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Dr. Stein,
I urge you to please read Dean Baker — Obama and the Democrats right now are planning to cut Social Security but the corporate media has decided not to tell the voters. We know the shape of a deal by listening to the corporate bosses who visit DC and tell their paid-off Congresspeople what they want: mostly Bowles-Simpson, which includes cutting seniors’ benefits 3% a month by jerrymandering the cost of living adjustment.
You’ve got to tell the people about this! Who else but you? You are the leading left candidate for President and the election is three weeks away, so you are in an excellent position to exact a price for Obama and the Democrats’ betrayal of everyone but the rich. By doing so you’ll also surely put fear of the voters front and center when the smokey room tries to hammer out a deal in late 2012.
As I’ve written before, both mainstream-party-only debates provided evidence that cuts are the secret word: President Obama saying that he and Romney had a “somewhat similar position” on Social Security, and Martha Raddatz lying that the program is going broke and Joe Biden not correcting her in the VP debate. Biden provided additional evidence that “cuts are coming,” but nonetheless the mainstream media remains quiet on what these clues actually mean for real people, Social Security recipients present and future.
You have a small presence in the news media, but if you HAMMER AWAY at the backroom Social Security bargaining going on between corporate donors and the Congressional Demopublicans, many voters will hear you. Speak out, make it your first and most frequent sound bite.
And yes, of course, informing the people about Obama’s plan to cut Social Security would be very good for your campaign. I think especially so if you follow my advice and, after you shout about the backroom deal, highlight a positive and revenue-neutral alternative:
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.)
Good luck Jill. I think most MyFDLers are rooting for you.
fairleft
10 Comments
My understanding from reading metamars is that the Jill Stein campaign is not reachable through normal means … but hopefully my basic message will somehow get through to her.
Communication to the campaign is definitely a problem. I suggest publishing your article(s) to as many relevant Facebook sites as you have the energy for: Green Party sites, political sites, single-issue sites, etc.
Rather than looking through Jill’s website this time, I just googled to contact her campaign. I found this; you might want to try it.
HQ@JillStein.org
Sound as though she and Cheri will be at #OccupyOCD in NYC tonight, and will be in some good company. ;o)
From your last diary thread where you ducked these questions, then asked to have them reformulated:
Breaking news on the COLA, a measly 1.7%.
http://www.nwlc.org/press-release/tiny-cost-living-adjustment-social-security-benefits-announced-2013
fairleft. They have graphics there for you to use to show the real cost of the chained CPI cuts which are coming if&when the lame duck session cuts happen.
Well done, fairleft. Very sharp strategies.
Yes, send BOTH your social security FDL posts, in their entirety plus the comments, to Jill Stein, this one and the one before!!
If you have trouble getting these to Stein directly, maybe you can contact the Green Party New York, and ask them to forward to Stein. Green Party New York should have a direct communication channel to her. Just last night, they held a rally in NYC for Jill Stein.
http://www.web.gpnys.com/?page_id=139
Just one contact I have gotten from that NY Green website:
Michael O’Neil, Secretary
secretary@gpny.org
I am sure you could communicate with him by email, and he could get your messages directly to Jill Stein.
Such messages, so simple, will have incredible mileage.
Good on you, chef, for those entrees into her campaign. I asked Kevin Kosztola on a recent thread of his how he got to her for his interview, but he didn’t answer. Jill’s site does, of course, have a ‘Contact for an Interview’ button and email address, plus the the HQ one I mentioned.
And this has something to do with Jill Stein fighting the RepubliCrats’ planned cuts to Social Security how?
Anyway, acting like these either/or choices constructed by the two right-wing parties are the only choices is idiotic and DUH-OIEEEEE, plays directly into the game they’ve constructed. As for my answer: “No. The military cuts are great, the good stuff should not be cut, and the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire.” Happy?
What should happen is: cut the military budget 75% (amazingly, the U.S. will actually become more secure by doing so) and raise taxes massively on the rich, on both their income and their wealth. The recessionary impact of those two actions then must be more than made up for by I suppose at least a trillion dollars a year in stimulus that creates jobs, repairs infrastructure, and greens the economy and urban/suburban geography.
Thanks chef and I’m doing so right now.
I sent the following to O’Neill and cc-ed it to the chair, co-chair and treasurer of the NY Green Party:
Dear Michael O’Neill:
I was provided your e-mail address by ‘chef’ at my.firedoglake.com, after I wrote a couple of ‘campaign strategy’ posts Sunday and Monday about and for Jill Stein. The content of the diaries is indicated clearly by the titles. The Sunday post:
Jill Stein, take Social Security offensive and call for eliminating income cap & raising benefits
Monday’s:
My Jill Stein advice: “Social Security! Social Security! Social Security!”
Particularly the first diary was heavily commented on and generally approved of by the MyFDL participants. I’m probably presuming way too much, and I know everyone’s incredibly busy, but I hope that somehow you can relay these posts/suggestions to the Stein campaign.
Thank you,
fairleft