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Hey Jill Stein, though I see your campaign’s front page doesn’t mention Social Security, still hoping you might take the lead on saving and strengthening that great program. Besides aiding a righteous cause, (just sayin’ but) doing so might win you a few million votes …
After the second Social Security debate fiasco — Martha Raddatz lying that the program is going broke and VP Joe Biden not correcting her (the first fiasco was when Pres. Obama said that he and Romney had a “somewhat similar position” on Social Security) — it’s time to come up with a serious effort to save Social Security from Democratic and Republican preparations to cut it and privatize it.
However, obeying the political rule that the best defense is a good offense, I strongly suggest we push a clear, simple, and populist Social Security plan:
1. Delete the income cap. (Why should the rich pay less?)
2. Increase benefits and reduce the full-benefits retirement age from 67 down to 66 or 65. (Inflation has for years been eating into benefits since the feds (under Clinton) began using a measure that shorts inflation; 67 is just too long to wait for full benefits.)
Social Security lovers should do this not just because it is simple, clear and ‘on the offensive’, but because it is what Americans, especially working-class Americans, need. And, we would simply be following the strong hint provided Friday by Eric Kingson, co-director of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, at the end of comments on Raddatz’s question and bad signals from the Vice-Presidential debate and the Obama administration (emphasis added):
Kingson said, “the White House was not willing to say that they will not cut benefits. And in fact that’s unfortunate that they’re not willing to draw that bright line in the sand that says, ‘We’re going to maintain this system.’” …
Kingson said he is worried about Obama’s openness to making “tweaks” to the program during negotiations to find a “grand bargain” over entitlements and the deficit after the election.
That concern is the reason Kingson said he found Raddatz’s question — which presupposed that there might need to be benefits “changes” to fix the “broke” Social Security system — “outrageous.”
“That framing … I would love to see a candidate say this is outrageous,” Kingson said. “This is part of the Washington journalist approach to Social Security: everyone knows it’s in crisis, everyone knows it’s going bankrupt. Baloney — that’s not a statement based in reality.”
With changes like lifting the cap on how much income individuals have to pay in Social Security payroll taxes, Kingson believes the program could be extended well beyond its current 2033 insolvency debate. What moderators should be concerning themselves with, he argued, are the millions of Americans who will be retiring in the near future with underwater mortgages and depleted 401(k)s, who could use if anything stronger Social Security benefits.
For more on Raddatz’s lie posing as a question, see Glenn Greenwald, Dean Baker and No, Martha Raddatz, Social Security Is Not “Going Broke” For more on the White House’s obfuscations on and not-so-semi-secret plans for Social Security, see Still no straight answers on Social Security.
48 Comments
Thank you!
From the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/14/mandate-america-green-new-deal
She speaks about not cutting Social Security in the frame of moving government away from ‘hoarding’ during a depression.
Good job, fairleft, and rec’d. ;o)
It occurred to me yesterday that Kevin Gosztola had interviewed Stein, and you might ask him on a Dissenter thread how you might get these suggestions to her and her campaign directly.
It doesn’t really matter at all what she says or doesn’t say– she will never sit in the Oval Office. Her voters know this and so does she!
Here, for another perspective on the Stein campaign:
http://my.firedoglake.com/terridi/2012/10/14/jill-stein-lesser-evil-by-mark-e-smith-full-time-election-boycott-activist/#
The “we’ll just curl up and whimper” brigade has spoken…
So we should throw up our hands and give up without a fight? I don’t care which plutocrat wins the election. In fact, elections are just a marketing gig and don’t matter much to the owners of the system. ‘What we can get away with this time’ is what matters to those folks.
If Stein’s % of votes goes from its current 1-2% up to 5-6%, _and_ beats out the (loonytunes) Libertarian candidate, the PTB will have to notice that once again the people say, loud and clear, ‘DO NOT MESS W MY SOCIAL SECURITY!’
That helps out after the election when the Obamaneys and the plutocracy will be coming straight after our Social Security no matter which one wins. Denying as many votes as possible to those people, un-fooling as many of us as possible, is the only language the corporate ‘democracy’ knows.
Sure. He’s a fine activist reporter and will look out for him.
She doesn’t understand that a ‘Green New Deal’ simply doesn’t resonate. It’s a great idea for an optimistic 2008-2009, but “HANDS OFF MY SOCIAL SECURITY, SUCKER!” is the mood now, in 2012. It’s what Obama has given us, and we have to work with the historical moment and public mood of the moment, especially as a small-megaphone third party that can’t change the mood.
Anyway, the best she can do, I think, is turn that sour mood all-caps thing into something simple, populist (class war, anyone?) and positive by taking the offensive and saying ‘remove the income cap, make the rich pay more, and increase benefits.” She needs a sound bite that immediately resonates …
Sure. She could simply say: “I won’t cut your Social Security.And I think this deficit crisis is phoney-baloney!” and she would be two laps ahead of the other runners. The New Deal platform is her way of addressing the biggest issue, unemployment and the deteriorating economy. I listened to the Green candidates speak at the Occupy Anniversary. They were well received there. If there was a way for her to address how it has all become “Rip off America” for the elites and how we are being ripped-off, she/the Greens could capture that mood.
Terri, I also think we need a longer perspective than ‘can we win this year’.
Not directly related to your diary or comment, but …
As a beginning, the left should be realistic about the pathetically tiny portion of votes it will get this year, but be optimistic because its fundamental positions are shared by two-thirds of the American public, but again be realistic about why it gets so few votes each year. The left then needs to reform its positions so we are closer to the working class and more or less divorced from politically correct identity politics when that conflicts with the strategic and/or substantive interests of the working class.
Working that out and getting a real racism-free populist program together, one that turns people on and out, we’d still have a ways to go reaching the people with that program through and around the corporate media. So even if we had our act together by next year, say, we should take a three to seven year perspective on coming to power through a door-to-door mass-movement-based electoral strategy.
The problem is that Obama and even Romney talk in generalities about ‘strengthening Social Security’, and so Stein must distinguish herself from their bullshit by stating exactly what she’d do. And then what she needs to present is a simple, populist and inherently popular plan, one that almost all average people can understand and support.
Would anyone making under the cap feel bad if wealthy professionals were forced to pay more so the rest of us could retire at 66 instead of 67 if that was our choice? Does anyone know how hard it is for a janitor or assembly-line worker or truck driver to keep working into his/her late 60s?
Frankly, KISS populism, appealing to working stiff non-activists, to populist resentment of the top 10%, is how the left wins votes.
Thanks for the post by the way!
Somehow, her words have to convey that the entire system is SET on a function to exploit the 99%. Move the center of gravity or focus away from the individual who can always be character assassinated and have it become just about a single person. The system is set up to destroy/exploit. This system takes a bite out of you whether it is through the terrible educational system and prisons or through debt and terrible wages. Cutting Social Security is just the final ripoff, smackdown for millions of Americans who have been cheated their whole lives.
Great. (I was writing my #11 when you were composing your #10.) All good ideas.
I agree with the general take.
Strategically, though, a small voice like the Greens can’t just pretend that if it speaks its big picture the general public will eventually come around and listen. It needs instead to latch onto a huge issue, the plan to cut Social Security. That’s how you leverage yourself into mass consciousness. THEN you have a chance to present some of your general perspective.
If Jill Stein gets that, she’ll do well in the next three weeks.
The overwhelming majority of people retire at 62, e.g. as soon as they can.
Low income earners live significantly shorter lives than 1% or even 10%ers do. Dean Baker has a paper on this at CEPR.
Here are some revenue ideas:
1. Frankly, having been cheated for forty years by having to accept low wages, I think corporations who are the biggest employers, and businesses can contribute more in taxes to workers’ Social Security FICA.
2. Instead of letting individuals living on capital gains income never have that income pay into Social Security, why not have the first 29K in capital gains pay into their FICA?? Right now, that income never pays into Social Security. The Romney’s are skating from paying into FICA from their capital gains. That should not be legal anymore.
3. The cap should go up automatically to adjust for income inequality over the last 30 years. To not let the cap rise, is to rip-off lower income earners to fund ALL of the SS benefits for everyone, rich and poor.
4. Instead of fighting with the ‘life expectancy’ wizards, just raise the benefits for people who are already leaving the workforce at 62 to claim SS; just improve the benefit formula.
If the sole issue for Stein in the next three weeks is “the plan to cut Social Security”, then she needs to connect with Bernie Sanders, with his petition to Obama, and the 29 Senators who signed that letter. If her sole focus is going to be stopping the Plan to Cut Social Security in the Lame Duck session, she needs to confront Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Clinton, Bowles-Simpson, The Gang of Eight, Pete Peterson, David Walker, the Fix the Debt bull parade and so on. She needs to draw the connections between Wall st.’s Dimon and Blankfein and Bowles and Simpson and show how they are cut from the same cloth. She needs to confront the technocrats within the Obama administration, Geithner and Orszag. That’s a big piece of work!
Well, the way to simplify the task is to come out firing with your own plan, your positive plan that’s easy to explain and which nearly everyone in the bottom 90% will find appealing.
The thing is to get off saying ‘no — ‘no cuts’ — and onto a positive, anti-rich, and populist plan. And it is a plan that doesn’t increase the deficit, and that is an initial concern of those who might like to improve Social Security but have been lobotomized by the HUGE ‘deficit crisis’ propaganda campaign. And, finally, it is a plan that Stein can proclaim in a pithy nineteen words.
Good Luck!
You’ve already given up the fight. How many elections in a row does this make voting Green and/or Nader, eexpecting a different result?
Besides, equating the act of voting with fighting is the type of sheer rhetorical nonsense White Middle Class Progressive Third Party voters use to delude yourselves and each other that what you are doing makes a difference when the clear evidence suggests your not making a difference?
When will you realise that the only way to work inside the electoral system is to actually work inside the electoral system? (SEE Movement, Party Tea, Impact on GOP for dtales)
At least Terri and the Non-Voter “Movement” is being honest. The Third Party Fluff voter escapism that you have practiced for how many elections in a row, now, Fairleft, easily fits within the definition of insanity. And als the same word if you remove the “s.”
Now, then, for my substantive question. I’d like your reaction:
I understand that Romney is for extending the Bush income tax cuts for all.
Obama is for extending them for all below the $200,000 income level. He/Dems have already increased both payroll and capital gains taxes above this level
Jill Stein is for ending the Bush tax cuts altogether. (full disclosure: also my position)
How do you stand on this? Do you believe that the temporary payroll tax cut should be allowed to expire and the planned $500 billion Military cutbacks, and end of unemployment compensation affecting 2-3 million recipients take effect starting in 2013 if the lameduck Congress can’t make a deal post election?
I’m interested in your response primarily because you are a committed Keynesian and tax increases coupled with reduced government spending during a recession are anti-keynesian
Where does Jill Stein stand on these issues?
“He/Dems have already increased both payroll and capital gains taxes above this level as part of Obamacare.”
Stein proposes a Green New Deal (I proposed similar in early 2009, remember?) and ending the Bush tax cuts. That sounds good to me.
BTW, as I’ve said many many many times to you over the years, and now to Terri as well: _this_ left will not make a significant dent in the uniparty’s control of our politics/media. The first step toward the left taking power from the plutocracy that drives our socio-political reality inexorably rightward (no matter which party is elected) is for the left to seriously re-examine its priorities on a class basis, not an identity politics basis. As long as the left refuses to do that it will not be able to do anything but slow down the march rightward. But even if it did manage to re-examine and re-order its priorities so they were in line with the interests and sympathies of the working class, the left would still have a difficult long-term ‘takeover’ project that would surely take several elections to achieve. Each of those elections would be a step toward taking power rather than an end-all-be-all.
Basically, it is strategically dumb for ‘small parties hoping to grow large’ to look at elections in isolation. Not that I’m just accusing you and Terri of that. It seems a common way of thinking even among the leadership of ‘the left that exists’. That’s one reason many of them once again shoot the left in the foot this year by supporting Obama.
Anyway, where we are at now, in the real world, is in ‘slow the march rightward’. The left can help preserve Social Security ‘as is’ in the post-election battle in that real world by demonstrating to politicians the price they may have to pay for going along with cuts.
The left can also get the enlightening and inherently popular message out that just by making Social Security taxes fair (I mean, duh-h, rich workers should not pay a lower % of their income into the system than middle-class and working-class workers do), we can actually increase benefits and make the full-benefits retirement year more humane. That works better than ‘no cuts’ because ‘no cuts’ is reactive rather than positive, and the best defense is a good offense.
Ok, but that doesnt answer my questions. A ‘Green New Deal’ is a campaign slogan and a party platform, a wishlist, essentially meaningless even if Stein is elected…like the Romney/Ryan Tax Reform Plan is meaningless.
I’m asking you about these specific legislation and issues that are and will confront the Congress and next POTUS immediately.
I’d like to know how your support for ending the Bush tax cuts, a real possibility in 2013 (unlike the “Green New Deal” or “repealing Obamacare” for that matter) squares with your support for Keynesian stimulus?
How do you and Stein stand on the large defense budget cuts that are a real possibility beginning in 2013, as well as the loss of unemployment compensation benefits for 2-3 million and the elimination of the payroll tax cuts, all of which are anti-keynesian and will reduce GDP by an estimated 1% or more, possibly throwing the US economy back into recession?
I fundamentally disagree with your “small parties growing large” point since there is not a shred of evidence of this ever happening in the history of the US. Certainly, you cannot even point to even incremental growth in numbers or political influence of any left third party since 2000.
You can point to small parties attaching themselves to bigger parties through coalitions in US history. But this is simply a longer term and less potentially viable route to political relevance than is joining the current progressive bloc within the Democratic Party, as the Tea Parties have shown by organising a very influential bloc within the GOP within a few years time.
For instance, as we have seen recently in Arizona, a very viable anti-anti-immigration bloc has had and appears to be on the verge of attaining more political influence and success in what has traditionally been a conservative state.
And this is not necessarily about Obama at all. You can be a registered Dem and not vote for Obama. You can vote for Stein or whomever. In fact, registered Dems voting for Stein or staying home would certainly be more noticeable and thus more influential than yet another failed third party effort.
This in fact would guarantee that Obama or whatever manstream candidate would have to pay attention whereas now the Greens are not constituents and are simply ignored.
Again, look at how the GOP has to kow-tow to their radical fringe for evidence of this dynamic.
“Hey Jill Stein, take the offensive on Social Security”
She has! For crying out loud guys, just google Jill Stein, Social Security, as I just did. Your issue is with the MEDIA, not with Jill Stein! As to the assertion that Social Security isn’t on the front page of Jill’s campaign blurb – it is. You hastily overlooked it in the budget items; it’s there.
All you have to do is google “Jill Stein Social Security as I just did, and you will come up with plenty. The most recently listed is the two minutes Amy Goodman gave during her expansion of the debate. In answer to the question, given two minutes for her answer, she says:
“DR. JILL STEIN: Yes, I think, first, it’s very important to point out that while we hear a very different narrative from Barack Obama and the Democrats than we do from Mitt Romney, with Mitt Romney’s narrative being usually harsh, scary, selfishness on steroids, and the Democratic narrative being warm and fuzzy and we’re all in this together, let’s just wait for things to get better, you know, it’s really important to look beyond the talk, to look at the walk, to look at what’s actually being proposed.
And Jeffrey Sachs at the University of Columbia has pointed out in his analysis of the budget proposals of both Obama and of Romney-Ryan—points out that they’re both aiming for essentially for the same targets. They’re both aiming for Social Security to be about 5 percent of GDP some years down the line, whether it’s four or eight years, and on Medicare, they’re both aiming for Medicare to be reduced to about 3.2 percent of GDP. So, the point is, while they have different scenarios, they both have the same targets.
Obama himself is also looking to cut non-security discretionary expenditures, things like that cover education and housing and job training, also looking to cut that nearly in half, according to his own budget figures, down to about 1.8 percent of GDP from 3.2 percent, where it is right now. On Social Security, Obama is already calling for some cuts, basically to the cost-of-living reimbursements. So, heads up about what’s going to happen after the election. You will see the walk differ from the talk. And on Medicare, yes, it is true they are both proposing the same changes—again, a sign that things are not really different between these two corporate-sponsored candidates. They’re both proposing about $700 billion in Medicare cuts.
We can fix this. For Social Security, we simply need to raise the cap on Social Security. It will be perfectly solvent when the rich are paying their fair share. And on Medicare, one thing we can do right now is to fix Medicare Part D so that it’s no longer a boondoggle, a giveaway for pharmaceutical companies, and to allow bargaining and negotiation to get bulk purchasing and bring down the cost.”
Your second point is a fair one, fairleft, and certainly to expand coverage rather than cutting it is a great idea. If (and I don’t know this) Jill is not prepared to promise this, I think it is more out of caution than out of desire to do so. Her programs (and there’s plenty more on google – I only went to the first page) are hit-the-ground running first items of business, and once she’s in office, that further offensive must be considered. Let’s take our baby steps first, but by all means once we know the programs are safe from the predators, this would be an adult step forward.
I want to make a correction. I went and checked out my statistic about when people retire. The SSA site said that contrary to my assertion that an overwhelming majority retire at ERA, Early Retirement Age, that most people, three out of four, retire before FRA, Full Retirement Age. So I stand corrected. Almost half of retirees retire at 62, but no where near an overwhelming majority. Sorry about that.
Tom,
You were probably looking at numbers from 2009 when 70-75% of retirees took their first check prior to full retirement. The recession forced people to take the early option when there were no jobs.
“Delete the income cap. (Why should the rich pay less?)”
First, the rich pay more according to the Social Security Administration. Social Security is not a tax – it is collected under the tax as a constitutional issue. The money is then directed to Social Security as an insurance premium. According to the Social Security Administration, high-wage workers can get as little as 1/10th back on a per dollar contributed basis as a low-wage worker. That figure is PRE-TAX.
Social Security isn’t a tax until we say that you will get nothing back. It is a payment for which you get something in exchange. That is not a tax. For lower wage Americans, they expect to get back more than they contribute. That isn’t a tax.
Social Security is a contributory benefits system. That is a system which pays benefits based on your contribution. People who pay more get more back. It is not welfare, where we tax one and give to another.
People have come to think of it as a tax and redistribute system. In which case, Social Security will be welfare. There are many programs which already serve this purpose. The government should fund those and leave Social Security to its function.
Social Security is uniquely unfit to provide a safety net – it has no visibility into need.
We need to eliminate the cap not raise it. ‘Keep it simple’, and it’s incoherent to raise the cap and thereby ask rich ‘workers’ to pay the same % of income as everyone else, but then continue to let the super-rich ones pay a lower percentage. The cap belongs in the trash.
Anyway, look at the Green Party’s Jill Stein campaign homepage! There is NOTHING about Social Security on the front page. That’s just crazy strategically stupid. What we find on the home page is a large cluster of noise and buttons at the top and then four articles. In order from the top:
1st. Protest the presidential debates.
2nd. Come to a 10/15 rally in NYC to protest presidential debates.
3rd. Scranton and Janesville economies are bad (focusing on the vice-presidential debate).
4th. National Coming Out Day.
So, wow, the Green Party and Jill Stein are upset about being excluded from the debates. Here’s how much Josephine Lunchbucket cares about that issue: “Pffffzzzlllh.”
I honestly feel that no one with any voter-desiring strategic or campaign wisdom is running Stein’s homepage. And, I have a bad feeling that’s representative of her overall campaign.
Joe, whatever it ‘is’ or was intended to be, we the people can do any darn thing we want with the Social Security system. A nuance of any good populist no cap plan is that, of course, the richest ‘workers’ receive much larger payouts, but shave a little off the payouts as they reach the stratosphere, and redistribute that to poorer workers.
I appreciate those ideas, but I appreciate much more Keep It Simple. And things are getting Pavlovian when I hear “Raise the cap.” How on this earth does it make sense to raise the cap and make the rich pay more, but keep the cap for the super-rich? Delete the cap, trash the cap, the cap is ‘we love rich people’ crap. By deleting the cap and giving slightly lower payouts (relative to pay-ins) to the highest income earners, we solve any future revenue shortfall AND will be able to afford to increase payouts for poorer workers and lower the full-benefits retirement year.
When simple works, use it.
No, the rich pay far less. They pay in only on the first $107,000 of their income. All the rest of their income is Social Security tax free. So, the ‘tax’ rate for a professional making $214,000 a year is half that of a worker making $107,000 a year. The Social Security tax for a ‘worker’ making $428,000 is a quarter … and so on.
Well, no, I do answer your question(s). Except that it should be twice as large, a Green New Deal is a common sense and inherently popular/populist response to the need for Keynesian economic stimulus, and it is stimulus at its most effective because it creates well-paid working class jobs in which wages will be spent. And the stimulative effect is for a purpose we can all agree on, making the economy more energy efficient.
Yeah, she won’t be elected, and the Green New Deal will not be implemented in 2013. That doesn’t mean it is not an outstanding visionary plan. The Romney/Ryan tax plan is apparently similar, a statement of their vision for how things should be, that would have to go through the gauntlet that is the legislative process. In very out-there theory, a Green New Deal would have to go through a similar legislative process in a Congress presumably filled with Green Party members. ;->
‘The Progressive Bloc’ within the Democratic Party asks us to vote for a Democratic Party that is implementing right-wing and anti-working-class policies that Reagan could only dream of. So, based on results, ‘The Progressive Bloc’ is a force for far-right policy. Join away, baby, sounds like that’s where you should be at.
Terri, Boycotting the election is a way of giving up, curling up in a ball and whimpering. When people don’t show up to vote, they allow both the Dems and Repugs to interpret their wishes for them. The Dems have been corrupted by corporate contributions, and they are looking for any excuse to move further to the right. People who are dissatisfied with the Dems and vote instead for Jill Stein or Rocky Anderson are sending a very clear message about their beliefs, one that cannot be misinterpreted. It is irresponsible to encourage people to not vote. When you fail to vote, you are furthering someone else’s agenda.
At the risk of being redundant, people should read Dean Baker. He says that these cuts are definitely coming during the Lame Duck session of Congress, after the election. He links to an article which shows that CEOs, Bowles and Simpson, Stern, and Durbin and the usually Republican predators are meeting in (un)secrecy now to divide the spoils:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/12111-the-national-debt-and-our-children-how-dumb-does-washington-think-we-are
And if you would like to write to Democratic Senators who failed to sign Senator Sanders letter opposing cuts to Social Security, you can find their email addresses in a link here:
Article with a link to Senators email addresses.
Thank you.
fairleft, in the quote I gave you, Jill Stein had only two minutes for her answer. Here’s what she said:
“For Social Security, we simply need to raise the cap on Social Security. It will be perfectly solvent when the rich are paying their fair share.”
I don’t think “the rich” excludes the mega rich. I think she’s saying the same thing you are.
If I’m wrong I apologize, but I’d need to see a specific quote from her that sets a ceiling. If there is one, I would agree with you.
“This in fact would guarantee that Obama or whatevermanstream candidate would have to pay attention…” [my bold]
I didn’t notice this yesterday, donkeytale, and maybe herein lies a key to a coming result that neither you nor fairleft are figuring into your prognostications of how to influence the inevitable Obama. Maybe it’s gonna be us gals that tip the scale.
I love it; “manstream candidate”…
I think it has legs.
[:o)
I see, you cannot answer any of my questions. Not surprised. You evade as well as any of the candidates.
Thus, you (and Stein and the Greenies) will simply remain stuck in your circular jerkular, once every four years repeated casting of a symbolic protest vote that means and accomplishes nothing of political substance, for anybody, but most especially for progressives.
At least you are consistent in that regard, in your childlike need to check out of the discussion when it gets specific and real
So much for Keynes, eh? Much better for you to become nothing but a cheerleader inside a tiny echo chamber of vague platitudes.
On your point about the front page of jillstein.org, the same is often said here with respect to FDL’s front page. On the front page of Jill’s site is list of categories – I clicked on “Issues” and found the following:
BUDGET AND TAXES
Reduce the budget deficit by restoring full employment, cutting the bloated military budget, and cutting private health insurance waste.
Eliminate needless tax giveaways that increase the deficit.
Require full disclosure of corporate subsidies in the budget and stop hiding subsidies in complicated tax code.
Rewrite the entire tax code to be truly progressive with tax cuts for working families, the poor and middle class, and higher taxes for the richest Americans.
Reject cuts to Medicare and Social Security
Stop draining the non-profit sectors of our economy in order to give tax cuts to the for-profit sectors.
Relieve the debt overhang holding back the economy by reducing homeowner and student debt burdens.
Ensure the right to accessible and affordable utilities – heat, electricity, phone, internet, and public transportation – through democratically run, publicly owned utilities that operate at cost, not for profit.
Maintain and upgrade our nation’s essential public infrastructure, including highways, railways, electrical grids, water systems, schools, libraries, and the Internet, resisting privatization or policy manipulation by for-profit interests.
Establish a a 90% tax on bonusesfor bailed out bankers.
I’ve bolded just a few [ ;) ] of the items that are important to me. I agree that the message on Social Security could be stronger, (so too all these issues!) – and they would be if we could hear directly from these candidates (how’s about it, 60 Minutes?)
I say again, this is a mighty good start given the direction the manstream candidates intend to go. Economical is the word for Jill’s campaign; we need to hear more.
Given the flux in which we find ourselves, where values are being stripped right and left (pun intended), I find a sober initiative much more progressive than regressive – regressive is where we’ll go if those punks, either of them, retain the helm!
Well done, Fairleft. Your analysis hits the nail on the head. You should work for the Jill Stein campaign, or at least consult for them.
Right now, their message has gotten a little woolly, with “the Green New Deal.” They need to at least supplement that with your recommended message that involves Jill Steins PLEDGING to REFUSE to cut social security, and CHALLENGING Obama to do the same, which will immediately differentiate Jill Stein from Obama and Romney.
You really zero in on short, simple statements that will resonate with the voters and that also will immediately point to how both Romney and Obama are betraying most.
And TomThumb:
These are hard hitting messages that Jill Stein needs to repeat again and again. It will go far, as you all say.
Here, I do agree. Fairleft is skillful with messaging.
“seriously reexamine its priorities on a class basis, not an identity policy basis”
Yes. The D are hopelessly stuck in the latter, losing lots of struggling whites, because they can’t engage on class as the functioning center coalition of the Republican party.
Most of O’Bomber’s pathetic debate performance was due to his
inability to pretend otherwise.
Any third party has to claim that space. This emphasis on social security you suggest should be a no brainer.
Thoughtful and thought-provoking.
X2
Sorry donk, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. You may want reformulate your questions so they’re understandable. I didn’t catch the ‘gotcha’ element(s), so you might wanna make that(them) more explicit.
Juliania, I’ll definitely vote for her and your post makes me want to do so even more strongly. I’m just critiquing her electoral campaign, not her content.
Frankly, when you have a very small megaphone you better say something that gets a small voice noticed. “Obama allies are planning, right now, to cut Social Security!” should be at the top of the campaign front page in big bold type, with a link to an article referencing Dean Baker’s latest (see one of Tom Thumb’s comments on this thread) on that ‘should be a scandal’. Jill ain’t gonna win, but she can get to 5% _and_ do all future Social Security recipients some good by hammering away on this single HUGE Obama achilles heel.
no need to reformulate my questions as they are very direct, so I’ll just repeat so you can dodge them once again: