Let's make Bush's attack on Social Security the Right Wing's Stalingrad.
Some things have coalesced in my mind after reading this
piece by Max J. Castro in
the Progreso Weekly.
Get the meat after the fold.
Here's the central quote from Castro's piece:
"Social security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state," said a prominent right-wing Republican recently. It is a misstatement of the facts that gives away the real intention behind Bush's pseudo reform.
Social security, along with Medicare, is no soft underbelly. It is the last, most heavily fortified, and possibly impenetrable bunker of the welfare state. The reality is that President Bush and Republican right-wingers are targeting social security because of its success rather than its looming failure.
Can you imagine a social program that is: (a) very successful in its mission of providing a dignified retirement to millions of people; (b) fiscally sound; and c) wildly popular?
Fanatics of laissez-faire capitalism can't. For them, this is the equivalent of a speed greater than that of light for a physicist. It is a result that is theoretically precluded, impossible. It contradicts core beliefs and an entire view of the world. Such a thing cannot exist.
And, what if such a thing does exist? It must be destroyed.
This process of "ideological denial leads to destruction" is being applied on many fronts simultaneosly. We have a diary, Federal Scientists Forced to Alter Findings that shows how Bushco is systematically destroying the science behind the environmental movement. This movement is no "soft underbelly," either. The Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, to name just two, are enormously popular, have worked very well, are economically successful, and create jobs. Because they are not a result of the market economy, they have to be destroyed.
Public schools. They would love to get rid of government involvement in the public schools and privatize the whole thing. Public schools have worked entirely too well to provide education and encourage democracy by means of mandated government programs. Such a thing cannot exist.
Medicare and Medicaid are two programs that our entire health care system should be modeled on, as Dean suggested. Bushco would like to get rid of them, or at least weaken them until they look sick.
VA medical benefits. Again, one of the most successful and cost effective medical programs ever devised. So they'll underfund it. If politics doesn't allow them to get rid of it, at the least they can hide how and why it is so financially and medically successful.
Basically, they are attacking the things which are most successful because they are successful, not because they are unsuccessful as Bush lied in his SOTU address. The number of items in this category is staggering.