[Col. Writ. 2/20/05] Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal
I've written on this subject several years ago, and I'm
not really pleased to be doing it again, but I must say
what I see. Unless I miss my guess, the days of Social
Security are numbered.
The neo-Malthusian dream of "an ownership
society" that comes from the White House, united
with the chronic betrayal that is at the core of the
Democratic Party, spells a 'reform' of the nation's
Social Security system that is the seed of it's very
destruction.
It's been said that both major political parties are
but two ends of one, reigning corporatist party; and
there is some truth in this. As ever, however, there
are degrees of truth. One party is the open servant
of capital; the other is a kind of back-room valet.
Both serve their interests. It's just a matter of how
fervently, and how openly.
The corporate takeovers and consolidation of
major media furthers this trend, and reinforces
the emptiness of U.S. democracy.
The Republicans, since their betrayal of Black
freedmen during Reconstruction, have carried the
water of Wall Street.
The Democrats, which began as a pro-slavery,
white supremacist party, has never truly come
to terms with the central contradictions of its
beginnings, and its subsequent morphing into
a party that claims to represent Black and
working class interests. In the never-ending
struggle to represent these two inconsistent interests,
the Democrats have opted to go down the middle
-- to the moneybags of Wall St. And, as ever,
money runs the show.
When it comes to Social Security, Wall Street
is drooling like a lecher at a girl's high school.
They see billions of new dollars -- nay,
trillions! -- being pumped into the stock market
to fuel corporate growth and executive profits.
It is a dream come true for the market, and at
the top of their wish list.
For the poor, the working class, for those
who fought for these things in the early years of
the 20th Century, it is a nightmare. Social
Security was won after hard and bloody struggles
after the stock market crash of 1929, and the
Great Depression that followed. People
marched, they demonstrated, there were rent
riots, food riots, sit-ins and mass protests.
Using anti-government rhetoric, and the age-old
appeal to greed, the Corporatists in the White
House and Congress are getting ready to pull
the rug out from under generations of young
people, with promises of stock wealth that may,
like the morning dew, evaporate.
What is utterly amazing is that the same
administration that brought us the economic
disaster of Enron, is selling a plan that makes
Enron look like child's play. An "ownership
society" means that those who can pay for it,
own it. Those who cannot, get nothing. This
is but the latest attempt by the Corporatists
to create the social and economic conditions
where workers have no say in how they will
live, after their productive years have passed.
This is the creation of social *in*security.
Social movements brought Social Security
into existence. It is only social movements that
will build a wall around it, and build further
ramparts for more and more people, who live
on the periphery of Capital.
It is past time to build grass-roots, popular
movements that speak to our real survival needs
in this cruel age of Globalism. The Democrats
have proven that they cannot, and will not,
fight for those social gains. If it becomes a
choice of betraying those millions who voted
for them, and those few who paid them millions
to represent Wall St., there really isn't any
'choice.' They'll always follow the money!
Betrayed in war; betrayed in peace; what
is there to expect, but more betrayal?
Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal
I've written on this subject several years ago, and I'm
not really pleased to be doing it again, but I must say
what I see. Unless I miss my guess, the days of Social
Security are numbered.
The neo-Malthusian dream of "an ownership
society" that comes from the White House, united
with the chronic betrayal that is at the core of the
Democratic Party, spells a 'reform' of the nation's
Social Security system that is the seed of it's very
destruction.
It's been said that both major political parties are
but two ends of one, reigning corporatist party; and
there is some truth in this. As ever, however, there
are degrees of truth. One party is the open servant
of capital; the other is a kind of back-room valet.
Both serve their interests. It's just a matter of how
fervently, and how openly.
The corporate takeovers and consolidation of
major media furthers this trend, and reinforces
the emptiness of U.S. democracy.
The Republicans, since their betrayal of Black
freedmen during Reconstruction, have carried the
water of Wall Street.
The Democrats, which began as a pro-slavery,
white supremacist party, has never truly come
to terms with the central contradictions of its
beginnings, and its subsequent morphing into
a party that claims to represent Black and
working class interests. In the never-ending
struggle to represent these two inconsistent interests,
the Democrats have opted to go down the middle
-- to the moneybags of Wall St. And, as ever,
money runs the show.
When it comes to Social Security, Wall Street
is drooling like a lecher at a girl's high school.
They see billions of new dollars -- nay,
trillions! -- being pumped into the stock market
to fuel corporate growth and executive profits.
It is a dream come true for the market, and at
the top of their wish list.
For the poor, the working class, for those
who fought for these things in the early years of
the 20th Century, it is a nightmare. Social
Security was won after hard and bloody struggles
after the stock market crash of 1929, and the
Great Depression that followed. People
marched, they demonstrated, there were rent
riots, food riots, sit-ins and mass protests.
Using anti-government rhetoric, and the age-old
appeal to greed, the Corporatists in the White
House and Congress are getting ready to pull
the rug out from under generations of young
people, with promises of stock wealth that may,
like the morning dew, evaporate.
What is utterly amazing is that the same
administration that brought us the economic
disaster of Enron, is selling a plan that makes
Enron look like child's play. An "ownership
society" means that those who can pay for it,
own it. Those who cannot, get nothing. This
is but the latest attempt by the Corporatists
to create the social and economic conditions
where workers have no say in how they will
live, after their productive years have passed.
This is the creation of social *in*security.
Social movements brought Social Security
into existence. It is only social movements that
will build a wall around it, and build further
ramparts for more and more people, who live
on the periphery of Capital.
It is past time to build grass-roots, popular
movements that speak to our real survival needs
in this cruel age of Globalism. The Democrats
have proven that they cannot, and will not,
fight for those social gains. If it becomes a
choice of betraying those millions who voted
for them, and those few who paid them millions
to represent Wall St., there really isn't any
'choice.' They'll always follow the money!
Betrayed in war; betrayed in peace; what
is there to expect, but more betrayal?
Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal
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