Democratic Underground Latest Greatest Lobby Journals Search Options Help Login
Google

Republicans CAN name the cuts that they want--but they won't.

Printer-friendly format Printer-friendly format
Printer-friendly format Email this thread to a friend
Printer-friendly format Bookmark this thread
This topic is archived.
Home » Discuss » Archives » General Discussion (1/22-2007 thru 12/14/2010) Donate to DU
 
Lyric Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:17 PM
Original message
Republicans CAN name the cuts that they want--but they won't.
They don't want to tip their hand too quickly--not while we still have the means to fight back. They'll couch their intentions in vague phrases like eliminating "discretionary spending", but it doesn't take a degree in astrophysics to see what they intend to get rid of as soon as possible.

Welfare
The NEA
The EITC
Housing assistance
Food Stamps
Welfare
Free birth control at your local health department
Medicaid
Welfare
Supplemental Security Income
Free public education
Did I mention welfare?

The moronic Republican House reps don't REALLY believe that eliminating programs for the poor will make a real difference in the budget--but they're DYING to do it anyway. They HATE the poor. They firmly believe that if we're too poor to survive without help, then we don't deserve to survive at ALL. They see all of us as breeding stock for future (and present) slave labor, and public assistance thwarts the goal of enslaving us because it allows poor people to refuse horrible wages and working conditions, and still survive until a better job is found. It helps to keep the providers of labor at least a LITTLE competitive. They don't want any competition. They want a MONOPOLY on human labor. They want to OWN you, from top to bottom, outright. They want us all so starving and cold and miserable and desperate that we'll accept ANY wages and ANY working conditions, no matter how horrible they might be, because the alternative--watching your kids starve and freeze--will be worse.

Welfare isn't just for the poor. Neither is the minimum wage--another thing that they HATE and want to see GONE. Public assistance and the minimum wage helps to keep ALL wages up. The moment those protections are removed, life becomes a race to the bottom of such EPIC proportions that most people cannot even conceive of it. The middle class thinks that their own comfy lifestyle is somehow separated from the poor people whose shoulders they stand upon. The bottom level of the capitalist pyramid can never be destroyed--but it can be purged and replaced, so that the middle level drops down to become the NEW bottom level. And that's exactly what the PTB intend for us.

Either stand with the poor or get ready to BE poor--and not poor as YOU know it, but poor as your great-grandparents knew it. No welfare. No food stamps. No Medicaid. No public education. No free immunizations for your kids at the health clinic. No government food commodity surpluses. NOTHING. Our ancestors worked their asses off to give us something better than the miserable, hellish oppression that THEY suffered. Now the Congressional stooges of the wealthy want to take everything that they worked for away--to turn back the clock to the time when, if you couldn't work 16-hour days in hellish conditions, you were considered unfit to live PERIOD, and left to die in your hovel. To them, those deaths mean NOTHING. Just culling the herd.

Oh yes, they know what they want to cut out. It's America's heart. And they're going to do it too, if people don't wake the hell up and start trying to build alliances with the poor and the low-income workers. The media has taught us for decades that the poor "welfare queens" and "trailer trash" aren't worthy of your friendship, your attention, or your help. They've convinced you that the poor are a threat, so you lock yourselves away in your gated communities and your planned neighborhoods, your credit-checked apartments with doormen, and your sanitary white suburban malls, all of which keep the poor OUT. The rich aren't the only ones waging class warfare; they're the generals who plan the war, but they're not the footsoldiers actually waging the war. They expect the middle-class to do it for them, and as humiliating as it is to admit, every one of us knows damned well that it's true. Our masters send out marching orders via commercials and the stock market and political attacks and governmental policies, and we respond unconsciously, just like we've been trained to do since birth.

Well we'd better reject all of that brainwashing and unite as ONE non-wealthy class, and we'd better do it sooner rather than later. We might as well try and stand together, because we're damned sure going to be enslaved together if we don't. I said it before and I'll say it again--the working class and the poor need to be courted back into this party. There are a LOT of potential voters there, and we need them. Ignore the pollsters and the pundits. The poor are not a hive-mind right-wing behemoth. Most of them hardly pay any attention to politics at ALL because they're too busy trying not to starve. They CAN be brought back to our side if Democrats reach out to them on a personal level. But it's going to take work--physical work--not just theories and platitudes and endless lip service. Compassion in theory is great, but compassion in ACTION is what gets results. Make their lives better, easier, less brutal, and you'll find willing allies. They might be uneducated (which is largely NOT their fault)...but that doesn't mean that they can't BE educated. Real progress--the only kind of "change" that ever sticks--starts at the bottom and moves UP. And so should we.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
RoccoR5955 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:21 PM
Response to Original message
1. I couldn't agree more.. One thing you forgot...
Social Security. They see Social Security as a windfall for them and their Wall Street friends. They want us to "invest" in it, only to lose our money when the market falls again.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Lyric Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:29 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. Oh yes. Social Security is definitely on the chopping block.
People who know that there's NOTHING waiting for them after retirement, not even a pittance, tend to be FAR less likely to stand up for their rights as workers. If your very life depends on keeping your job because there's no "safety net" to support you if you lose it, then you will quietly suffer almost ANYTHING in order to avoid losing that job. Abuse. Safety hazards. Pay cuts. No benefits.

And if you're supporting your elderly parents at the same time because THEY had nothing for retirement either? Why, that just makes the whole scheme even MORE effective.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
the redcoat Donating Member (510 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:21 PM
Response to Original message
2. We already know...everything except defense spending.
Of course, they won't end up really cutting anything because they still don't understand you cannot please everyone. And even if they did cut some things, they are now in corporate profits. If they cut anything, people will get pissed, so it's safer to not cut anything.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Rhythm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Nov-05-10 04:47 AM
Response to Reply #2
18. They'll do anything but scale back the war machine... n/t
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
lonestarnot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:32 PM
Response to Original message
4. wages.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
lonestarnot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:32 PM
Response to Original message
5. unions.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
lonestarnot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:33 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. oops.
Edited on Thu Nov-04-10 10:33 PM by lonestarnot
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
lonestarnot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:34 PM
Response to Original message
7. Education.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
lonestarnot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:34 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. Infrastructure.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
lonestarnot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:35 PM
Response to Original message
9. And mainly and mostly right now climate.
:rofl:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
SunsetDreams Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:36 PM
Response to Original message
10. K&R for truth
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
laughingliberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:36 PM
Response to Original message
11. Excellent! K&R nt
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
postulater Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:45 PM
Response to Original message
12. "They HATE the poor."
!!
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Naturyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:46 PM
Response to Original message
13. Holy shit, this is an incredible post.
It should be at the top of greatest. If I could rec more than once I'd sit here and spam the button for 10 minutes.

Probably the best thing I've ever seen on DU in 6 years.

People need to read and understand this post. Thank you very much for writing it.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Lyric Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 11:05 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. It's just so freaking infuriating.
All these vague right-wing insinuations and evasions. We know damned well what they want to do--what they WILL do if they aren't stopped. And they'll tell the sweetest lies to defend it. They'll use all the pre-programmed buzzwords and phrases that they've planted in our national psyche like diseased seeds.

"Personal responsibility"

"Bootstraps"

"Necessary sacrifices"

"A hand up, not a handout"

"Ending dependency"

Funny how none of those apply to the rich. Only the poor are expected to be personally responsible for every mistake and moment of misfortune that they ever suffer. Only the poor are "dependent", while the corporate welfare recipients are lauded as "job engines" and "rugged individualists".

:banghead:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Naturyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 11:13 PM
Response to Reply #15
16. Exactly right.
Man, it's nice to see this on DU. Rarely does anyone ever hit it out of the ballpark like you've been doing here.

This thread will NOT be allowed to drop like a rock, by the way. I will make sure of that.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Lyric Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Nov-05-10 03:49 PM
Response to Reply #16
21. Well thank you.
This issue is very near to my heart. My whole family is deeply low-income, and most of them are apolitical--not because they don't care, but because they think that they don't matter. They (and many people like them) have no sense of political efficacy at all. We need to change that and change it soon.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Naturyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Nov-05-10 03:14 PM
Response to Reply #13
20. Kick
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
proud patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-04-10 10:49 PM
Response to Original message
14. Very Well said
:thumbsup:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Stagecoach Donating Member (468 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Nov-05-10 01:49 AM
Response to Original message
17. I don't see any cuts at all
But in 2 years, they'll say they've made cuts even though it isn't true, figuring the electorate can't figure it out. And if someone does call them out on saying they've made cuts, even though they haven't, they'll use some fancy language like "projected cuts". I get so tired of them saying Medicare and Social Security are entitlements and they need to get rid of entitlement programs. Entitlement is receiving something for free. Last time I checked, I'm still having money taken out of my check for Social Security and Medicare. Therefore, Social Security and Medicare aren't entitlements like they try to claim they are!
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
lonestarnot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Nov-05-10 10:19 AM
Response to Original message
19. Kick
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
DU AdBot (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view 
this author's profile Click to add 
this author to your buddy list Click to add 
this author to your Ignore list Thu May 02nd 2024, 12:42 AM
Response to Original message
Advertisements [?]
 Top

Home » Discuss » Archives » General Discussion (1/22-2007 thru 12/14/2010) Donate to DU

Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.1 Copyright 1997-2002 DCScripts.com
Software has been extensively modified by the DU administrators


Important Notices: By participating on this discussion board, visitors agree to abide by the rules outlined on our Rules page. Messages posted on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums are the opinions of the individuals who post them, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Democratic Underground, LLC.

Home  |  Discussion Forums  |  Journals |  Store  |  Donate

About DU  |  Contact Us  |  Privacy Policy

Got a message for Democratic Underground? Click here to send us a message.

© 2001 - 2011 Democratic Underground, LLC