) will ensure incessant 7-5 votes in favor of defense spending over Medicare.

If Liebermann, a fake democrat anyway, is appointed to the D-side of six, mount major protests in DC and his CT district. Do them every day, increasing in crescendo each day.

III) Target all the other members in their own districts. If Tea Baggers, send thousands of seniors to protest there and mainly in the State capitols. Also, have twin protests staged for DC and organize massive letter writing and email campaigns inundating each of them!

IV) Leave the most massive protests for the streets of DC and as many other cities as possible if the gang of 12 can't reach a deal and the "automatic cuts" are triggered. Let the high and mighty of this land know they will not get away with any automatic cuts to Medicare or other social programs. We are going to draw the ultimate line in the sand even if they won't!

All organizations with any skin on the table need to begin getting organized now because the next "blood in the streets" deadline will be upon us by mid-September. Yes, we were shocked by this deal, but now it's time to get cracking. No cuts, no UNLEGISLATED, unconstitutional cuts to social programs can be allowed on our watch!

Meanwhile, I ask readers to ponder these words from Richard Wolffe of 'Democracy Now' (July 29):

"We’re running a deficit because the people who run this society would like us to deal with our economic problems, not by taxing those who have it, the way we used to, but instead by endlessly borrowing from them. And now the ultimate irony, we’ve borrowed so much as a nation from the rich and the corporations, they now are not so sure they want to continue to lend to us, because we’re so deeply in debt. And they want us instead to go stick it to poor people and sick people instead. It’s an extraordinary moment in our history as a nation."

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