a dark day for freedom

[fflo]

Why don't we use the powerful language of liberty in service of progressivism? Moreover, why don't those blasted Democrats? Is it because they are still afraid of the association with communism of the connotations of "power to the people" behind the real meaning of those words?

I am home while the second water meter dude freezes the incoming line as part of his attempt to get my water back on; the first water meter dude assured me no current meter readers would be losing their jobs, but that job just won't be there any more. No more flirting with the meter reader; alas.

Unfortunately, being home has allowed me to tune in to coverage of the inauguration. Early on Peter Jennings cited a picture of Bush with a NYC firefighter as having been from 9/11. Is it the official ABC position to make that mistake? Are we going to forget, in the mass media, where he was and wasn't that day?

As I live longer in this country I really do appreciate its (supposed) ideals more and more, but I am in fear for their future degree of realization, and I am horrified to realize that, by sheer virtue of our power, we are the greatest threat to ---hey, some heckler just was heard in the middle of this song! I'm sure the poor sucker is face down on the ground already, being handcuffed. Wish I coulda heard what he was saying.

We're the greatest threat to much of the rest of the world, yes. But I also fear, even while I hope for it, the fall of the empire. Will it be led by a loss of economic power? Won't it matter, when global corporate forces are increasingly running everything anyway?

I just heard someone yell "off the platform, everybody!" just before Dubya started the oath. Wonder if that earlier booming voice during the song was not of protest but of "security."

He is worse than Reagan. Things are much worse than the Reagan years, though they got this ball rolling.

Please get your work done soon, water meter dude, so I can get back to the office and away from this nightmare.

Comments

l

[squirrelykat.livejournal.com]

I can't watch The Shrub either - I just listen......
about Social Security - and The Shrub wanting to revamp it - don't they pay attention to history? doesn't he remember when it was NOT manditory and people wouldn't pay in? I can't see privatizing it working for everybody. My dad works at H&R Block and people are ALWAYS taking money out of their IRA's and taking the penalties. won't work.....

Re: l

[groovesinorbit]

Bush and his cronies don't give a damn. They just want to get rid of it. More money in their offshore bank accounts. The last of New Deal dismantled. Fuck poor people!

Re: l

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Well, it WILL work if your goal is to take more from the public coffers & steer it to private industry, the stock market, profit for business, etc. I think it's pretty safe to say that the "security" part of the plan is not what this administration is out to protect.

But yeah, it's crazy how short our collective memories are. My parents' generation remembered the depression first-hand, and there are some who still recall, if only through study, the struggle to bring a better standard of living, and an 8-hour work day, and other fundamentals of labor like that, to the masses.

I heard an interesting take on how the privatized options would likely, almost necessarily, tend toward a limited choice of investment options, since they'll have to be managed by the govt. And people not being able to afford the fees associated with more active/individual investment will probably be economically coerced into choices of certain mutual funds, whose components would almost surely be politically influenced.

Ach, back to work...