Why does the White House and Congress seem so hell-bent on killing off what is left of America’s “Greatest Generation” — by making cuts to the Social Security payments that we depend upon to stay alive?
I consider myself to be a junior member of the Greatest Generation and I am truly pissed off that “Death Panel” legislators in Washington who are probably too young to have even served in Vietnam — let alone in World War II — can be monstrous enough to even consider shutting down Social Security’s lifeline to all the veterans who fought in that great war to keep the world safe from corporate control of government (as Mussolini once described National Socialism), and also drastically cut payments to women and children who bravely manned up the Home Front while our soldiers were away fighting Nazis.
Mine is also the last generation to have been raised without television.
And now folks on TV are telling us that, for the sake of balancing the federal budget, we must now give up the Social Security that we all worked so hard for, stop making a fuss, forget our proud legacy of service, die quietly and go peacefully into that great good night. Screw that.
My father fought the Nazis. My mother manned the Home Front. I helped plant our freaking victory garden, had my own personal ration book and collected scrap metal in my little red wagon all throughout World War II. We all put our shoulders to the wheel during World War II and then we worked our arses off for our Social Security benefits after that.
And now some generation raised on the Flintstones is now telling us that THEY are going to cut our Social Security? Screw that.
And now I’m spending at least two hours a day watching TV — and another eight hours a day on the internet. That’s ten or more hours a day that I used to spend HAVING A LIFE. And I bet most of you spend even more time watching TV than that. In fact, do any of you ever even turn the damn thing off?
And what has all this boob-tube-watching gotten us? Nothing. We’re losing our homes, we’re losing our jobs, we’re watching our grandchildren get forced into poverty by a system that wants us to become dumb and uneducated and in debt. Now young Americans are supposed to suffer under the burden of school-loan debt for the rest of their lives just for wanting to go to college and better themselves? When a college education doesn’t even matter any more anyway? Screw that too.
Just keep your dirty little corporatist hands off my Social Security, Washington DC.
I don’t know where all of you modern DC corporatists were during World War II. You probably weren’t even born yet. But if you cut Social Security, then you may find yourself right in the middle of the next war against National Socialism (aka corporatism) — even if the heroic survivors of World War II have to go out and start it ourselves.
PS: Spend too much time in front of your computer? Here’s a simple way to keep back pain from piling up — just snag a buddy to help cover your back (literally). And you can also cover theirs in return: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgNbvJ0AN0M
In this video, I used only one hand to demonstrate this technique because I had to use the other one to hold the freaking camera — but do try this using both hands, one on each side of your spine.
PPS: And what’s the matter with Berkeley too? It’s not just our national priorities that seem to have lost their way these days. Local priorities are also at risk. For instance, the Berkeley city council just cut all kinds of programs for lower-income folks recently — but will keep paying out large entitlements that benefit those who already have benefits coming out of their ears.
Berkeley used to be the home town of choice for all kinds of artists, writers and visionaries. Not any more. People like Jack Kerouac, Philip K. Dick, Mario Savio, Tre Cool, George Takei, Whoopi Goldberg, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Prior, Gregory Peck, Jimmi Hendrix and the 21 Nobel Peace Prize winners who lived here and made their creative contributions to America back in the day, probably couldn’t even afford to live here any more. Heck, even Patti Heart probably couldn’t afford to live here any more!
