[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: [usgp-dx] Dismantling Social Security, smearing AARP (Paul Krugman, NY Times)

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>Kansas on My Mind
>By PAUL KRUGMAN
>
>The New York Times, February 25, 2005
>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/25/opinion/25krugman.html?
>
>
>Call it "What's the Matter With Kansas - The
>Cartoon Version."
>
>The slime campaign has begun against AARP, which
>opposes Social Security privatization. There's no
>hard evidence that the people involved - some of
>them also responsible for the "Swift Boat"
>election smear - are taking orders from the White
>House. So you're free to believe that this is an
>independent venture. You're also free to believe
>in the tooth fairy.
>
>Their first foray - an ad accusing the seniors'
>organization of being against the troops and for
>gay marriage - was notably inept. But they'll be
>back, and it's important to understand what
>they're up to.
>
>The answer lies in "What's the Matter With
>Kansas?," Thomas Frank's meditation on how
>right-wingers, whose economic policies harm
>working Americans, nonetheless get so many of
>those working Americans to vote for them.
>
>People like myself - members of what one scornful
>Bush aide called the "reality-based community" -
>tend to attribute the right's electoral victories
>to its success at spreading policy
>disinformation. And the campaign against Social
>Security certainly involves a lot of
>disinformation, both about how the current system
>works and about the consequences of
>privatization.
>
>But if that were all there is to it, Social
>Security should be safe, because this particular
>disinformation campaign isn't going at all well.
>In fact, there's a sense of wonderment among
>defenders of Social Security about the other
>side's lack of preparation. The Cato Institute
>and the Heritage Foundation have spent decades
>campaigning for privatization. Yet they weren't
>ready to answer even the most obvious questions
>about how it would work - like how benefits could
>be maintained for older Americans without a
>dangerous increase in debt.
>
>Privatizers are even having a hard time
>pretending that they want to strengthen Social
>Security, not dismantle it. At one of Senator
>Rick Santorum's recent town-hall meetings
>promoting privatization, college Republicans
>began chanting, "Hey hey, ho ho, Social
>Security's got to go."
>
>But before the anti-privatization forces assume
>that winning the rational arguments is enough,
>they need to read Mr. Frank.
>
>The message of Mr. Frank's book is that the right
>has been able to win elections, despite the fact
>that its economic policies hurt workers, by
>portraying itself as the defender of mainstream
>values against a malevolent cultural elite. The
>right "mobilizes voters with explosive social
>issues, summoning public outrage ... which it
>then marries to pro-business economic policies.
>Cultural anger is marshaled to achieve economic
>ends."
>
>In Mr. Frank's view, this is a confidence trick:
>politicians like Mr. Santorum trumpet their
>defense of traditional values, but their true
>loyalty is to elitist economic policies. "Vote to
>stop abortion; receive a rollback in capital
>gains taxes. ... Vote to stand tall against
>terrorists; receive Social Security
>privatization." But it keeps working.
>
>And this week we saw Mr. Frank's thesis acted out
>so crudely that it was as if someone had
>deliberately staged it. The right wants to
>dismantle Social Security, a successful program
>that is a pillar of stability for working
>Americans. AARP stands in the way. So without a
>moment's hesitation, the usual suspects declared
>that this organization of staid seniors is
>actually an anti-soldier, pro-gay-marriage
>leftist front.
>
>It's tempting to dismiss this as an exceptional
>case in which right-wingers, unable to come up
>with a real cultural grievance to exploit,
>fabricated one out of thin air. But such
>fabrications are the rule, not the exception.
>
>For example, for much of December viewers of Fox
>News were treated to a series of ominous warnings
>about "Christmas under siege" - the plot by
>secular humanists to take Christ out of America's
>favorite holiday. The evidence for such a plot
>consisted largely of occasions when someone in an
>official capacity said, "Happy holidays," instead
>of, "Merry Christmas."
>
>So it doesn't matter that Social Security is a
>pro-family program that was created by and for
>America's greatest generation - and that it is
>especially crucial in poor but conservative
>states like Alabama and Arkansas, where it's the
>only thing keeping a majority of seniors above
>the poverty line. Right-wingers will still find
>ways to claim that anyone who opposes
>privatization supports terrorists and hates
>family values.
>
>Their first attack may have missed the mark, but
>it's the shape of smears to come.
>
>
>E-mail: krugman at nytimes.com
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand