Monday, May 23, 2005

withdrawal+4 giant bases=?

Michael Howard in Baghdad
Monday May 23, 2005
The Guardian

US military commanders are planning to pull back their troops from Iraq's towns and cities and redeploy them in four giant bases in a strategy they say is a prelude to eventual withdrawal.

link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1490063,00.html

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Change the Media. Become the Media. Reclaim the Media: Come to the Bellingham Grassroots & Independent Media Conference.

On March 24th, veteran TV talkshow host, Phil Donahue, now banished from MSNBC for airing the views of millions of Americans who opposed the Iraq invasion, told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman: “We have an emergency in the media, and we have to fix it.” This sentiment resonates with the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans and citizens around the world who are standing up to challenge the growing power of the giant media corporations. Everyday these corporations shirk more of the public interest, slash more of their news budgets, and fail to deliver information vital to the health of our communities and our democracy.

The movement to challenge these giant corporations is much more than a media reform movement, it is a grassroots media production movement: a movement of independent journalists, radio producers, filmmakers, and online community builders, a movement of storytellers constantly seeking better ways to make and distribute the stories the big corporations can’t or won’t produce for our communities. This is a movement for everyone that likes a good story, that wants to tell one or hear one, whether they’re a veteran media-maker or someone whose only just thought of picking up a camera or imagined seeing their story in print. This is a movement that believes the more we democratize the media by growing the pool of storytellers and distributing their stories, the better off our communities, and our democracy will be.
On Saturday May 21st you’re invited to the Bellingham Grassroots and Independent Media Conference running 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Garden St. Family Center (1231 N. Garden) in Bellingham, WA. The conference website is www.whatcompjc.org/media conf.. This conference is a new project of the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center.
The conference is being held to celebrate the growing local and regional culture of media production, to build awareness of innovative community radio, video, and web-based media projects, and to mobilize support for grassroots powered media reform. We also seek to understand how the independent media movement can more effectively challenge the assumptions perpetuated in the mass media that justify war and social injustice.

Keynote speaker Patrick Reinsborough, of the smartMeme project, will kick off the conference at 9 a.m. speaking on: “Winning the Battle of the Story: Creating a Culture of Change.” Patrick is dynamic a grassroots organizer, campaigner, and media strategist who spent four year as the organizing director of the Rainforest Action Network where he mobilized thousands of people to confront corporations who destroy the environment and violate human rights. The smartMeme project is a collective of organizers, trainers and media activists, who help grassroots groups magnify their impact by linking traditional movement building skills with cutting edge media campaigning.
Keynote Speaker Bert Sacks will speak on “Sanctions, War, Occupation, and other Failures of the Media.” Bert Sacks has traveled to Iraq nine times since 1996 with Voices in the Wilderness and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, and has extensive experience lobbying the media for greater and more accurate coverage of the situation in Iraq and the Middle East.
The conference will feature numerous workshops, skills trainings, and panel discussions by local media makers and media activists from throughout the region. These include a workshop by John Sinno of Arab Film Distribution on the demonizing and stereotyping of Arabs in the media and popular culture, panel discussions on the indymedia movement, community radio, documentary film & video, public access TV, online community media projects, reports from the National Conference on Media Reform, and more.
Please visit the conference website at http://www.whatcompjc.org/mediaconf for a complete schedule or call 360-510-4833 or e-mail norwesty@gmail.com for additional information. We hope to see you there!. Remember: you can change the media, become the media, and reclaim the media.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Will they run the letter or won't they?

So Kelli Linville's wage-slashing bill got stuck in committee and the water bill sailed through the Senate, once they preserved union contracts under privatization deals. Cheers to Sen. Harriet Spanel who was one of three Senators to vote no on the amended bill.

Here's the letter:

The Bellingham Herald should have stuffed Michael Ramirez’s cartoon (March 17)equating gay and lesbian relationships with incest in the trash can where it belongs. Instead they chose to follow their policy of pandering to the far right and ran this disgusting piece of bigotry on their editorial page. The editorial page of the Herald is not a bathroom stall and it should not be treated as one, no matter what obscenities Ramirez and others who make careers out of catering to the baser instincts of our homegrown version of the Taliban wish to scrawl on the walls. If the Herald truly wishes to serve our community it should apologize. Providing editorial cover and ammunition for bigots is shameful and disgusting.

In the Herald’s case I’m asking for an apology and a commitment to a semblance of judgment going forward. In the case of State Sen. Brandland I ask for political courage. Sen. Brandland has the opportunity to stand against bigotry by voting for SB 6019, making discrimination against people based on sexual orientation illegal in Washington.
Or Sen. Brandland can side with the haters.

It’s time for The Herald and Sen. Brandland to demonstrate which side they’re on.

Monday, February 28, 2005

Tip Credit is Tip Theft! Rep. Kelli Linville wants to pass bill to legalize restaurant lobby theft of worker's tips

Rep. Kelli Linville is also sponsoring HB 1795 the Restaurant Workers Wage and Benefit Protection and Enhancement Act (The version in the Senate is SB 5774). The title is totally misleading. At a meeting with local Dems Saturday she basically refused to say why she supported it. If passed this bill will effectively destroy a whole sector of living wage jobs in this state!

What the bills do:

Restaurant owners are pursuing legislation in Olympia that would cut tipped employees minimum wage from $7.35 per hour to a base wage of $3.68 per hour.

Instead of “protecting” or “enhancing” workers wages and benefits this legislation would basically cut all tipped employees minimum wages to $3.68 instead of the current state minimum wage of $7.35. Restaurant Employers would be required to make up the difference only if tips did not. So if a server was receiving the minimum wage whatever a server made between $7.35 and $11.03 every hour would go into the employers pocket. That’s is basically a wage cut of $3.68 per hour, nearly $30 in an 8 hr. day, and nearly $150 a week. That’s taking a living wage job and turning it into a poverty level job.

Plus, how long would an employee who didn't make an average of $3.70 an hour in tips last before their boss fired them?

Another thing about this legislation is that it only applies to new hires. This is a shameless dirty trick to make restaurant employees relax into thinking this won't effect them.

Please call the legislative hotline at 1-800-562-6000 to tell your represatatives: Tip Credit? Forget It!

Water Bill Amended, Public Interest Still Trampled

Having spoken with the Sierra Club’s Olympia lobbyist Friday I understand that some amendments have been made in the Senate version SB 5285 (house version is HB 1357) which would facilitate the privatization of municipal water provision in Washington.
SB 5285 did escape from committee.

Rep. Kelli Linville vowed to kill the house bill in her committee Saturday at a meeting in Bellingham:

According to the Cascade Sierra Club’s website:


”Provisions that would have allowed private ownership of public water systems were removed. Now, the bill provides a process for local governments to contract with private companies to design, build, and operate public water systems. Other improvements include limits on the length of the contracts, and language that ensure water rights don't transfer from the local government to the private company.”


However I feel that the bill is still deeply flawed and should be scrapped altogether. The bill still halves from 60 to 30 days the requirement for public notice. The bill still deletes the existing requirement obligating service providers to demonstrate that a local government’s annual costs will be lower under its proposal than they would be if the local government itself financed, constructed, owned, operated, and maintained facilities. Instead local official will merely determine that privatization of services is in the “public interest.”

There is no reason to cut the time for public process in half. There is no reason not to require service providers to demonstrate the financial benefits of privatization. According to Hugh Jackson of Public Citizen even the Federal government requires the potential service providers demonstrate a 10% savings before services are privatized.

Apparently some local elected officials such as those in Sunnyside, Washington are so ready to privatize their services do not even want to know if privatization is a cheaper alternative. Rep. Linville says the City of Bellingham sent her the bill.

I think our elected officials in Olympia have an obligation to protect Washington residents from being gouged by private water companies and from having their municipalities budget’s raided by these same companies no matter where they live and no matter how irresponsible their local elected officials wish to be.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Why are Sen. Adam Kline and Rep. Kelli Linville backing Big Water?

While in Olympia for environmental lobby day Thursday I found out about Senate Bill 5285 and House Bill 1357. These bills would make it easier to privatize municipal water provision in Washington state. I have since found out that Sen. Adam Kline and Rep. Kelli Linville among other democrats are supporting these bills which are updates of 1986 legislation. I am currently attempting to find out their reasons for supporting these bills.

Among other things these bills delete the existing requirement obligating service providers to demonstrate that a local governments annual costs will be lower under its proposal than they would be if the local government itself financed, constructed, owned, operated, and maintained facilities and instead requires that municipalities merely find privatization in the "public interest."

There is no reason not to require service providers to demonstrate the financial benefits of privatization. Replacing this standard with a finding of "public interest" could never be in the public interest.

Publically operated water systems are managed to deliver, clean, safe, and affordable water. Privately operated systems are managed to get as much money as possible from rate payers.

Water privatization will likely lead to substantially increased rates, and degraded water quality throughout Washington state.

According to Public Citizen, the Veolia corporation, the world's largest water services corporation, which is lobbying for this legislation, has "a global track record of corruption, broken promises, environmental degradation, price gouging, obsfuscation, misdirection and secrecy."

Monday, February 14, 2005

The Lib'rul Media

From today's Excite News:

Bush Requests $81.9 for Iraq, Afghan Wars

Friday, February 11, 2005

An open letter to KPLU

To whom it may concern,

Your radio feature by Kirsten Kendrick on social security aired on February 11th appears to lack basis in fact. In the feature Ms. Kendrick interviews a local financial consultant on the subject of what people will need to know when they get a chance to manage their money under President Bush's plan to divert money from social security into private accounts.

Where is the evidence people will get to manage their own money under the Bush plan? Is Ms. Kendrick's report based solely on the President Bush's remarks in the State of the Union address? President Bush has not released a detailed plan and as of Tuesday, February 8th the White House said they had no plans to: see this story for details
http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=7574181

Given this lack of a plan all reporting about so-called personal accounts is based on supposition. Without acknowledging this fact Ms. Kendrick's story both assumes and helps spread the misinformation that people will have a chance to make their own decisions over what to do with the money from their "personal accounts". There is no evidence that the so-called "personal accounts" will have any resemblance to what is generally considered personal ownership. Ms. Kendrick's feature blithely ignores this fact.

MSNBC's Martin Wolk on February 4th reported
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6914807/) wrote that:
"President Bush frequently argues that one of the big advantages of his proposed personal retirement accounts is that unlike traditional Social Security they would allow participants to leave any accumulated wealth to their “children or grandchildren.”

"But that is not completely true under the proposal that has been advanced by White House officials, which would require many workers to convert some or all of their savings into annuities that would expire at death."

and that: "According to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the still-sketchy proposal this week, many workers who elect to participate in the personal account program would be required at retirement age to purchase an annuity to ensure they have a minimal stream of annual income for the rest of their life."


Mr Wolk minces word by saying that the assumptions promoted the President and repeated by Ms. Kendricks are "not completely true." They are intentionally misleading. To be blunt they are lies promoted by the White House to help sell their plan. There are many ways to approach this story and many ways to distort it. I encourage KPLU and Ms. Kendricks to investigate these issue more thorougly before reporting. Some resources for these investigations could include: www.thereisnocrisis.com, www.talkingpointsmemo.com, the Campaign for America's Future at http://www.ourfuture.org/issues_and_campaigns/socialsecurity/index.cfm

Both our state's Senators and many Representatives oppose Bush's plan inasmuch as it is known. They would also make a good resource.

Thanks very much,

Nate Johnson

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, Bush wants to save social security


Please repeat after me: war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, Bush wants to save social security.

“Bush: Save Social Security” was the post State of the Union headline in the Feb 4th Bellingham Herald. This headline no doubt produced a state of confusion in many who read it. In what sense does President Bush want to ‘save social security’? Perhaps only in the sense of that officer in Vietnam who said: “We had to destroy the village in order save it.”

So why is the major media working so hard for Mr. Bush? It’s a good question, and maybe the question. Democrats have been doing a good job of holding their elected officials accountable, but it’s time to start working on the press. The battle to save social security has in many ways already been won in Washington, D.C. but if we do nothing it may be lost in newsrooms around the country. Here’s another key question: When the President tells a lie is it the duty of the press to repeat the lie verbatim? Or is it the duty of the press to call the President out for lying? When we fail to answer this question correctly we go to war on false pretenses, gut key social programs, and bankrupt the nation.

In 1946 George Orwell published his famous essay “Politics and the English Language” in which he wrote: “A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” The times being what they are we cannot afford foolish thoughts or a slovenly media which fails to hold the powerful accountable to the truth.

Diverting money from the social security trust fund into private accounts will not save and strengthen social security, it will only weaken and defund it. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research nearly 2/3rds of elderly households get more than half their income from social security and nearly half of the elderly would fall below the poverty line without it. Additionally, more than 6 million workers receive disability benefits through the Social Security trust fund, as do 1.6 million children. These people have been effectively disappeared from the national debate. As Senator Patty Murray states: “While some are trying to enrich Wall Street or push an ideology or force market experiments on senior citizens, our priority in this discussion should be ensuring that we're doing right by those who rely on Social Security – from current workers to retirees, the disabled and widows.” To help save Social Security please visit www.thereisnocrisis.com

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Senator Murray Vows to Fight to Preserve Social Security

Senator Murray Vows to Fight to Preserve Social Security

For Immediate Release: Thursday, February 3, 2005
http://murray.senate.gov/news.cfm?id=231476

From the desk Senator Patty Murray:

A few short years after the 1932 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression, one of our nation's greatest leaders – Franklin Delano Roosevelt – set out to create a program to provide peace of mind and a sense of security to America's retirees. During his crusade to create the program, FDR said, "There is no tragedy in growing old, but there is tragedy in growing old without means of support."

The program he created is to this day the single greatest social insurance program in our nation's history. Social Security, as it would be called, has been a resounding success by keeping millions of people out of poverty.

Just months before the new program was enacted, FDR laid out his vision of how this most important program should be implemented.

He said: "We can never insure one-hundred percent of the population against one-hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life. But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age. This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built, but is by no means complete.... It is...a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness." Those were the words of FDR in August, 1935

But today, this cornerstone, this basic American value, is now under attack.

President Bush is currently traveling the country saying Social Security is in crisis and that it needs to be radically restructured. But I rise today to reaffirm the values and spirit FDR laid out 70 years ago.

Social Security has pulled seniors from poverty and put millions of retiring minds at ease. America's insurance program is a guaranteed benefit that all Americans can count on.

It's a promise that if you work hard, you'll have some security when you retire or if you become disabled. It's a promise that seniors won't have to live in poverty. And it's a promise that if your spouse passes on, you will continue to have the support and security you need.

And of course the program is about more than security -- it's about community. In America, we believe that it's important to take care of the generation that came before. It's important to guarantee them a quality of life. And it's important that we guarantee benefits after a lifetime of hard work.

But I'm very concerned that President Bush's "restructuring" will imperil the security of all Americans – from young workers retiring in decades to seniors retiring today. The problem with his plan is that:

* It's the end of guaranteed benefits.
* It does nothing to fix the long-term issues the system faces.
* It adds trillions of dollars to our national debt.
* It's dangerous.

We cannot, and will not, let President Bush tear apart Social Security.

While some are trying to enrich Wall Street or push an ideology or force market experiments on senior citizens, our priority in this discussion should be ensuring that we're doing right by those who rely on Social Security – from current workers to retirees, the disabled and widows.

Current and future retirees need someone to stand up for them, and if I see something that's going to hurt our workers, our families, and our seniors, I'm going to fight it with everything I've got.

Any discussion about Social Security must meet certain criteria if it means to be productive. You could call it a test – and any proposal we discuss must pass this test if it wants to move from this body.

We must:

* Preserve Social Security's guaranteed benefit
* Preserve Social Security's protections for workers when they are disabled
* Protect against benefit reductions for women, minorities and all others
* Protect our budget from ever growing deficits

Anything short of this would be an unnecessary, dangerous gamble unworthy of this important insurance program.

While we’re just beginning this discussion, my female colleagues and I have worked for years to ensure some basic principles are followed as we move forward. The promise of Social Security is especially important to women because women face unique challenges in retirement. We know that women make less money than men, women leave the workforce to raise families, women live longer, and women are more likely to suffer from a chronic health condition.

Even with those special challenges, Social Security keeps millions of older women out of poverty. Its benefit formulas are tilted to give a greater rate of return for lower wage workers like women and minorities. If the President privatizes Social Security, he would destroy the guaranteed benefit that low-wage earners need in their retirement years.

We also know that Social Security isn't just a retirement program. As I've said, it protects disabled workers and their families. If Social Security is privatized, what happens to a worker who is disabled and can't contribute to her account? Today, under Social Security, that worker is protected. But there's no guarantee under the Bush plan.

President Bush could undo the progressive structure that older women depend on. This is one reform that would have disastrous results, and I know we will not stand for it.

Under this Administration, many things we take for granted from overtime pay to community police to safe drinking water have been threatened. Now President Bush wants to dismantle Social Security. I am here today to say that some things are just too important to American families. Providing real security to all Americans is a basic value worth protecting. We will make sure that President Bush doesn't gamble that security and break the promise Social Security keeps for millions of women and their families.


Senator Murray takes the plunge

U.S. SEN. PATTY MURRAY D-Wash. in today's Bellingham Herald

"IN THE FACE OF skyrocketing health-care costs, ongoing military operations abroad and the challenge of continuing to move our economy forward, the president's top legislative priority is to break the promise that has provided security to millions of Americans for decades. The president's plan to privatize Social Security would actually take away guaranteed benefits and put the promise of a secure retirement in jeopardy."


See Senator, that wasn't so hard.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

What's So Personal About Personal Accounts?

There's a lot of talk in the media and the blogosphere over the Social Security language squabbles. Last week privatization was getting swept under the rug. This week it's private vs. personal vs. individual accounts.

But what's so personal about personal accounts?

The argument over what to call them dances neatly right over this point. If all the people who believe the Bush people when they say "It's your money" get clued into the fact that it's not really going to be "their money" and they won't get to opt out and get "their money" under this plan, they'll hardly be anyone left on the administration's side to hold up their banner for them.

According to The Center for Economic and Policy Research's Social Security Review from January 18

"...the White House is not considering allowing individuals the kind of control over these accounts that readers would normally associate with personal ownership. Instead, Plan 2 from the President’s Social Security Commission, upon which the White House is shaping its proposal, would only offer workers a very limited choice of index funds, into which the government would place their money. Also, the President’s plan would not allow workers to draw down money from their accounts prior to retirement."
http://www.cepr.net/ssrr/2005_01_18.htm

If this comment accurately reflects the Bush plan, the issue isn't whether the accounts are "private or personal", it's that they're neither. Could we start talking about this?

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Hidden in Plain Sight: Why is the Media Ignoring 8 Million Disabled Workers and their Families?

Here's a must read from Counterpunch:

8 Million Disabled Workers
Social Security Privatization and Disability

by Marta Russell

The Social Security privatization debate has omitted the fate in store for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) as a part of the program's family of benefits. Social Security not only provides Old-Age protection, it consists of often overlooked Survivors and Disability Insurance protections as well
...
Here's the Link


Take That Senator Murray!

From The Tacoma News Tribune Letters to the Editor:


State’s legislators must speak out against Bush plan


Both Washington’s senators and many of our state’s representatives are telling their constituents they oppose the president’s plan to divert money from Social Security into private accounts…It’s time for them to go public, stand up and be counted
N. Johnson


From Talking Points Memo:

Has a cat got Sen. Patty Murray's tongue? One of her constituents seems to think so.
-- Josh Marshall


From the Cursor Media Patrol:

A Tacoma News Tribune letter writer took his representatives to task for doing "exactly what Karl Rove wants them to do" by "studiously ignoring" the issue of privatization, adding that "at least Armstrong Williams is getting paid to follow the Bush administration's script."


Not bad for one letter to the editor.

N.

The 18 Percenters

The Seattle Post-Intelligence reports:

"Only 18 percent of those polled believed Social Security was facing a crisis."

'18 percenter', sort of like 'dead-ender'


N.

Monday, January 17, 2005

Social Sec' Resources

Here's a good Social Security resource page someone posted at DKos:

Here are the local numbers to call and a suggestion of what to say:

BothWashington State’s Senators and many of our state’s Representatives are telling their constituents they oppose the President’s plan to divert money from the Social Security trust fund into private accounts. With the one exception of Rep. Adam Smith, our congressional delegation has so far refused to make their opposition public. If you want to save Social Security as we know it, contact our Senators and Representatives and tell them it’s not enough to just tell their constituents they oppose the President’s plan for private accounts. Tell them it’s time to stand up and be counted.

Rep. Rick Larsen (202) 225-2605 (D.C.)
E-mail: Rick.Larsen@mail.house.gov

Sen. Maria Cantwell (202) 224-3441 (D.C.)
E-mail: Maria_Cantwell@ cantwell.senate.gov

Sen. Patty Murray (202) 224-2621 (D.C.)



I would also suggest people call Air America Radio (AM 1090 in Seattle) to tell people to contact Congress and get them to actually do something. I got through to the Laura Flanders show in about ten minutes Sunday night.



A Disservice, Even A Dishonesty to Constituents

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, posted this after I e-mailed him. (Here's the link-you have to scroll down a bit):

We're hearing from many readers across the country who are calling or writing to their representatives and senators only to hear that they can't make any public comment because the president hasn't released his plan yet.

"The staffer I talked to this afternoon in Senator [blank]'s office," says one reader, "told me that they had been waiting to go public because they didn't have a concrete proposal to respond to."

Please.

This sort of mumbojumbo might have some logic from a Republican up for reelection next year who's trying to be as cautious as possible. But why would any Democrat -- like the recently-reelected senator from the Northwest whose office the reader contacted -- be saying something so foolish? The White House has its own reasons for pretending they haven't decided on a specific plan yet. But why do the president's opponents have to pretend that that's really true?

Everybody in the country who's paying any attention to this debate knows the essence of the president's plan -- he wants to replace a portion of Social Security with private investment accounts. How he fudges the numbers on the cost side or deals with benefit cuts remains a bit muddled. But the fundamental point is as clear as day.

So why should any senator or representative be waiting one minute to make their position clear, unless he or she is seriously entertaining the idea of voting for the president's plan?

How many details of an upper-income-earner tax hike do most Republicans need to see before they're willing to say they oppose it?

Yeah, that's my sense too.

To be cagey like this is not only a disservice, even a dishonesty, to constituents, it's also the height of foolishness for any lawmaker who really cares about preserving Social Security and not letting the president end the program.

-- Josh Marshall

Here's the e-mail I sent him:


Hi,

Thanks for your great coverage of Social Security, to me (someone who cares alot about what's been going on in Iraq) this is a way, way bigger deal. In particular thanks for highlighting Adam Smith's views, he can be a real pain on a lot of issues and our congressman, Rick Larsen, in the 2nd district tends to follow him around by the nose. (Larsen's opposed-all his staffer's been told to say-as of this afternoon).
I think now that things are starting to fall out we really need to push people to get their Senators and Representatives who are with us on this one to go public. Because if they don't there's nothing to counter the rights big media buys. The staffer I talked to this afternoon in Senator Murray's office told me that they had been waiting to go public because they didn't have a concrete proposal to respond to! WTF! Is Karl Rove supplying their office with all the Kool-Aid they can drink? Murray should be hitting this hard, she just got re-elected by a wide margin, she could be providing Sen. Cantwell with some cover on this.
Maria Cantwell, also still opposed to private accounts, may be excused a bit by the fact that she is up for reelection soon, but she still is working to make the Enron scandal one of her signature issues. If your going to shoulder the banner of economic populism this is hardly the time or place to leave the field.
I've attached an article/press releases from our local paper about congressional prioriaties that doesn't mention SS once.

Thanks,

Nate Johnson



Sunday, January 16, 2005

Social Security: the Mother of All Battles

I'm not kidding this is the big one. The election was one thing, if Democrats lose out to Bush on private accounts its time to pack up the tents.
Here's the letter I sent about half a dozen of the big paper's in this state on Social Security.

Dear Editor,

Both Washington State’s Senators and many of our state’s Representatives are telling their constituents they oppose the President’s plan to divert money from the Social Security trust fund into private accounts. But with the notable exception of Rep. Adam Smith who has told the New Republic he categorically opposes private accounts, the rest of our congressional delegation is studiously ignoring the issue in public.

I called Sen. Murray’s office Friday and was told that while they oppose private accounts they’ve been waiting to see the substance of the President’s proposal. Their waiting for what?! That’s exactly what Karl Rove wants them to do. At least Armstrong Williams is getting paid to follow the Bush administration’s script.

Instead of sitting on their hands our Senators and Representatives need to be doing everything in their power to protect Social Security from the imminent Republican attempt to privatize and ultimately destroy the most successful anti-poverty program in our nation’s history. It’s not as if this planned assault doesn’t affect anyone. More than 890,000 Washington state residents are current Social Security beneficiaries. Senator Murray, in particular, who easily won re-election, has no excuse for remaining silent. If you want to save Social Security as we know it, please contact our Senators and Representatives and tell them it’s not enough to just tell their constituents they oppose the President’s plan for private accounts. Tell them, it’s time to go public, to stand up and be counted.

N.


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